We investigate why CEOs of multibusiness corporations decide to engage in a corporate split that spawns multiple independent, smaller, but more adaptive, entities. Through an in-depth examination of the dynamic forces that led CEO Meg Whitman to split HP, we propose that the company’s evolving business ecosystem led to the divergence of the consumer-oriented and enterprise-oriented business models in the corporate portfolio. We document the interplay between inter–business model complementarity and intra–business model complexity and how this vicious cycle, in combination with increasing capital market pressure, led to the CEO decision to split and her public justification for this momentous move. Our combined longitudinal interpretative and realist process-tracing approach generates one of the first conceptual frameworks to integrate insights from the ecosystem and corporate divestiture literatures.

我们调查了为什么多业务公司的 CEO 决定进行公司拆分，从而产生多个独立的、规模较小但适应性更强的实体。通过深入研究导致首席执行官梅格惠特曼拆分惠普的动力，我们认为公司不断发展的业务生态系统导致了企业投资组合中面向消费者和面向企业的商业模式的分歧。我们记录了商业模式间互补性和商业模式内复杂性之间的相互作用，以及这种恶性循环如何与不断增加的资本市场压力相结合，导致 CEO 决定拆分，以及她对这一重大举措的公开理由。