Pitt Leyland F., and Rushieda Kannemeyer, 'The Role of Adaptation in Microenterprise Development: A Marketing Perspective', Journal of Development Entrepreneurship, vol. 5, no. 2 (August 2000), pp.137-55

assess a business’ risk premium. Although researchers must distinguish mortality risk from other decision criteria bankers may also use to determine a risk premium. Another operationalisation of mortality risk might arise from using established accounting failure ratios to analyse a new venture’s fmancial statements and calculate the probability of failurethe higher the probability of failure, the higher the mortality risk. Measures of novelty might come from surveying key people within the market (for market novelty), production (for production novelty), and management (for management novelty). Objective measures may also be appropriate-management novelty might include the number of years of experience in this industry or a related industry or the number of ’start ups’ in which the management team has been involved. Of course, these operationalisations can be combined to provide triangulation of the measure. In sum, this paper provides a model of mortality risk arising from a multidimensional perspective of novelty and argues that the decisions and actions of the new venture manager can influence an ‘evolutionary’ mortality risk pattern.