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This review examines 43 recent papers about factors behind success and failure of innovative projects. Nine out of the 43 papers report a larger number of possible causes for success or failure and provide some rank ordering. Analyzing these rankings we find that the nine studies have a significant degree of similarity among the ten highest-ranking success factors; however, there is little similarity among lower ranking factors. The various studies remain either inconsistent or inconclusive with respect to factors such as strength of competition, R&D intensity, the degree to which a project is "innovative" or "technologically advanced" and top management support. Agreement exists, however, about the positive impact on innovative success of factors such as firm culture, experience with innovation, the multidisciplinary character of the R&D team and explicit recognition of the collective character of the innovation process or the advantages of the matrix organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New product sales are hard to predict. Our analysis of sales performance two years after market launch reveals that three groups of factors do not increase the accuracy of predicting new product sales: (1) A firm's general experience and experience with innovation; (2) High technological competences and strong knowledge networks; (3) Customer involvement in new product development. R&D managers should realise that experience with innovation as well as high technological competences, while possibly helpful during the development stage, do not necessarily enhance an accurate prediction of new product sales. Moreover, other than intuitively expected, networking can be ambiguous: It reduces uncertainty about future sales performance by providing information; but it may also enhance knowledge leaking to competitors, thus increasing probabilities of unexpected failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]