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Infrastructure projects lend themselves quite naturally to the domain of collaborative networks, because they are not feasible without the coordinated efforts of several independent and heterogeneous actors. This chapter analyzes the nature and role of multilateral collaboration in the early stages of local infrastructure projects.

After having developed a conceptual model of collaborative approaches to early project stages, a survey was designed and targeted at experienced and informed managers of utilities that develop infrastructural facilities in Italy.

The empirical analysis reveals that collaboration with local governments and other stakeholders is sought by managers mainly to acquire knowledge about project options and feasibility, and to improve public acceptance.

The application of real options theory to international strategy has surged in recent years. However, it is still a relatively new and loosely defined field, and there are several constraints on practical applications of this powerful theory. To move forward this field, the paper first provides a systematic analysis of theoretical and empirical contributions of real options theory to three critical issues in international strategy: (1) valuing multinational networks, (2) assessing market entry modes, and (3) evaluating market entry timing. The paper further suggests that future studies can focus on a refined treatment of uncertainty and the development of a dynamic theory in international strategy. Five testable propositions are developed in these directions.

Real options theory begins by drawing an analogy between real options and financial options. A financial option is a derivative security whose value is derived from the worth and characteristics of another financial security, or the so-called underlying asset. By definition, a financial option gives its holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell the underlying asset at a specified price (i.e., the exercise price) on or before a given date (i.e., the expiration date). Financial economists Black and Scholes (1973) and Merton (1973) pioneered a formula for the valuation of a financial option, and their methodology has opened up the subsequent research on the pricing of financial assets and paved the way for the development of real options theory.

At the beginning of the 20th century, three intertwined ambitions drove federal legislation over wildlife and biodiversity: establishment of multiple-use federal lands, the economic development of natural resources, and the maintenance of option values. We examine this federal intervention in natural resource use by analyzing roll call votes over the past century with a Random Utility Model (Manski, 1977) and conclude that economics mattered. So did ideology, but not uniformly. After World War II, the pro-environment vote which had been conservative shifted to being liberal. All these votes involved decisions regarding public land that reallocated the returns to users by changing the asset’s physical character or its usage rights. We suggest that long-term consequences affecting current resource allocations arose from disparities between broadly dispersed benefits and locally concentrated socioeconomic and geophysical (spatial) costs. We show that a primary intent of public land management has become to preserve multiple-use option values and identify important factors in computing those option values. We do this by demonstrating how the willingness to forego current benefits for future ones depends on the community’s resource endowments. These endowments are defined not only in terms of users’ current wealth accumulation but also from their expected ability to extract utility from natural resources over time.

This paper examines the application of real option theory to sequential investment decision-making. In an effort to contribute to the development of criteria that discriminate between investments that confer growth options from those that confer deferral options, we introduce a conceptual model that explains technological adoption as a sequence of embedded options. Upon the introduction of each successive technological generation, a firm may either defer investment and wait for the arrival of a future generation or invest immediately to obtain experience that provides a claim on adoption of subsequent generations. We propose that deferral and growth option value is dependent on the magnitude, frequency, and uncertainty of inter-generational change, and the nature of rivalry.

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

This paper categorizes and critiques the empirical research strategies that have been employed to test real options theory. Existing research has sought to detect valuable options in firms’ strategic investments as well as to investigate the payoffs from these investments. Our review highlights some of the evidence that has accumulated in recent years for real options theory. We flag some of the most important challenges and tradeoffs associated with the use of different empirical research approaches for testing real options theory in strategic management. The paper concludes by offering a number of research priorities to advance the theory by probing its descriptive validity as well as by addressing its normative aspirations to bridge corporate finance and strategy.

The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.