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PurposeThere has been a long controversy in the literature on assessing the value of human capital – a long-sought but elusive and challenging task. The ability to quantify flexible human capital (FHC) has been a shortcoming in extant literature. We make a meaningful contribution by showing how real options (RO) methodology can be used to quantify FHC and we provide complementary case study evidence from Fortune 500 “best companies to work for” that the value of employee career development is higher in more volatile sectors in line with real options theory (ROT).Design/methodology/approachThis article provides a prescriptive RO methodology for adopting a more flexible, staged SHRM organizational perspective suitable for uncertain environments, and explores its theoretical and empirical implications through the dual use of RO methodological modelling and multi-case study data involving ten Fortune 500 companies. The case study approach is aimed at creating managerially relevant knowledge. The relevance of our approach to managerial practice is shown through guidelines on how a company like Google might use the RO methodology to estimate the career development option value so as to inform its internal development program for employees to create and capture value.FindingsOur focus is on the staging flexibility in HR as exemplified by the internal career development process. This process can be viewed as a multi-stage (compound) option involving various types of HC uncertainty, HC options, and HR practices. We model staging HR deployment via the option to promote staff employees to middle-level management, itself embedding the option to rise to the top management. To empirically validate our valuation approach, we present case study research that enables quantifying the option value of a career development program and allows assessing how much a mismatch exists in a sample of ten public U.S. companies.Research limitations/implicationsThe overall staging quantification idea is important as it offers guidance as to how to value HR as a sequential investment process under uncertain demand or skill conditions. The analysis is limited to the extent that staged career development might interact with other types of human capital (e.g. switch and learning) options and HR practices (e.g. training). Human resources may also interact with other organizational intangibles, such as brand equity. Our analysis also does not account for psychological considerations from the employees' perspective, such organizational commitment facilitating trust to enable reciprocal commitments, which remains a fruitful subject for future extensions.Practical implicationsROT can provide useful guidance and tools for HR scholars and managers. By keeping tabs on HR-based flexibility value and focusing on the key input variables driving HR flexibility, HR managers can determine the flexibility value unleashed from staging the deployment of HC resources in the face of unanticipated demand and skills shifts.Originality/valueThis is the first paper that attempts to quantify the value of staged career development flexibility using the RO methodology. This article will be cited for its innovativeness in being the first to quantify the value of human capital's contribution to corporate value creation and provide objective evaluation in the context of organizational career-development programs. Besides providing useful insights to scholars, the article also demonstrates how the RO methodology can apply to actual companies and inform managerial practice offering guidelines of relevance to HR practitioners on how to quantify the value of staged HC development in an uncertain environment.

We present a pricing model of bank bailout insurance guarantees against tail risk and empirical evidence that provides a rational explanation why big bank equities “underperform” relative to small banks during normal times while they “overperform” during crises. A new measure accounting for left-tail risk protection against losses conditional on a crisis explains the “underperformance” of large banks during normal periods. Over the long-term spanning several economic cycles, bank assets are fairly priced regardless of size. Our empirical evidence supports our model’s predicted pattern of excess bank return reversals across economic cycles following Too-Big-To-Fail (TBTF) bailout policy in 1984.

We posit that outsourcing flexibility helps overcome financial constraints and provide evidence concerning the role of financial constraints and its interaction with operational flexibility on the likelihood and market value of outsourcing. We find that the likelihood of outsourcing is higher the greater the firm's financial constraints prior to outsourcing and that the effect of financial constraints on the likelihood of outsourcing is greater the lower the ex-ante operational flexibility, suggesting partial substitution between financial and operational flexibility. We further show that the market value impact of outsourcing announcements is predominantly positive confirming net flexibility gains positively related to ex-ante financial constraints. Our findings suggest that outsourcing is a vehicle for flexibility acquisition and that financial constraints play a prominent role.

Research summary: This article provides a review of real options theory (ROT) in strategic management research. We review the fundamentals of ROT and provide a taxonomy of this research. By synthesizing and critiquing research on real options, we identify a number of important challenges as well as opportunities for ROT if it is to enhance its impact on strategic management and potentially develop into a theoretical pillar in the field. We examine how ROT can inform the key tensions that managers face between commitment versus flexibility as well as between competition versus cooperation, and we show how it can uniquely address the fundamental issues in strategy. We conclude with suggestions on future research directions that could enhance and unify the thus-far distinct main approaches to real options research. Managerial summary: Real options theory (ROT) applies the heuristics and valuation models originally designed for financial securities to the domain of corporate investment decisions (e.g., joint ventures [JVs], foreign direct investment, research and development [R&D], etc.) and strategic decision making under uncertainty. This article provides a synthesis of this body of research in strategic management and related disciplines. We suggest how ROT can address fundamental issues of strategy, including the dilemmas managers face between commitment versus flexibility as well as between competition versus cooperation. We discuss how three distinct approaches to real options analysis can complement each other, and we identify some of the main challenges and opportunities for ROT to become a theoretical pillar in strategy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Considerable debate surrounds how the US government's TARP bailout intervention has affected the risk-taking and moral hazard behavior of U.S. banks around the global financial crisis. We examine this issue with a focus on lottery behavior introducing MAX/MIN as a new measure of lotteryness in banking to capture the loss protection from bank bailout guarantees. We find that the TARP bailout increased the likelihood of bank lotteryness and risk shifting. Lottery-like bank equities are riskier after TARP and exhibit fatter right to left tails. A consistent pattern of risk taking and lottery behavior extends both before and after the 2008–2009 crisis, engulfing the largest systemic banks (SIFIs). While confirming that lottery-like bank equities have lower short-term return, we find they exhibit better cumulative long-term return performance. Our findings have important policy implications regarding government intervention in banking crises.

This paper examines the relationship between investors' ambiguity in the financial options market and systemic banks' risk. Eliciting ambiguity information from option pricing data on the twelve major U.S. banks between 2003 and 2010, we show that higher behavioral deviations from risk-neutral and Bayesian valuation (i.e., investor ambiguity) are associated with higher systemic banks' downside, market and credit risks. Consistent with behavioral explanations, we confirm the detrimental effect of ambiguity on financial market outcomes and find strong evidence of ambiguity among call and put option holders. Variance decomposition indicates that such a pattern of behavior explains a significant proportion of U.S. banking risk variance. This effect is more pronounced during periods of economic turbulence and bank stress (i.e., the 2007–2009 crisis), and holds after controlling for size, tail risk, implied volatility, and volatility of volatility dynamics. We also document that ambiguity from the financial market has a depressing impact on real economic activity, including capacity utilization, non-farm payrolls and overall economic performance. Our findings are robust to alternative specifications of ambiguity such as multiple priors and expected utilities with uncertain probabilities.

We examine the economic content of accruals and investment and test whether they are related to nonlinear equity value and asymmetric returns arising from firm growth. We confirm that current accruals mainly reflect capital investment commitment to assets in place arising from past growth, though a part is related to future growth arising from innovation capacity (IC). We show that past and future growth components of accruals and investment have opposite effects on investors’ expectations of future asymmetric returns, i.e., skewness. The part of expected idiosyncratic skewness predicted using investment growth variables is negatively related to returns. A new growth-driven skewness factor built on differentials in expected idiosyncratic skewness significantly explains the time-series variation in hedge-portfolio returns of accruals and investment. Investments in innovative capacity (real options) are more pronounced in periods of greater uncertainty. We find that the accruals component related to past growth and commitment is significant in economic states of low market sensitivity, while the part related to future growth is significant in high sensitivity states.

The original version of this paper was inadvertently published without one of the co-authors’ affiliations. Lenos G. Trigeorgis has an additional affiliation as follows

We study lottery behavior in banking stocks and use MAX/MIN to capture loss protection from bank bailout guarantees. We find that bank lottery preferences lead to lower short-term returns and that regulatory TARP assistance increases the likelihood of bank lotteryness and risk taking. Lottery-type bank equities are riskier after TARP and exhibit fatter right to left tails. A consistent pattern of risk taking and lottery behavior extends both before and after the crisis, including the largest systemic banks (SIFIs). We find better long-term performance by (protected) lottery-type banks, suggesting government may be subsidizing lottery behavior by bank investors.

This article addresses key issues of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, its broader economic distress and growth implications for the Euro Area and offers suggested remedies including growth indexed bonds, fiscal balances over a growth cycle, structural reforms, and using real option analysis in relevant public policy areas involving inefficient or growth sectors of the economy.

Contrary to public perception and previous literature on public bailout subsidies, we find over the recent 43-year period equityholders in big banks paid fairly for TBTF bailout insurance in terms of equity returns. In normal (non-crisis) periods, after TBTF in 1984, big banks pay an “insurance fee” for protection against severe losses in a crisis accepting a higher net regulatory burden reflected in a -9% per annum lower equity return relative to small banks. Moreover, a measure of left-tail risk protection, conditional on a crisis, fully explains this Big−Small bank equity premium “fee” paid in normal times. During crises, big banks earn higher returns (a reversal of that observed in normal times), which on average offset the big bank equity return discount in non- crisis times. Over several economic cycles, there is no abnormal Big−Small bank equity premium and bailout insurance is fairly priced for equityholders in that there is no difference between big and small bank equity returns.

Growth options increase idiosyncratic skewness and reduce risk exposure, and thereby create the appearance of profitability, distress, lotteryness, and volatility anomalies, influencing their returns via the channel of idiosyncratic skewness. To capture these effects, we estimate expected idiosyncratic skewness due to growth options reflecting investors’ expectation about the firm’s mix of growth options versus assets-in-place. We find that investors require a positive premium to hold stocks of inflexible firms with low growth options and hence negative expected idiosyncratic skewness, and that a newly proposed skewness factor based on growth options or firm inflexibility explains the aforementioned anomalies.

We extend and complement prior work by investigating the earnings quality of firms with different financial health characteristics and growth prospects. By using three alternative measures of default likelihood and two alternative measures of growth options, without being limited to a specific event, we provide a more comprehensive setup for analysing the earnings characteristics of the universe of firms than examining distressed firms with persistent losses, dividend reductions or bankruptcy-filings. Our dataset consists of 15,049 healthy U.S. firms over the period 1990–2004. Results show that the relation between earnings quality and financial health is not monotonic. Distressed firms have a low level of earnings timeliness for bad news and a high level for good news, and manage earnings toward a positive target more frequently than healthy firms. On the other hand, healthy firms have a high level of earnings timeliness for bad news. Growth aspects play an important role in a firm's ability to manage earnings. In contrast to the findings of prior studies, growth firms have greater earnings timeliness for bad news, whereas value firms manage earnings toward a positive target more frequently than growth firms.

Applications of real option theory indicate that firms endowed with growth or switching options are able to enhance performance and reduce downside risk by adapting operations to changes in inputs,...

Goodwill is an intangible asset, and therefore hard to measure and difficult to account for. This article argues that the two-stage impairment test for acquired goodwill under SFAS 142 has several limitations. Most important, it measures aggregate rather than acquired goodwill, making it very difficult to separate acquisition-related goodwill from aggregate enterprise goodwill after a business combination. As a consequence, any potential deterioration of acquired goodwill value could be concealed by increases in internally generated goodwill. As an alternative, the authors propose a real options approach to managing a business unit portfolio as a better framework for conducting the goodwill impairment test. A real options approach to testing goodwill for impairment—as opposed to the standard fair value assessment based on DCF analysis—not only accounts for deterioration in the value of goodwill, but also captures upward potential. It enables tracking of the changes in goodwill value from one period to the next, providing a less biased estimate of its real value at each point in time.

We examine the informational efficiency of market ambiguity in predicting market excess returns and the equity premium internationally. Empirical results show a strong predictive ability of option-implied, and sentiment-based, ambiguity for U.S. stock market returns for up to three years. We also provide evidence of return predictability in eight other countries. Proxying for dispersion in ambiguity beliefs, our measures provide information in addition to standard return predictors and recent economic uncertainty indicators. We document a negative relation between ambiguity and the equity premium in line with limited market participation theory (Cao,-Wang-and-Zhang,-2005), and confirm a positive intertemporal risk-return trade-off after controlling for ambiguity.

The paper presents evidence that earnings levels as well as changes in earnings are important in explaining stock returns in an emerging stock market. The study employs data on all listed firms in the Cyprus Stock Exchange over the ten-year period 1985-1994. Operating cash flows have no incremental information content beyond earnings. Earnings is more informative for larger firms consistent with the notion that accounting information by larger firms is perceived as being more reliable. Moreover, the earnings–returns relationship is not linear, being stronger for positive earnings levels and changes than for negative. Finally, the usefulness of earnings is statistically higher in the later half of the sample period. Overall, the results suggest that investors price earnings information in this emerging market.

Traditional HR architecture, which views different employee groups as a portfolio based on specificity and value, is static and insufficient under uncertainty. We develop an alternative real option...

Exploiting embedded supply-chain real options creates powerful opportunities for competitive manufacturing in high-cost environments. Rather than seeking competitiveness through standardization as is common to lean production, real-options reasoning explores opportunities to use supply-chain variability as a strategic weapon. We present an illustrative case study of a Swiss manufacturer of cable extrusion equipment supported by a formal real-options model that aids in valuing the embedded options that make up supply-chain flexibility: postponement, contraction, expansion, switching, and abandonment. Real-options reasoning provides a plausible retrospective rationale for the case firm's use of supply-chain flexibility that provided protection against competition from low-cost but less responsive competitors. Their intuitive real-options reasoning facilitated incorporating fuller information concerning volatility, flexibility, and control into choosing what products to make, in what quantity, and with work allocated to which supplier. The case study also highlights how competing through exploiting embedded real options requires a different managerial skill set than does competing through cost reduction: Skills such as customer communication, supplier management, and ability to ensure a smooth flow of production join the ability to reduce and control lead times as key sources of competitive advantage.

We develop a real-options model for optimizing production and sourcing choices under evolutionary supply-chain risk. We model lead time as an endogenous decision and calculate the cost differential required to compensate for the risk exposure coming from lead time. The shape of the resulting cost-differential frontier reveals the term structure of supply-chain risk premiums and provides guidance as to the potential value of lead-time reduction. Under constant demand volatility, the break-even cost differential increases in volatility and lead time at a decreasing rate, making incremental less valuable than full lead-time reduction. Stochastic demand volatility increases the relative value of incremental lead-time reduction. When demand has a heavy right tail, the value of lead-time reduction depends on how extreme values of demand are incorporated into the forecasting process. The cost-differential frontier is invariant to discount rates, making the cost of capital irrelevant for choosing between lead times. We demonstrate the managerial implications of the model by applying it first to the classic Sport-Obermeyer case and then to a supplier-selection problem faced by a global manufacturer.

The incentive to \overinvest" in capital may be eroded in dynamic, competitive settings if rms face uncertainty and irreversibility. In this paper, we derive the stationary Markov perfect equilibrium for a dynamic, innite-horizon capacity investment game formulated in continuous time in which reduced-form prots are subject to industry shocks. We show that the theory of marginal Tobin’s

We examine the empirical properties of the theoretical Black–Scholes–Merton (BSM) bankruptcy model. We evaluate the predictive ability of various existing modifications of the BSM model and extend prior studies by estimating volatility directly from market-observable returns on firm value.We show that parsimonious models using our direct market-observable volatility estimate perform better than alternative, more sophisticated, models. Our findings suggest the adoption of simpler modelling approaches relying on market data when implementing the BSM model.

This article presents an evolutionary cooperative approach to conflict resolution that would lower the fears and raise the hopes of parties in conflict by proceeding incrementally in phases that would allow interaction and reciprocity, learning, and flexibility (through options to expand or abandon cooperation/integration). With reference to the Cyprus conflict, although initially maintaining two separate decentralized zones, the simultaneous creation of a third, joint federated area to serve as the nucleus of a cooperative, interactive, centralized federation is proposed. A “conciliation stage” should precede a federated structure “testing” phase, before expanding and ratifying full-scale implementation contingent on successful interim cohabitation.

Research contributions providing insights at the intersection of real options analysis and industrial organization have become numerous in the recent decade. In the present paper, we provide an overview aimed at categorizing and relating these research streams. We highlight managerial insights about the type of competitive reaction, the manner in which information is revealed, the nature of the competitive advantage (first vs. second-mover advantage), firm heterogeneity, capital divisibility, and the number of competing firms.

This paper explains why cost-reimbursed not-for-profits (NFPs) have incentives to use debt financing when purchasing capital assets. When the purchase is internally financed (i.e., through retained earnings), NPV is negative and the NFP lacks incentives for efficient investment. But when financed through debt with reimbursed (‘passed through’) interest, earlier reimbursed depreciation recovery relative to delayed principal costs can lead to positive NPV and excessive reimbursement. This analysis may thus help explain an empirical regularity, namely that NFPs tend to be highly leveraged despite the absence of tax shields or the availability of internal funds. This regularity cannot be explained either by the ‘trade-off’ or by the ‘pecking order’ theories of capital structure.

Managerial practice differs from standard capital budgeting theory in a number of respects. For example, managers often take projects that have negative NPV (e.g., R & D investments) due to their flexibility, synergy strategic positioning etc. Furthermore, managers continue to use accounting‐based measures in capital budgeting even though NPV is widely accepted as the only correct valuation measure. In fact, managers and strategists probably have always attempted to intuitively attach value to a variety of “strategic” and other concerns, even when they couldn't quantify them.

Although it is generally agreed that companies are better off with shorter manufacturing lead times, investment in lead time reduction is often difficult to justify using traditional project valuation techniques such as net present value (NPV). In this article, we suggest that evaluating investment in lead time reduction from a real options perspective facilitates quantification of the value of manufacturing flexibility brought about by lead time reduction, particularly the value of the option to time production commitment based on better demand information. This flexibility is significant when demand is volatile. We also present examples to demonstrate how options inherent in lead time reduction can have synergistic effects with related investments, such that a combination of such investments may have positive value even when the NPV of the individual investments is negative.

This paper serves to introduce the basic ideas and valuation principles for corporate real options, and basic concepts related to growth options, competition and strategy. It first uses an example to motivate the discussion of various real options and presents practical principles for valuing several common real options, such as the options to defer investment, expand capacity, abandon the project, or switch uses. It then presents a conceptual discussion of growth options, competition and strategy, proposing strategic questions and a new project classification scheme as a practical aid for option-based analysis. Finally, it discusses various applications and notes areas for future research.

Because my expertise is not the telecommunications industry, I will approach the issues generically. From what I understand, the intention is to enhance competition and explicitly capture the value of any subsidies by allowing some parties to use part of the infrastructure facilities of others. If there is no explicit limitation on how long this phase will last, then there might be an incentive to delay if there are no strategic considerations. That’s because if you can lease facilities in the short term versus sinking a large investment to create your own infrastructure (given the uncertainty — technological and otherwise — in the environment), it may create a bias to delay, to benefit from a “wait-and-see” approach.