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The goal of interfirm contract research is to examine how formal contracts impact transaction success, firm relationships, and ultimately individual and collaborative firm performance when two or more firms interact. Most contract literature uses an economic lens to examine contracts: the property rights perspective, agency theory, and TCE. Property rights-based contract research (Coase, 1960; Demsetz, 1967; Alchian & Demsetz, 1973; Cheung, 1969) examines how efficient property rights assignment mitigates ex ante hazards. Similarly, agency theory-based contract research (e.g., Ross, 1973; Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Harris & Raviv, 1979) investigates how incentive alignment between the principal and agent leads to the mitigation of ex ante hazards. In contrast, TCE-based research (Williamson, 1975, 1985) examines contractual safeguards to mitigate both ex ante and ex post hazards (e.g., Joskow, 1985, 1987, 1990; Crocker & Reynolds, 1993). Because the three economic perspectives dominate, most research addresses how contracts are used to mitigate ex ante or ex post hazards. Therefore, many topics still need to be investigated to enhance our understanding of interfirm contracting.

Transaction cost economics (TCE) has received extensive attention from a variety of disciplines, but it holds a particularly central place in strategic management. The focal issues examined by TCE, vertical integration and interfirm governance (including contract design), are important determinants of firm performance – the central issue in the field of strategy. While several extensive reviews of empirical work in TCE have been undertaken, one key issue has received relatively little attention – construct validity in TCE empirical research. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the challenges of operationalizing key transaction cost predictions and provide some ideas for better measuring core constructs such as asset specificity, uncertainty, and frequency.

Accessibility design over the past several years has focused much of its attention on the development of a universal standard or a set of guidelines for delivering a diverse array of both content and instructional processes. Universal design for learning (UDL), for example, promotes providing multiple means of (a) representation, (b) action and expression, and (c) engagement for learners who have a wide range of disabilities as well as their typical peers. And while each instructional design element that represents a means of providing the differentiation required by the principle generally has a strong evidence-based support individually, it is difficult to assess any one of them within the larger ULD “multiple means” milieu of options. It is especially difficult to do this in regard to learners associated with any particular disability category. When it comes to targeted instruction, learner characteristics matter. It follows then that when it comes to developing an instructional design, that the learning characteristics of a targeted population be first and foremost considered as the point of departure in the design and development process. This chapter considers a wide range of instructional targets within the context of specific disability groups with a focus on learning goals, instructional design supports for those goals, and underlying cognitive processes that may help clarify the goals themselves as well as the instructional supports to achieve those goals.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact that trustworthiness, comprised of ability, benevolence and integrity, and perceived organizational support (POS) have on trust within a call center and warehousing organization.

A total of 105 employees are surveyed using a 37 item instrument to assess the subjects' responses to POS, trustworthiness and trust as well as demographic characteristics.

Results indicate both POS and integrity are positively related to trust. Based upon a usefulness analysis, integrity accounts for a greater amount of incremental variance in trust than POS.

The results are derived from one organization in the southern United States. While a variety of job titles and skill sets are included, the results may not be generalizable to other types of organizations or geographic areas. Also, the relatively low organizational tenure of the employees may limit the development of trust in this organization.

The main implication of this research is that the integrity of the supervisor has significant impact on the formation of trust between the employee and supervisor.

While previously investigated separately as antecedents to trust, this paper provides data on the combined effect of integrity and POS on employee trust within one organization.

This study examines the perceived benefit of sustainable consumption from a consumer perspective. Communicating corporate social and environmental responsibility is beneficial from a company perspective; however, the advantages for consumers have not yet been sufficiently clarified. We investigated two well-being dimensions as the identified benefit of sustainability. Therefore, an experiment (n = 815) was conducted to identify the influence of different advertisements on social–environmental and emotional well-being while considering the moderating role of consumers’ value orientation. The results revealed that information about sustainability attributes had a significant effect on social–environmental well-being, while the emotionality of the communication had a significant effect on emotional well-being. These effects were partly moderated by consumers’ value orientation: the effect on social–environmental well-being increased with biosphere–altruistic value orientation, whereas the effect on emotional well-being slightly increased with self-enhancement value orientation.

President Bill Clinton has had many opponents and enemies, most of whom come from the political right wing. Clinton supporters contend that these opponents, throughout the Clinton presidency, systematically have sought to undermine this president with the goal of bringing down his presidency and running him out of office; and that they have sought non‐electoral means to remove him from office, including Travelgate, the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, the Filegate controversy, and the Monica Lewinsky matter. This bibliography identifies these and other means by presenting citations about these individuals and organizations that have opposed Clinton. The bibliography is divided into five sections: General; “The conspiracy stream of conspiracy commerce”, a White House‐produced “report” presenting its view of a right‐wing conspiracy against the Clinton presidency; Funding; Conservative organizations; and Publishing/media. Many of the annotations note the links among these key players.

Purpose – We investigate the impact of overlapping crises of COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests on one major US police department, focusing on staffing and officer proactivity.

Methodology/Approach – The study investigates the impact of the two crises on operational capacity. Using Bayesian interrupted time-series analysis, the authors investigate if officer proactivity levels were adversely impacted in the short and long terms.

Findings – A statewide stay-at-home order (SAHO) was associated with a sharp decline in proactive contacts, but that effect dissipated quickly. However, the Floyd protests were associated with a sharp decline in proactivity, which persisted throughout the study period.

Originality/Value – The findings of this study contribute to ongoing research agendas that seek to understand the impact of dual, overlapping crises on US police departments and the communities they serve. The authors demonstrate a methodological approach capable of disentangling both crises’ effects on police activity levels.

We examine how a firm’s market-oriented capabilities (in areas such as R&D or marketing) and consumer focus (business-to-business or business-to-consumer) foster its effectiveness in pursuing corporate political activities. We then explore the sustainability of any advantage that firms may gain from their political activities. We develop a conceptual framework to propose that a firm’s political capabilities to implement different political tactics, such as information provision and constituency building, are a product of how related these tactics are to different market-oriented capabilities and to the skills needed to serve different types of customers. Finally, we propose that the integration of market strategies and political strategies provides new insight into the sustainability of the advantages that a firm might gain through political activities.