Academic literature used to lack a taxonomy regarding the types of repeatable structures and approaches that incumbent companies can use in order to deal with frequently business model threatening open innovation developments – threats that are often facilitated by start-up companies. The course of investigation provides a clustering taxonomy for these structures, so-called: corporate open innovation initiatives. Subsequently, the validity is tested by an in-depth analysis of Germany's 500 biggest companies along with 50 biggest banks and 30 biggest insurances. Furthermore, multiple case studies with industry experts show applicable management's best practices. Finally, a management framework is developed, which aims to be a summarizing tool for practitioners and researchers in order to define a suitable corporate strategy for creating an own corporate open innovation initiative.
