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In the aggregate, corporations lose billions on new ventures. Here's a venture cost management program that can save fortunes by keeping the cost of losers down while accelerating the success of the winners.

Until recently, sponsoring new businesses has largely been the province of venture capital firms. Now, more and more companies are getting into the new venture business. In order to succeed at it, there are a number of lessons they must learn.

Arguably, one of the most unexpected findings of the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics has been the discovery of higher levels of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) than expected. One entrepreneur in seven is starting a business for or with their current employers. Given the current numbers for independent start-ups, that rate translates into 150,000 corporate entrepreneurship efforts annually in the USA. Another way to think of it is that in terms of firms with employees, corporate entrepreneurial ventures represent one-quarter of new start-ups each year. Those efforts also potentially represent a disproportionate percentage of surviving efforts, because corporate entrepreneurial projects tend to have superior initial access to financial, human and organizational resources than the vast majority of independently started firms.

Strategic alliances are a growing trend. What makes some succeed where others fail? A key is how the joint ventures are designed at the outset.

Data collected from 202 large and 92 small consumer goods manufacturing firms were analysed to examine the perceptions and experiences of these companies with test marketing as part of their new product development strategy. Seventy six per cent of the large companies and twenty four per cent of the small firms in the study test marketed their new products before full‐scale introduction. Chi‐square analysis indicated a relationship between firm size, type of business/industry, the scope of marketing operations, and whether the firm conducted test marketing or not. Cost, time constraints, and the generic nature of the product were the most prominent reasons cited by all firms for not conducting test marketing. In addition, small firms cited their size as amajor reason they did not engage in test marketing.

Managers need research‐based guidance on how to find sources of new growth when their core business is maturing.

Authors shadowed managers responsible for finding and entering new businesses, interviewing them every three or four months for an average of two years. They surveyed over 100 corporate venturing units and corporate incubators and assembled a database of over 50 stories of companies that had successfully developed or acquired a significant new business. We interviewed managers in about half of these companies that had successfully diversified and we tested our emerging hypotheses against this database.

All research indicated that managers need to assess opportunities more strategically and be less activity driven. The authors concluded that managers were investing in too many projects, most of which had little chance of success.

If research is reported on in the paper this section must be completed and should include suggestions for future research and any identified limitations in the research process.

Ashridge Strategic Management Centre has developed a screening tool – The New Businesses Traffic Lights to test opportunities before a business plan has been developed, alongside a business plan to assess the strategic logic for the proposal, or to an existing investment that is failing to meet its short‐term targets.

Applying the screen to the portfolio of new business investments in most companies will result in red lights for many projects. Not only can significant money be saved from the “new businesses” budget, but also extra resources can be focused on improving the core businesses.

The reality of organizing new growth ventures is that every place to locate them in the organization has pros and cons.

Using a set of seven archetypes, executives can figure out which location solution fits the initiative and the parent company best.

Organizations pursuing ventures have a choice of how much separation/distance to insert between ongoing operations and the new business.

The “right” place to locate a venture also depends on such factors as the situation of the parent organization, the level of innovation maturity the parent organization has and the form and functions of the venture.

One of the most critical decisions that executives need to make as they contemplate getting started with setting up an innovation/growth function within their organizations is where, organizationally, it belongs. Seven alternatives are analyzed.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the relationship of the perceived presence of organizational practices designed to support women's career advancement and their work and extra‐work satisfaction and psychological well‐being.

Data were collected from 98 early career women in Australia using anonymously completed questionnaires. Five organizational practices combined into a composite measure were considered; top management support and intervention, policies and resources, use of gender in human resource management, training and development initiatives and recruiting and external relations efforts.

Women reporting more organizational practices supportive of women, with higher levels of job and career satisfaction, and indicated fewer psychosomatic symptoms and less emotional exhaustion. Organizational practices were unrelated to intent to quit or extra‐work satisfactions and physical or emotional well‐being.

Further research is needed to determine if results generalize to women in later career stages.

Guidance for organizations interested in supporting women's career advancement are offered.

The paper illustrates an understanding of the qualities that are part of work environments that are supportive of the career aspirations of women (and men).

This study tested a model predicting workaholic job behaviors among Australian psychologists. The model and measures had been used in a previous study of Canadian business school graduates. Four blocks of predictors were examined using hierarchical regression analyses: personal demographics; work situation characteristics; workaholism antecedents (personal beliefs and fears, workplace values supporting work‐personal life imbalance); and workaholism components. Data were collected using anonymous self‐report questionnaires. Findings replicated previous work; both workaholism antecedents and workaholism components generally accounted for significant increments in variance on the validating job behaviors controlling for personal demographics and work situation characteristics.