Option chain and change management : a structural equation application.

The aim of this work is to establish empirically with a structural equation model (SEM) the existence of links between the options perceived by the members of an industry, the expectation of future rents produced by the exercise of these options and firm or industry specific factors. The theoretical part of this work is based on the notion of option chain developed by Bowman and Hurry (1993). The empirical part is on the video-game industry. A questionnaire based dataset on 211 video-game creators allows us to represent the concepts of potential and real option from a strategic point of view. The study shows that the relations between perceived opportunities, capacities building and rent expectations are shared by the members of this industry and can be expressed as options.