Determinants of New Venture Performance: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: new ventures are widely recognized as key drivers of innovation, economic growth, and competitive dynamism in the economy. Despite the substantial body of research on factors influencing new venture performance (NVP), a comprehensive synthesis that integrates these diverse findings remains absent. Methods: guided by the rigorous PRISMA methodology, this paper systematically reviews 119 empirical studies published in top-tier management journals from 1987 to 2024, aiming to establish a unified framework of NVP determinants. Building on the resource-based view, industrial organization theory, and the strategic decision-making perspective, the study proposes and applies a new model of NVP based on the interaction between internal resources, the external environment, and strategic decisions, i.e., NVP = f(IR, EE, SD). Results: while the review indicates growing research interest in the topic, it also identifies several gaps in the existing literature, such as the narrow geographical scope (less than 30% of the studies in the sample focus on contexts outside Europe and the US), an unbalanced approach to performance measurement with the dominance of growth metrics (over 50% of the studies in the sample), a lack of long-term analysis, and the general methodological limitations of the contingency approach. Conclusions: the study concludes by suggesting promising directions for future research.