Antecedents of Intentionally Incomplete Inter-Firm Contracts

Marina Fiedler (), Carolin Blank () and Arnold Picot
Additional contact information
Marina Fiedler: University of Passau
Carolin Blank: Alvarez & Marsal, One Finsbury Circus, London EC2M 7EB

Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, 2010, vol. 62, issue 62, 133-157

Abstract: Abstract We investigate (1) whether frms deliberately write incomplete contracts, and (2) if so, under which conditions. a better understanding of this phenomenon is important, because research shows that incomplete contracts can yield higher results than fully specifed ones. p]We investigate these questions using the grounded theory methodology developed by Glaser and Strauss, and specifcally the Straussarian version. We conducted thirty-seven semi-structured in-depth interviews with executives from diferent industries who negotiate contracts. We found that, given a confdent view of the world, executives are willing to write incomplete inter-frm contracts under the following circumstances: a) they have a confdent attitude towards their environment, b) they trust their contracting partner, c) the power relationship between the companies is equal, and d) the value of the contract is relatively low, i.e., of minor strategic importance.

Keywords: L14L24; D86; J41; cooperation; grounded theory; trust; indefniteness; intentionally incomplete contracts; non-verifable contracts; power balance; qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF03373750 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sjobre:v:62:y:2010:i:62:d:10.1007_bf03373750

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/41471

DOI: 10.1007/BF03373750

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().