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This chapter addresses social embeddedness effects on ex ante management of economic transactions. We focus on dyadic embeddedness, that is the history of prior transactions between business partners and the anticipation of future transactions. Ex ante management through, for example, contractual arrangements is costly but mitigates risks associated with the transaction, such as risks from strategic and opportunistic behavior. Dyadic embeddedness can reduce such risks and, hence, the need for ex ante management by, for instance, making reciprocity and conditional cooperation feasible. The chapter presents a novel theoretical model generating dyadic embeddedness effects, together with effects of transaction characteristics and management costs. We stress the interaction of the history of prior transactions and expectations of future business. Hypotheses are tested using new and primary data from an extensive survey of more than 900 purchases of information technology (IT) products (hard- and software) by almost 800 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Results support, in particular, the hypotheses on effects of dyadic embeddedness.

This paper study regional attractiveness through passive portfolio investment based on duration, immunization and convexity (in case of higher interest rate volatility) of municipal bonds by using data from Standard and Poor’s. The massive variety of financial incentives to promote regional investment attractiveness is dependent on governmental strategy. Municipal bonds are the one of the most efficient ways of direct investments in the region, however, it is still a question of a good balance between a certain rate of return and an adequate risk. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the investment opportunities in municipal revenue bonds.

This study developed a model of investing using municipal bonds with the case of their immunization and analyze attractiveness of such investment. The theoretical model assumes a situation where the local government finances its capital projects through municipal revenue bonds. Such situations influence strongly on regional or local competitiveness provided by local government policy.

An analysis of the municipal bond market indicates that both municipal general and revenue bonds had stable and good level of yields to maturity in the past ten years. Their standard deviations were very low and in the past two years almost approached the level of standard deviations of treasury bonds. With the duration of 4–6 years on 5-year investment in municipal revenue bonds and their immunization, it is possible to provide good returns for investor.

The limitation of this study concerns theoretical situation where local government will use non-market-based policy to reduce the interest rates and that will influence on rise of municipal bond liquidity premium (price distortion). This situation will make municipality bonds less attractive for investing, especially because of lower liquidity on secondary market. Also, this model is applicable in regions that have developed financial markets.

This research suggests governments a sustainable framework to use municipal bonds as a strategy for capital targeting in regions.

This research is related to professional investors’ strategy with projects that have the highest investment potential; this is good way for an adequate allocation of resources (regional competitiveness).

This paper analyzes very rare subject involving local government strategy of finance and portfolio investment in municipal bonds. There is a huge gap in the literature on this issue. Also, this study provides the model that can be used as a case for higher local competitiveness.

New business models, such as life‐cycle contracting, challenge the narrow and static understanding of contracts with hard and precise terms. The aim of this paper is to examine how flexibility could be incorporated into contracting processes.

The data of the paper have been gathered applying the triangular method; first, by interviewing key personnel participating in contracting at eight Finnish firms; second, examining contract and other documents of those companies; and third, studying earlier research on contracting practices. Theoretically, the paper is based on relational contract and proactive approaches to law on the one hand and on organizational studies based on new institutional economics on the other.

Flexibility is often introduced to contracts with relational methods, relying on good personal relationships between business partners or negotiation power and negotiation skills. Contract documents often do not contain mechanisms for dealing with contingencies, or “soft” contract terms. The paper finds the following reasons that may explain this. First, firms heavily rely on model contracts to develop their own templates and the lack of contract models in new business areas hinders firms to develop their templates. Second, unfamiliarity with using soft elements makes it difficult to use them. Additionally, in some cases firms may prefer using relational capability.

The findings need verification from further multidisciplinary empirical research.

The findings support firms in developing their contracting capabilities to meet the requirements of the changing business environment and gain competitive advantage from well‐organized contracting.

This paper is one of the first empirical studies comprising also the legal approach.

The M&A literature lacks coherence and consistency when explaining the role of CEO power in influencing post-acquisition firm performance in both theoretical and empirical terms. This study uses meta-analytic techniques to quantitatively synthesize and evaluate the impact of 11 CEO power constructs (CEO duality; compensation; ownership; founder CEO; acquisition experience; functional area experience; outside directorship; elite education; CEO celebrity; age; and tenure) on acquiring firms’ post-acquisition performance. Results of 85 independent studies show that CEO ownership, functional area experience, and tenure are significantly positive predictors for better acquisition performance. At the same time, CEO duality and CEO elite education are significantly negative predictors of different measures of acquisition performance. These findings indicate the importance of integrating different theories to enhance our understanding of the nature of strategic leadership in acquisition performance.

Corporate social responsibility describes the role that society expects of business organizations. Because it is difficult to see societal norms in one's own society, comparative law can help us increase the salience of those norms in our own community. Looking at how a set of business laws uniform across 16 West and Central African countries lives in one of the member states, Cameroon, we see that society expresses its norms not only when behavior tracks the positive law, but also, and very importantly, when it diverges from that law. After studying examples of divergence in the South, specifically in the African country Cameroon, the chapter turns to the North. Using the United States as the illustration, and focusing on the role of business entities, the chapter identifies ways of opening the discussion among all political constituents, even those outside the traditional business community.

Rational choice theory has numerous implications for the analysis of organizational governance structures. This chapter reviews some of these applications. The main emphasis is on relational contracting. It will be argued that repeated games theory, that is, a variant of rational choice that deals with rational agents who repeatedly interact, can explain the outcomes of relational contracting. There is some controversy about the merits of rational choice explanations. Can they deal with inefficient structures and their (alleged) stability, with path dependence and mimetic processes? Many of these issues have been addressed by new sociological institutionalists. It is argued that rational choice analysis is in fact consistent with many of these observations. There is, in other words, some convergence between rational choice and institutionalist approaches.

This paper examines ongoing research (Blass & Carr, 2006) exploring the development of future leaders using new and innovative approaches. Research asking experienced leaders about what they wish they had known 10 years ago is used to provide an insight into the critical incidents that shaped these leaders' careers. These critical incidents were used as the basis for an innovative leadership development programme for the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) which is further examined in this paper.

The paper aims to contribute to the stream of research on empowerment by investigating the construct of psychological empowerment among Greek public employees. The primary objective is to further the limited amount of empirical research on the concept of empowerment as “experienced” by those working in public administration. Specifically, the study aims to extend the empowerment literature by determining the transferability of Menon's instrument in a Greek public service context; and by examining the relationship between psychological empowerment and internal service climate, defined here as employee quality perceptions of internal service encounters.

The paper is based on 330 surveys from tax officers in a mid‐sized town in Northern Greece.

Factor, reliability, correlation, and regression analyses were performed providing satisfactory results. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses faithfully reproduced the three dimensions suggested by Menon – namely perceived control, perceived competence and goal internalization – in a culturally diverse environment compared to the original study. Also, support was provided for the usefulness of the measure in the Greek tax administration. In addition, internal service climate was positively associated with psychological empowerment according to expectations.

It may be relevant for future research to replicate the present study in other types of Greek public organizations utilizing probabilistic sampling techniques. Longitudinal and/or quasi‐experimental research designs might be employed to address issues of causality. Ways of dealing with common method variance also need to be given consideration. Further, examining the predictive validity of individual and contextual antecedents and consequences of psychological empowerment identified in the private sector, investigating the nature of these relationships (causational, mediational, or moderational), and incorporating organizational effectiveness indices in the proposed model should enhance our understanding of the dynamic nature of the variables analyzed.

Results demonstrate the transferability of Menon's instrument in a culturally diverse work environment. In addition, the applicability of the scale in a Greek public service context is well illustrated. The link between an under‐researched facet of organizational climate, namely internal service climate, to psychological empowerment is highlighted and discussed. To the knowledge of the researchers, no prior study has attempted to investigate these issues in Greek public organizations.

Markets-as-networks (MAN) theorists contend, at least tacitly, the significance of business relationships to the firm – that is, business relationships contribute somewhat to corporate survival or growth. One does not deny the existence of significant business relationships but sustain, in contrast to the consensus within the MAN theory, that relationship significance should not be a self-evident assumption. For significance cannot be a taken-for-granted property of each and every one of the firm's business relationships. The authors adopt explicitly a critical realist meta-theoretical position in this conceptual paper and claim that relationship significance is an event of the business world, whose causes remain yet largely unidentified. Where the powers and liabilities of business relationships (i.e., relationship functions and dysfunctions) are put to work, inevitably under certain contingencies (namely the surrounding networks and markets), relationship effects ensue for the firm (often benefits in excess of sacrifices, i.e., relationship value) and as a consequence relationship significance is likely to be brought about. In addition, relationship significance can result from the dual impact that business relationships may have on the structure and powers and liabilities of the firm, that is, on corporate nature and scope, respectively.