Timing the adoption of a new technology: an option‐based approach

Deals with the problem of timing the adoption of a new technology. This is a very important question of strategy which directly affects the firm’s competitive capability and whose analysis cannot be adequately faced by conventional capital budgeting techniques. Aims to provide a procedure for deciding on the appropriate adoption time, which is based on the option pricing approach. In particular, since innovative technologies generally disclose a set of strategic opportunities, makes the assumption that adoption occurs when it is possible to profit better from these opportunities. The decision procedure introduced also provides the starting point for developing a practical, option‐based framework to formulate a technology strategy. In this perspective, a proactive attitude of firms towards the planning and looking for future technology opportunities is proposed.