Technology entrepreneurship is key to economic development. New technology ventures (NTVs) can have positive effects on employment and could rejuvenate industries with disruptive technologies. However, NTVs have a limited survival rate. In our most recent empirical study of 11,259 NTVs established between 1991 and 2000 in the United States, we found that after four years only 36 percent, or 4,062, of companies with more than five full-time employees, had survived. After five years, the survival rate fell to 21.9 percent, leaving only 2,471 firms still in operation with more than five full-time employees. Thus, it is important to examine how new technology ventures can better survive. In the academic literature, a number of studies focus on success factors for NTVs. Unfortunately, empirical results are often controversial and fragmented. To get a more integrated picture of what factors lead to the success or failure of new technology ventures, we conducted a meta-analysis to examine the success factors in NTVs. We culled the academic literature to collect data from existing empirical studies. Using Pearson correlations as effect size statistics, we conducted a meta-analysis to analyze the findings of 31 studies and identified the 24 most widely researched success factors for NTVs. After correcting for artifacts and sample size effects, we found that among the 24 possible success factors identified in the literature, 8 are homogeneous significant success factors for NTVs (i.e., they are homogeneous positive significant metafactors that are correlated to venture performance): (1) supply chain integration; (2) market scope; (3) firm age; (4) size of founding team; (5) financial resources; (6) founders' marketing experience; (7) founders' industry experience; and (8) existence of patent protection. Of the original 24 success factors, 5 were not significant: (1) founders' research and development (R&D) experience; (2) founders' experience with startups; (3) environmental dynamism; (4) environmental heterogeneity; and (5) competition intensity. The remaining 11 success factors are heterogeneous. For those heterogeneous success factors, we conducted a moderator analysis. Of this set, three appeared to be success factors, and two were failure factors for subgroups within the NTVs' population. To facilitate the development of a body of knowledge in technology entrepreneurship, this study also identifies high-quality measurement scales for future research. The article concludes with future research directions.

No risk, no reward. Companies must take risks to launch new products speedily and successfully. The ability to diagnose and manage risks is increasingly considered of vital importance in high-risk innovation. This article presents the Risk Diagnosing Methodology (RDM), which aims to identify and evaluate technological, organizational and business risks in product innovation. RDM was initiated, developed and tested within a division of Philips Electronics, a multinational company in the audio, video and lighting industry. On the basis of the results the senior Vice President (R&D) of Philips Lighting decided to include the method in the company's standard innovation procedures. Since then, RDM has been applied on product innovation projects in areas as diverse as automobile tires, ship propellers, printing equipment, landing gear systems and fast-moving consumer goods such as shampoo, margarine and detergents.In this article we will describe how Unilever, one of the world's leading companies in fast-moving consumer goods, adopted RDM after a major project failure in the midnineties. At Unilever, RDM proved very useful in diagnosing project risks, promoting creative solutions for diagnosed risks and strengthening team ownership of the project as a whole. Our results also show that RDM outcomes can be used to build a knowledge base of potential risks in product innovation projects.

This paper describes the development and applicability of a risk reference framework (RRF) for diagnosing risks in technological breakthrough projects. In contrast to existing risk identification strategies, the RRF centers on an integral perspective on risk (i.e. business, technological and organizational) and the assessment of risks in ongoing projects. The resulting RRF consists of 12 main risk categories and 142 connected critical innovation issues and has been developed for a globally operating company in the fast-moving consumer goods industry. Our analyses show that to some extent different project members identified the same risks and that saturation occurred in the number of new risk-issues brought to light. We conclude that the success of breakthrough innovation projects improves through formal riskassessment.R&D Management 35, 3,

As an answer to the challenge for managing the complexity of offering greater product variety, firms in many industries are considering platform-based development of product families. Key in this approach is the sharing of components, modules and other assets across a family of products. Current research indicates that companies are often choosing physical elements of the product architecture (i.e. components, modules, building blocks) for building platform-based product families. Other sources for platform potential are widely neglected. We argue that for complex products and systems with hierarchic product architectures and considerable freedom in design, a new platform type, the system layout, offers important commonality potential. This layout platform standardizes the arrangement of subsystems within a product family.This paper is based on three industry case studies, where a common layout could be defined for a product family based on a modular product architecture. In combination with segment specific variety restrictions, this supports the effective, efficient and flexible positioning of a company's products. The employment of layout platforms can lead to substantial complexity reduction and thus serve as a basis for competitive advantage, as it imposes a dominant design on a product family, improves its configurability, and supports effective market segmentation.

A new method of diagnosing risks in product-innovation projects is introduced in the paper. The method is an improvement on existing risk methods used on product-innovation projects, such as potential problem analysis and failure mode and effects analysis. Technological, organizational and commercial risks are identified and assessed on an individual basis. These risks are mapped in a risk topography which is used as an input for the drawing up of a riskmanagement plan. The method has been developed on the basis of case-study investigations, and applied in various product-innovation projects in the Netherlands and in-Germany.