R&D alliances timing under uncertainty: from theory toward experiments

Abstract

There is a growing awareness that managers have cognitive biases when making investments decisions under uncertainty. There is evidence of deviation from the predictions derived using normative models, such as real options models. The proposed research sheds light on the importance of integrating normative models with experimental methods in order to predict and explain such cognitive limitations. To this aim, starting from a real options model dealing with alliance timing decisions, we propose a simple design of an experiment, that can been used to test some of the fundamental insights of real options theory in the context of R&D alliances.