In this paper, we report on the results of a large-scale study about typical front-end-related innovation practices in …

-end-related activities in 28 innovation projectscarried out by 14 German and 13 Japanese companies to reduce project uncertainty. Inall cases … we observed a range of activities to reduce project specific risks and revealeddifferences in the practice of innovation …”, activities andtypical deliverables in the innovation process which might be affected by front endmanagement practice.Overall, in …

, and managers often indicate the front end as being one of the greatest weaknesses in product innovation. Therefore, it is … surprising that only little research has treated the so called "fuzzy front end" of innovation. In this paper we discuss if …