Corporate Entrepreneurial Project Failure

Abstract

Abstract The success of corporate entrepreneurial project depends on the commitment of management, the project leader, and the rest of the project team to the innovation effort. Commitment toward innovation typically stems from intrinsic motivation and while innovations often begin with creative ideas, individuals are typically most creative when they are passionate about what they are doing. Yet, despite considerable commitment by organizational members and given the increase in corporate innovative activity, entrepreneurial projects that are created to pursue new and unique opportunities can still fail – or “die” – due to the uncertain environment within which they develop. Regardless of the reasons behind a project's failure, those committed to the project will likely feel they have lost something important when the project fails. Although failure can be an important source of information for learning, this learning is not automatic or instantaneous. The emotions generated by failure (e.g., grief) can interfere with the learning process. This article explains the grief process, how it can be managed by individuals and organizations to enhance learning, and proposes a dual process model for recovering from grief, so that innovators can learn more from their project failures and remain committed to future innovative endeavors.