Journal of Business Research 152 (2022) 461–472 Available online 13 August 2022 0148-2963/© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc. Achieving a strategic ft in fntech collaboration – A case study of Nordea Bank Mikko Riikkinen a, * , Matti Pihlajamaa b a Tampere University, Tampereen Yliopisto, School of Management, Tampere, Finland b VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Jyv¨ askyl¨ a, Finland A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Startup Fintech Open innovation Banking Accelerator Incubator ABSTRACT Driven by digitalization, the emergence of startups, and regulatory changes, the banking industry is undergoing a “fntech revolution” where the competitive advantages of incumbents are disrupted. In response, banks collab- orate with startups by organizing accelerators and incubators to promote corporate innovation. A critical challenge is achieving a strategic ft with startups. In this research, a longitudinal case study of Nordea, the largest retail bank in the Nordics, was conducted. Three startup programs between 2015 and 2018 during a major fntech boom were investigated, and how the programs implement corporate sponsorship and enable corporate innovation was analyzed. We found that achieving a strategic ft was an iterative process fueled by the accumulation of technological and market knowledge from the startups, where Nordea adjusted its mode of startup collaboration according to the phase of the disruption to meet its evolving learning goals. 1. Introduction Many incumbent companies collaborate with startups to explore new knowledge and ideas and enhance their innovation performance (Kohler et al., 2009; Narayanan et al., 2009; Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015). Startup collaboration enables incumbents to overcome internal barriers and explore novel markets and technologies (Bruneel et al., 2013; Keil et al., 2008), which is particularly benefcial in times of disruption, where companies compete with radically new products and services (Anderson & Tushman, 1990; Cozzolino et al., 2018). Establishing accelerator and incubator programs for startups has emerged as a key means for startup collaboration (Kohler et al., 2009; Moschner et al., 2019; Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015). They are based on corporate sponsorship; by providing startups with knowledge and re- sources, incumbents may improve their chances of survival and growth (Breivik-Meyer et al., 2020; Flynn, 1993). For incumbents to acquire innovation benefts from accelerator and incubator programs, achieving a strategic ft between startups and the incumbent becomes critical (Narayanan et al., 2009; Shankar & Shepherd, 2019). A good strategic ft allows the incumbent to learn from relevant technologies and markets to realize its strategic innovation goals (Keil et al., 2008; Sapienza et al., 2004). The current understanding of achieving innovation benefts from accelerators and incubators has some limitations. The relative advan- tages of different collaboration modes with startups have generally received limited attention (Selig et al., 2018). Many incumbents set up accelerators, but it is argued that they rush headlong into startup collaboration without informed decision-making (Hogenhuis et al., 2016). Furthermore, the question of whether specifc organizational or industrial contexts are more suited for certain types of startup collabo- ration has been poorly addressed (Shankar & Shepherd, 2019). Based on previous research (Narayanan et al., 2009; Shankar & Shepherd, 2019), we argue that a critical question is how to organize collaboration to achieve a strategic ft between startups and the incumbent. In this paper, we report a case study of Nordea Bank, the largest retail bank in the Nordics, which has organized three accelerator and incu- bator programs over four years. The fnancial industry has traditionally been considered conservative and risk-averse (Capgemini & Efma, 2019; Vermeulen, 2004) mainly because of legal and compliance constraints (Schueffel & Vadana, 2015). In the past years, it has gone through tur- bulence from digitalization to fnancial crisis and later to an invasion of new market entrants called “fntech” (fnancial technology) startups. The practical motivation for the study is that, while fntech startups have an increasingly important role in responding to disruptive changes in the banking industry, there is little understanding of how incumbent banks gain strategic benefts from working with them. Theoretically, we are * Corresponding author. E-mail address: mikko.riikkinen@tuni.f (M. Riikkinen). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Business Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.05.049 Received 30 October 2020; Received in revised form 16 May 2022; Accepted 18 May 2022