Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the facilitating factors that lead towards innovation through the management of corporate incubation process. Design/methodology/approach: This research was conducted through utilising the multiple case study research design. The interviews were semi structured (Skype and in person) with multinational companies having corporate incubators. Number of interviews conducted were 13 in 6 companies out of 12 companies contacted. Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework firstly encompasses corporate incubation process literature that relates it to innovation, followed by the description of the business incubation process and corporate incubation process and comparison between both. Lastly, the facilitating factors that are identified from theory related to general business incubation process by (Patton et al. 2009) are identified for investigation on corporate incubation process. Afterwards the proposed drivers related to each facilitating factor and literature associated with themare elaborated in order to thoroughly explain the identified facilitating factors’ impact on corporate incubation process. Findings: From the findings, innovation can be considered as the outcome of corporate incubation process. The results showed that the factors: a quality ‘pipeline’, picking the winners, developing commercialisation skills in new tenant/client companies’ team, monitoring and evaluating progress, creating synergies within the internal support network, building and maintaining an effective external support network, access to appropriate funding streams and managed exit are the facilitating factors for the management of corporate incubation process. The drivers proposed in the existing study are proven to be useful in order to explain the impact of these facilitating factors on corporate incubation process. Furthermore, it is found that out of these eight facilitating factors, having a quality pipeline is the most important factor that should be developed and improved, in order to make the corporate incubation process more efficient. Managerial implications: For managers of multinational firms, it is recommended that they should utilise the corporate incubation process in order to contribute towards organisational innovation. However, the purpose of bringing innovation should be aligned with the long term objectives of the firm. Furthermore, they should concentrate on developing a quality pipeline of ideas in the initial phase of the process, since it will reduce the chances of failure of projects at a later stage of the corporate incubation process. Limitations: Small sample size without adequately diverse geographical spread. Since,the study is conducted on the basis of interviews of 6 multinational firms having corporate incubators, and out of which majority were from Northern European countries. Originality/value: This paper is one of the first to analyse the facilitating factors leading towards innovation exclusively for corporate incubation process by interviewing those multinational firms which are currently following the process.

Due to constant disruption, companies need to embed innovation into their everyday activities in order to cope with competition and be successful. Corporate Entrepreneurship is playing an important role in fostering innovation and is needed to avoid disruption. However, companies have also different motives when handling CE as well as various ways of implementing it in the organization. This study investigated the motives of CE among large companies and the various implementation efforts. Therefore, the research question is: Which are the motives for CE? and the sub-question is: How does that lead to variation in CE implementation? The focus of the study was large companies which headquarter in Nordic countries and belong in different industries. Therefore, nine semi-structured interviews were performed and after, the data from the interviews were analyzed with thematic analysis. The results showed that the companies have different reasonings about their CE efforts and the CE implementation varied depending on the companies’ motives. However, these factors may not affect directly the organizational maturity. Therefore, companies can have their motives and support their CE efforts in different ways without influence negatively the maturity of the organization.