Identification of risk types in innovation projects

Abstract Purpose The purpose of the article is an attempt to fill a research gap in the field of issues re-lated to innovation projects and, in particular, to identify the types of risks associated with their implementation in organizations. Current identification and monitoring of the level of occurrence of various types of risk in in-novative projects is a key task for project managers in order to make effective decisions on how to eliminate or reduce them. Design/methodology/approach The empirical verification is based on the methodology of our own research. The study developed and used a questionnaire for owners and managers imple-menting innovative projects. Findings This research, and the results we obtained, make it possible to answer how innovation projects are treated in organizations, what the dynamics of the implementing various types of innovation projects in recent years has been, and the level at which various types of risk in in-novation projects have been assessed and identified. Practical implications The literature review and research results show that the issue of risk in innovation projects is timely and important for many organizations, even more so for project managers looking for effective methods of identifying and managing it. Identifying the level of risk is crucial for the success of innovation projects because it reduces the negative impact of risk factors on a project’s timeliness and budget, as well as its economic and technical-technological effects. The authors emphasize that it will be worth continuing the undertaken research and work towards identifying and evaluating all components of risk management sys-tems. Proper identification of risks in projects, and understanding their nature, is a kind of guar-antee of security for the organization implementing them. Originality/value For the purpose of carrying out this empirical research, we adopted our own classification system of the types of risk associated with various innovation projects undertaken by organizations. Risk categories should be well-defined, corresponding to typical sources of risks for a type of innovation project in a given industry and the specificity of company’s activity. The types of risk most frequently named by respondents across six types of projects were time, personnel and cost.