Real options and real value: the role of employee incentives to make specific knowledge investments
研究了实物期权项目中员工进行特定人力资本投资的激励问题，发现这种激励可能正面或负面地影响项目价值，有时甚至抵消灵活性带来的好处。
Abstract Real options reasoning emphasizes the strategic value of making flexible investments in a turbulent environment. Employees' investments in specific human capital are often critical to the success of a real option project, but the very flexibility that allows a firm to change course in response to new information also affects employees' incentives to make such specific human capital investments. We develop a model of real option investment that explicitly incorporates the role of employee incentives. The model suggests that the effect of investing in a real option project on employee incentives may be positive, further increasing the value of the project, or negative, sometimes more than offsetting the benefit of flexibility and resulting in reduced project value. Therefore, firms and managers should take into consideration the role of employee incentives when applying real options logic to investment decision making. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.