Accelerating innovation and creating new businesses have become a top priority for today’s firms. Various corporate venturing (CV) modes have helped them achieve this goal. Yet, scholars and practitioners have noted the dynamic nature of CV initiatives that compete with other strategic initiatives for organizational resources and top management support. The fear that CV units face drastic cuts in times of crisis seems reasonable. To shed light on the resource dynamics and the CV units’ responsive actions, we conducted an abductive study with 16 CV units to analyze the CV units' response to the COVID-19 crisis that transformed the world in the spring of 2020. Our findings show that an external crisis can unsettle a CV unit’s internal legitimacy. In the adaption processes observed, we identify four different legitimacy-seeking mechanisms–adjusting, sensing, focusing, and mobilizing–used by the CV units to secure resources, support, and goodwill from relevant internal stakeholders. The mechanisms uncovered differ from previously studied strategies as they emphasize the dynamic nature of legitimation efforts. The mechanisms used are affected by the perceived organizational distress caused by the crisis and the CV unit’s pre-crisis legitimacy. Drawing on the critical role played by legitimacy in resource allocation decisions, this study allows us to better understand theoretically and practically how CV is embedded in organizational settings and how CV units can preserve internal (financial) resources.

加速创新和创建新业务已成为当今企业的首要任务。各种企业风险投资（CV）模式帮助他们实现了这一目标。然而，学者和从业者已经注意到CV计划的动态性质，它与其他战略计划争夺组织资源和高层管理人员的支持。人们担心商用车单位在危机时期面临大幅削减似乎是合理的。为了阐明资源动态和 CV 单位的响应行动，我们对 16 个 CV 单位进行了一项溯因研究，以分析 CV 单位对 2020 年春季改变世界的 COVID-19 危机的反应。我们的研究结果显示外部危机可能会动摇CV单位的内部合法性。在观察到的适应过程中，我们确定了CV部门用来从相关内部利益相关者那里获取资源、支持和善意的四种不同的合法性寻求机制——调整、感知、聚焦和动员。所发现的机制与之前研究的策略不同，因为它们强调合法化努力的动态性质。所使用的机制受到危机造成的组织困境以及CV部门危机前合法性的影响。利用合法性在资源分配决策中发挥的关键作用，这项研究使我们能够从理论上和实践上更好地理解简历如何嵌入组织环境以及简历单位如何保留内部（财务）资源。