R&D project termination decisions by discriminant analysis-an international comparison

Substantial efforts have been made to improve R&D project termination decisions. One major stream of research has demonstrated that discriminant functions can distinguish between successful and unsuccessful projects. It is of considerable importance to test the validity of discriminant functions. In the present study the authors show the applicability of a discriminant function that was originally developed by Balachandra for US R&D projects to data from British and German R&D projects. The results are mixed. It is encouraging that a very high percentage of projects can be correctly classified as successes or failures. But the discriminant functions vary between countries. Thus, the results reveal different management perceptions of project success factors in these countries