We study the decision of an established firm to commercialize innovations. An innovation can be exploited by the established firm as an internal venture, pursued by a new firm start-up as an external venture, or not commercialized at all. The limited commercialization capacity of the established...

In Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) infrastructure projects, host governments often provide subsidies, guarantees or alternative forms of support as incentives to attract private sector participation. A guaranteed level of minimum revenue, for example, can be specially designed to alleviate the...

In all large engineering projects, valuation constitutes an important step during the initial stage as each stakeholder assesses the prospect of his or her investment. The complexity of valuation increases dramatically in the face of uncertainty especially when the risks are dynamic and...

This paper investigates the influence of industry uncertainty on the decision by established firms to enter a new industry. Specifically, we examine the tension between the option to defer, which discourages entry in the presence of uncertainty, and the option to grow, which may encourage entry...

Suppose a farmer had to apply a herbicide pre-emergence or not at all. The advent of a herbicide-tolerance trait innovation then provides the option to wait for more information before making a state-contingent post-emergence application. This option to wait can increase or decrease average...

Replaced with revised version of paper 02/23/07.

We investigate the optimal investment timing strategy in a real option framework. Depending on the state of the economy, whose changes are modeled by a Markov chain, the investment cost can take one of two values. The optimal investment timing decision is determined by finding the free boundary...

To be relevant to a firm a real option needs to fit into a theory of the firm explaining its existence, exercise conditions and value. We make a step toward an option based-theory of the firm by describing the emergence of a firm’s options and the strategic building of new competences for...