We examine how market overlap with parent organizations impacts the performance of startups founded by the former employees of these incumbent firms. Building on knowledge inheritance and competitive dynamics theories, we propose that the degree to which the operating markets of spinouts overlap with their parent organizations has a curvilinear relationship with their likelihood of survival. Market overlap is beneficial to spinouts because it reduces uncertainty during the early stages of new venture development. However, substantial market overlap may spark hostile actions by the parent organizations, thereby creating disruptive competition that may lower the likelihood of spinouts' survival. Furthermore, we hypothesize that the previous hierarchical position of founders in parent organizations moderates the overlap–performance relationship. Using a sample of European biotech spinouts and their parent firms, we find support for our hypotheses.

我们研究了与母公司的市场重叠如何影响由这些现任公司的前雇员创立的初创公司的业绩。基于知识继承和竞争动态理论，我们提出分拆的运营市场与其母组织重叠的程度与其生存可能性呈曲线关系。市场重叠有利于分拆，因为它减少了新企业发展早期阶段的不确定性。然而，大量的市场重叠可能会引发母公司的敌对行动，从而产生破坏性竞争，从而降低衍生公司生存的可能性。此外，我们假设创始人先前在母公司中的等级地位缓和了重叠-绩效关系。