Technology entrepreneurs and managers aim to navigate emerging technology ventures and innovations towards successful commercialisation and business development, often over long periods of time. However, this is challenging due to high uncertainties associated with planning and navigating relevant market and business drivers, technological resources and capabilities, and applications. Failure to understand and manage these uncertainties appropriately can lead to undesired consequences and poor outcomes in the realisation of value creation and capture.

This research firstly built a knowledge base of technology ventures by conducting a literature review, enabling the development of a conceptual retrospective roadmapping framework as the basis for characterising the emergence of technology ventures. This leads to an analysis of 13 case studies, characterising phases, transitions, patterns, enablers and barriers associated with the emergence of technology ventures. A conceptual model, the so-called ‘emergence archetypes’, was then developed by conducting an in-depth analysis with a further 19 case studies. The concept provides practical insights regarding how emerging technology ventures can be exposed to different levels of technological and market uncertainties along the journey of technology commercialisation and business development. Finally, a strategy visualisation tool and process have been designed based on the research outputs, and a focus group was then conducted with industrial practitioners to review and evaluate the research outputs for practical use in industry. In total, 32 case studies and a focus group have been conducted in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Japan, Australia and the United States.

Overall, this research demonstrates that characterising technology venture emergence, by applying roadmapping principles, provides significant implications for both researchers and practitioners of strategy and innovation. Success or failure of emerging technology ventures, in terms of value creation and capture, is not only directly related to products or services, but more broadly to the innovation systems in which the technology ventures operate. By demonstrating the characterisation of technology venture emergence, the conceptualisation of emergence archetypes and the strategy visualisation tool and process development, this research shows that applying roadmapping is an appropriate method to characterise and improve emerging technology venturing practices, supporting value creation and capture.