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The purpose of this study is to enhance the comprehensive understanding of the roles of resource investments, explicit contracts and three components of guanxi (i.e. renqing, ganqing and mianzi) in asymmetric research and development (R&D) partnerships. Treating dependence asymmetry as a multidimensional construct, this study examines the moderating effects of these elements on the relationships between resources and information asymmetry and opportunism.

The study was executed by issuing questionnaires to R&D managers participating in R&D projects and collaborations in the Shanghai and Jiangsu provinces via e-mail and face to face surveys. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical test generally supported the conceptual model and produced the following findings: first, resources and information asymmetry significantly and positively affect opportunism. Second, the partner’s resource investments can weaken the effect of resources and information asymmetry on the partner’s opportunism. Third, explicit contracts can reduce the impact of information asymmetry on the partner’s opportunism. Fourth, renqing and ganqing but not mianzi can weaken the influence of information asymmetry on the partner’s opportunism.

This study provides a comprehensive and clear understanding of how opportunism can be curbed by jointly considering resource investments, explicit contracts and guanxi in asymmetric R&D cooperative relationships. Moreover, dependence asymmetry and guanxi are measured as a multidimensional construct and reveal their underlying structure, which expands previous understandings of risk management in R&D collaborations.

The psychological contract is defined as a perceived exchange agreement of promissory obligations between employee and organization. Most approaches to this concept ignore the role of context in shaping its features. However, others have pointed out the need to evaluate the features of the construct within the context in which it is studied. Three salient features of the construct include the use of the term “promises” versus “obligations”, its implicit nature and reference to the “other” party, and the exchange content. Rousseau and Schalk suggest that these features are weighted and interpreted differently across different countries. The purpose of this paper is to test this proposition in the island state of Malta, a European Union micro‐state.

Semi‐structured interviews are used. Three questions are addressed: do employment obligations vary from promises in this context? Are employment obligations in this context necessarily explicited? Who is considered the employer in this context?.

The results show that some findings are similar to those found in other settings (e.g. acknowledgement of an exchange relationship in employment), others are more context‐bound (e.g. the meaning of obligations as predicting future reciprocal behaviours compared to promises). The paper also shows that many of these understandings are related to and construed by the way the employment relationship is construed in a country like Malta.

These findings strengthen the need to incorporate the contextual realities in which the features of the construct are employed as this has implications for both the generalizability of results and theory building.

Public procurement of innovations (PPIs) addresses a specified need of the public-sector customer or aims at fostering private firms’ innovativeness. In an operational sense, issues of information asymmetry and risk sharing between the public agency and the supplier are of paramount importance. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the contract design issues of PPI.

Explicit and implicit contracting methods are reviewed, and a conceptual framework is proposed in which procurement characteristics are analyzed, focusing on the dimensions of the supplier’s sensitivity to the procurement risk and the power of implicit contracting methods.

Because of its complex nature, applying cost-plus contracts instead of more common fixed-price contracts is advisable in PPI.

Possible reasons for the more prominent role of contract design in the USA as opposed to the European Union procurement are discussed.

Although electronic commerce (e‐commerce) can be a source of competitive advantage, will e‐commerce businesses in countries like China flourish when governments still take a “wait‐and‐see attitude” as to prompting, protecting, and regulating e‐commerce? The paper employs transaction cost economics in analyzing the role of government in regulating electronic contracting. Due to the transaction costs arising from e‐commerce, explicit contracts between parties are usually incomplete. The paper argues that these contracts should always be backed by implicit contracts, which are determined by default rules in various governments. Therefore, it behoves governments urgently to fill gaps in incomplete contracts in e‐commerce in order to foster a predictable legal environment for e‐businesses, minimize legal risks and transaction costs, and maximize economic and social benefits. The authors believe that governments must also act in concert with one another at the international level to create a favorable and consistent commercial environment.

The use of digital-models to communicate civil-engineering design continues to generate debate; this pilot-work reviews technology uptake towards data repurposing and assesses digital (vs traditional) design-preparation timelines and fees for infrastructure. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Extending (building-information-modelling) literature, distribution-impact is investigated across: quality-management, technical-applications and contractual-liability. Project case-study scenarios were developed and validated with resultant modelling-application timeline/fees examined, in conjunction with qualitative semi-structured interviews with 11 prominent stakeholder companies.

Results generated to explore digital-model data-distribution/usage identify: an 8 per cent time/efficiency improvement at the design-phase, and a noteworthy cost-saving of 0.7 per cent overall. Fragmented opinion regarding modelling utilisation exists across supply-chains, with concerns over liability, quality-management and, the lack of Australian-Standard contract-clause(s) dealing directly with digital-model document hierarchy/clarification/reuse.

Representing a small-scale/snapshot industrial-study, findings suggest that (model-distribution) must emphasise checking-procedures within quality-systems and, seek precedence clarification for dimensioned documentation. Similarly, training in specific file-formatting (digital-model-addenda) techniques, CAD-file/hard-copy continuity, and digital-visualisation software, can better regulate model dissemination/reuse. Time/cost savings through digital-model data-distribution in civil-engineering contracts are available to enhance provision of society’s infrastructure.

This work extends knowledge of 3D-model distribution for roads/earthworks/drainage, and presents empirical evidence that (alongside appropriate consideration of general-conditions-of-contract and specific training to address revision-document continuity), industry may achieve tangible benefits from digital-model data as a means to communicate civil-engineering design.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing ambidextrous governance and risk management on repurchase intention in social commerce.

A novel research model comprises nine research hypotheses with six constructs, including three dimensions of social capital (structural, relational and cognitive), contracts, relational risk and repurchase intention. The hypotheses are tested on data collected from 395 usable responses in Taiwan, using structural equation modeling.

The findings of this study indicate that online merchants should reinforce their collaborative behavior and activities to improve ambidextrous governance mechanisms, and thus enhance repurchase intention.

The resultant findings only reflect the setting of Taiwan’s social commerce marketplace. With the research model developed, future research on cross-country studies of various forms of social networking sites would be worth conducting to determine regional differences in the development of social commerce activities.

Ambidextrous governance mechanisms have been gaining attention in buyer–supplier relationships. Extending ambidexterity research to the social commerce domain, the authors focus on ambidextrous governance that can include social and contractual governance elements.

This study which is positioned in the ambit of control research investigates the impact of ex ante contractual completeness on opportunistic behaviors and ex post transaction costs, while assessing how these affect relationship termination intention. This study aims to examine alternative attractiveness as a necessary moderator of the nexus between transaction cost and relationship termination intention.

Data gathered from 211 companies in South Korea that have installed and run outsourced vending machines are analyzed and used to validate the study’s theoretical and empirical contributions.

The findings, which rely only on data from companies that outsource and those that run outsourced vending machines, show that contractual completeness negatively affects both active and passive opportunism. The study also discovers that active opportunism positively affects both bargaining costs and monitoring costs, whereas passive opportunism has a positive and direct effect on maladaptation costs but a negative effect on monitoring costs. It further finds that both bargaining and maladaptation costs have positive and direct effects on relationship termination intention, while monitoring costs have a negative effect on the same. Furthermore, it is observed that alternative attractiveness moderates the relationships between bargaining costs and relationship termination intention, as well as maladaptation costs and relationship termination intention.

This study demonstrates that contractual completeness can serve as an important ex ante control mechanism, whereas the two types of opportunism can raise transaction costs. Furthermore, alternative attractiveness is identified as a driver of the impact of transaction costs on relationship termination intention.

A key point of the departure of this study is that it examines the moderating role of alternative attractiveness in the relationship between transaction cost and relationship termination intention. The paper also advances the control literature by emphasizing the critical role that contractual completeness plays in reducing the occurrence of (both active and passive) opportunism in business relationships (especially companies that outsource).

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effects of cooperation history on contractual governance and the moderating effects of dependence asymmetry on those relationships from the perspective of a weaker firm in emergent economies. Drawing from resource dependence theory and contingency theory, this paper develops a conceptual model to investigate the impact of cooperation history on contractual governance.

The authors use data from 188 buyer–supplier relationships in China

The authors find that cooperation history is positively associated with contractual governance when dependence asymmetry is high but negatively associated with contractual governance when dependence asymmetry is low. Furthermore, the negative moderating effect of dependence asymmetry on the relationship between cooperation history and contractual complexity is stronger than the relationship between cooperation history and contract enforcement.

This study contributes to a better understanding of how cooperation history affects contractual governance with respect to the various levels of dependence on partners by incorporating a contingency view. This study also advances the literature on interfirm governance by distinguishing contractual governance into contractual complexity and contract enforcement.

This paper aims to dissect cross-border contracting practices among exporting businesses. The under-representation of exporter-importer dynamics and the superficial understanding of contracts are the motivation for this exploratory study.

The qualitative multiple case study design focuses on 18 small to medium size enterprise (SMEs) exporting from New Zealand. The analysis encompasses coding, pattern matching and explanation building. This paper uses coding to uncover themes and pattern matching/cross-case comparison to facilitate explanation building.

The paper underlines the scant use of formal international sales/distribution contracts, the lack of knowledge concerning contracting, barriers to contract formation, misgivings about the court system and litigation and the adoption of proxy contracts. This paper depicts varieties of contracting practices, namely, no formal contract, improvisational, normative, and formal contractual arrangements and underlines the context in which each approach applies.

Similar to most studies in this area, the dissection of contracting practices derives from the exporter side of the dyad. This robs the research of a holistic view of the exchange. Nonetheless, this paper contributes to a better understanding of contract formation and formalization and to the role of context in shaping the activities of exporting SMEs.

Although formal contracts are vital, they are not obligatory in all exchanges. Contracts matter more for high intensity exporters with comparatively short relationship histories, selling knowledge-intensive products in predominantly non-relational cultures. Policymakers should highlight the importance of contracts in such contexts and direct SMEs to several freely available resources on cross-border contracting.

The research casts fairness/equity and access to justice as pertinent structural disadvantages impacting the contracting practices of exporting SMEs.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first studies to provide an in-depth portrayal of the contracting practices of exporting SMEs, to detail the pervasiveness of non-contractual contracting practices and to depict contracting as nuanced and context-dependent.