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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.

We discuss recent developments in real options theory and its applications to strategic management research, examine the potential difficulties in implementing real options in theory and practice, and propose several areas for future research. Our review shows that real options theory has provided substantial insights into investment and exit decisions as well as into the choice of investment modes. In addition, extant research studies have contributed significantly to our understanding of whether and how organizations can benefit from real options. Future research that addresses difficulties in applications will further advance both real options theory and practice in strategic management. We call for future generations of research to enhance the impact of real options as an emerging dominant conceptual lens in strategic management.

“Economics is a Serious Subject.” Edwin Cannan.

Theories of the business cycle can be classified into two main groups, exogenous and endogenous, according to the way they explain economic fluctuations – either as responses of the economy to factors that are external (exogenous shocks) or as upturns and downturns of the economic system internally generated (by endogenous factors). In endogenous theories, investment is generally a key variable to explain the dynamic status of the economy. This essay examines the role of investment in endogenous theories. Two contrasting views on how changes in investment and profitability push the economy towards expansion or contraction are represented by the insights of Kalecki, Keynes, Matthews and Minsky versus those of Marx and Mitchell. Hyman Minsky claimed that investment ‘calls the tune’ to indicate that investment is the only variable not determined by other variables, so that future profits, investment and the dynamic status of the economy are determined by current investment and investment in the near past. However, this hypothesis does not appear to be supported by available empirical data for 251 quarters of the US economy. Statistical evidence rather supports the hypothesis of causality in the direction of profits determining investment and, in this way, leading the economy towards boom or bust.

This paper introduces a hitherto unpublished 1970 paper written by Lauchlin Currie (1902–1993) on Paul Rosenstein Rodan’s famous 1943 paper on the “Big Push” which led to the balanced-unbalanced growth debate to which Albert Hirschman (1915–2012) was an important contributor. Both Currie and Hirschman had been key economic advisers to the Colombian government, and their respective views on development planning are contrasted. In particular, it is shown how Currie’s 1970 paper illuminates the theory behind the 1971–1974 national plan for Colombia that he prepared and helped deliver; and how the related institutional innovations have had an enduring impact on Colombia’s recent economic history.

I am interested in clarifying the discussion of how researchers might try to isolate real option effects to identify whether managerial decisions are guided by a real option heuristic. If we are to claim that the theory of real options illuminates managerial behavior, then as a field, we must converge on an understanding as to what constitutes a real option effect, and what does not. The discussion centers on hypothesis development, measurement issues, and research methodology.

The scientific correspondence between Harrod and Robertson was initiated by Harrod’s criticism of Robertson’s Banking Policy and the Price Level (1926).⁷ Harrod first wrote on 18 May 1926 (letter 2) raising at once the following “salient point”: Much of your argument depends on the view that justifiable expansions and contractions as defined by you are desirable. Why are they desirable? You give reasons on p. 22 why you think some instability in output desirable. But the reasons mentioned there (and I can’t find any others) don’t seem particularly directed to show that the special form of instability constituted by the so-called “justifiable” expansions and contractions is desirable. They seem to me to show that perhaps some instability, that, presumably, of less degree than we have been accustomed to in the past, is good, but by no means precisely how much is good. Thus, suppose the “hypothetical group member” or “the actual workman” of p. 19 were able to govern output according to their own self interest, there would still, according to the arguments of ch. 2, be some instability. Would not that be enough? Or if you want more, why stop at the “justifiable”? Why not have some of that due to “secondary” causes? It seems to me that you have been led away by purely aesthetic interests to identify that more moderate amount of instability which we really need (as shown on p. 22.) with that which we would get: (i) if secondary causes were removed; and (ii) if control of output stayed where it is now – in the hands of the entrepreneur. I don’t see how you can say to the banks more than “damp down fluctuation a bit, but leave some fluctuation, as that is healthful for the body economic”.He added two notes to his letter, in the first of which he commented upon the four proposed courses of policy outlined by Robertson on pp. 25–26 of his book. In the second note Harrod suggested that Robertson’s calculations in Appendix I to Ch. 5 of Banking Policy assumed the following behaviour of the public: (i) People do not allow for the effect of their withholding on the price level (this is reasonable). (ii) They are ignorant as the future course of inflation (or do nothing to meet it). (iii) On this basis they decide what withholding is necessary to restore H, decide that it would be too much effort to restore it at once, and…spread the restoration over K – 1 days. It so happens that by choosing K – 1 their 2 errors (or failures to take everything into account) cancel each other out, and they do effect the restoration in that time. If K or K – 2 had been chosen, this would not have been so.Harrod further argued that Robertson’s “so-called reasonable assumption of a restoration in K – 1 days is purely arbitrary,” and that “all this reasoning is rendered of doubtful value by the fact that we must suppose an alteration in view as to ‘the appropriate proportion between Real Hoarding and Real Income’ during the process of inflation. Not only will people not replenish H at once, but they may well voluntarily reduce it.”