Environmental Uncertainty, Discontinuous Innovation and New Venture Performance: An Exploratory Meta-study and Review

This paper aims to analyze the designs, methodologies and results of previous empirical research on discontinuous innovation of new ventures or new products quantitatively in condition of uncertainty. Three potential determinants of environment, strategies and capabilities to new venture performance or new product performance are identified through a meta-study of the aggregate data. Results suggest that such internal environmental uncertainty as organizational and resources uncertainty should be included in the discontinuous innovation oriented strategy of entrepreneurial firms and the numbers of related empirical studies be increased and measurement of performance also be added in more objective variables to improve the accuracy of research. Several implications and suggestions for future research are put forward based on the analytical results of 35 selected empirical studies.