The role of skill versus luck in new venture survival

In our paper ‘New venture survival: A review and extension’ in the Interna-tional Journal of Management Reviews, we synthesized more than five decadesof entrepreneurship, management and sociology research on the reasons whysome new ventures survive and others fail. Based on our review and analysis, weprovided an up-to-date systematization of the literature and a framework thatincludes important extensions to Stinchcombe’s seminal work. Coad and Storeycriticized our framework for basing venture outcome on skill—something thatcan be influenced by entrepreneurs and other stakeholders. In this paper, weargue that: (i) the distinction between survival and performance matters whenthinking about the antecedents of these constructs; (ii) gambling is an incom-patible analogy for entrepreneurship; and (iii) psychological processes cannotbe ignored when studying new ventures’ survival. We also correct some pointsmade by Coad and Storey about our findings. We encourage future studies onnew venture survival to be cautious of adopting a view of venturing as a ‘game ofchance’—which is, in our perspective, a potentially discouraging view for peoplepursuing entrepreneurship.