Venture failure: commonalities and causes

We discuss venture failure as the first stage of a work in progress process, with stage two consisting of an empirical study in a predetermined entrepreneurial setting. This study places emphasis on Stage I, with the aim of developing a conceptual framework to facilitate the success of new ventures commenced by nascent and novice entrepreneurs. We place emphasis on the success of entrepreneurs, as opposed to their ventures. We add to the literature by adapting and integrating many schools of thought on venture failure, defining venture failure as a deviation from the entrepreneurs' desired expectations. We thus differentiate between the entrepreneurs' failure and venture failure. We further place emphasis on habitual and serial entrepreneurs, concluding that such entrepreneurs are most often successful in their own right. We categorise six generic failure causes, and the interpretation thereof. Upon development of these constructs, Stage 2 incorporates an empirical study, whereafter a conceptual model of failure reducing initiatives will be proposed.