One of the most important strategic decisions managers of small businesses make is deciding what products to introduce. Introducing the right product can improve firm performance. Introducing the wrong product, or even the right product at the wrong time can result in large losses and possibly jeopardize a firm's longevity. It is especially important to examine small firm managers ' product introduction decisions because they often use less formal procedures, have more power and face less organizational inertia. Thus, while their autonomy may allow them to act on their conclusions more readily, a lack of formality may generate more judgment errors. Therefore, it's vital to understand the issues that should be considered in new product introductions and explore some of the common misperceptions small firm managers have regarding these issues.Toward this end, this study examined the success factors (component conditions that are prerequisites for the introduction's overall success) managers considered during recent new product introductions and their confidence in these factors' achievability. In an effort to determine where managers might be making their most critical decision errors, the authors also examined which success factors were the most difficult to achieve and which were most critical to overall product performance
