Venture management—success or failure?

The considerable amount of published literature on venture management is reviewed in an attempt to see how successful this technique is in promoting new products. It was found that earlier articles were optimistic but later articles were more realistic with several describing failed projects.

An attempt is made to relate this with the published literature on the failure of traditional Research and Development but little published evidence is available. The role of New Towns in innovation is briefly mentioned. Finally the reasons for failure are identified and guidelines are established as a means of making venture groups more successful.