Learning from New Product Development Project Failure in High-Tech Firms: The Role of Risk Anticipation and the Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract New product development (NPD) project failure, a common occurrence for high-tech firms, serves as an important source of learning and breeds future success, thereby prompting scholars to investigate the mechanisms of learning from NPD project failure. Studies has revealed the cognitive and emotional mechanisms underlying learning, and has investigated the role of post-failure factors in affecting these mechanisms; However, the influence of pre-failure factors is under-developed. Drawing upon the risk-as-feelings perspective, our study fills this gap by investigating one crucial pre-failure factor – risk anticipation. Our study categorizes risk anticipation into the likelihood anticipation and the magnitude anticipation, and hypothesizes that these two dimensions of risk anticipation affect learning from project failure distinctively. Based on two-wave data collected from 232 project managers in high-tech firms, we find likelihood anticipation positively affects learning from project failure primarily through a cognitive mechanism, as indicated by a positive mediation effect of decision-making comprehensiveness. In contrast, magnitude anticipation negatively affects learning from project failure primarily through an emotional mechanism, as indicated by a negative mediation effect of decision-making comprehensiveness. We shed light on the risk management practices for NPD project in high-tech firms, and offers insights into the post-project learning that breeds future NPD project success.