Deciding in the shadow of the state: when regulatory logic collides with market logic

Purpose Capital allocation models treat planning inputs as market-governed, even when they originate from political authority. Written for The Practice of Making Decisions section of Management Decision, this paper develops a three-phase response: classify each input, stress test it against a change of authority and design commitments that can move if the answer changes. Design/methodology/approach The process is built from the tasks the decision involves, not from theory. A constructed vignette of a wine producer entering Mendoza runs through the argument; three documented situations (utility privatization, wine internationalization, EU digital regulation) serve as retrospective illustrations. Findings Standard tools presume a judgment they do not perform: which institutional logic governs each input; tagging inputs by source, durability and evidence confidence comes first. In Mendoza the commitment changes form, not direction: purchase becomes staged entry sized to survive the incentive's loss. Research limitations/implications Retrospective illustrations show compatibility with documented responses, not conscious use or performance effects. Practical implications Each phase specifies questions, participants, outputs and revisit triggers; a decision matrix and a pre-commitment checklist support its use. Originality/value The contribution is a managerial task rather than a theory of political risk: assessing the institutional source and durability of planning inputs before scenario analysis and option pricing.