Preserving Optionality
Real Options
A strategy of keeping one's options open and available as long as possible (resisting the urge to choose too soon), while uncertainties can still possibly be clarified.
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Origin
The concept traces to Irving Fisher, who wrote explicitly of the "options" available to business owners in 1930. However, formal "real options theory" emerged following development of analytical techniques for financial options, particularly the Black-Scholes model in 1973. Treating strategic investments as options was popularized in business strategy by Timothy Luehrman in two Harvard Business Review articles in the 1990s, with influential academic work by Lenos Trigeorgis, Michael Brennan, Eduardo Schwartz, Avinash Dixit, and Robert Pindyck.
Updated February 22, 2026