The Organizational Contract

This book introduces and develops the paradigm of the organisational contract in European contract law. Suggesting that a more radical distinction should be made between contracts which regulate single or spot exchanges and contracts that organize complex economic activities without creating a new legal entity, the book argues that this distinction goes beyond that between spot and relational contracts because it focuses on the organizational dimension of contracting and its governance features. Divided into six parts, the volume brings together a group of internationally renowned experts to examine the structure of long-term contractual cooperation; networks of contracts; knowledge exchange in long-term contractual cooperation; remedies and specific governance rules in long-term relationships; and the move towards legislation. The book will be of value to academics and researchers in the areas of private law, economic theory and sociology of law, and organizational theory. It will also be a useful resource for practitioners working in international contract law and international business transaction law.

The organizational, social and psychological meanings of contracts, both written and unwritten, are the focus of this volume. The author addresses a number of important topics including contract making, interpretation of contracts, contract violations, strategies for changing contracts and contracts evolving from circumstances relevant to the 1990s. In addition, a thought-provoking discussion of how contracts are linked to an organization's strategy and its human resource practices is included. The book concludes with an assessment of societal trends that point to large scale changes in future employment contracts.

A graduate textbook on microeconomics, covering decision theory, game theory, and the foundations of contract theory, with a unique focus on the empirical. This graduate-level text on microeconomics, covering such topics as decision theory, game theory, bargaining theory, contract theory, trade under asymmetric information, and relational contract theory, is unique in its emphasis on the interplay between theory and evidence. It reviews the microeconomic theory of exchange “from the ground up,” aiming to produce a set of models and hypotheses amenable to empirical exploration, with particular focus on models that are useful for the study of contracts, institutions, and organizations. It explores research that extends price theory to the exchange of commodities when markets are incomplete, discussing recent developments in the field. Topics covered include the relationship between theory and evidence; decision theory as it is used in contract theory and institutional design; game theory; axiomatic and strategic bargaining theory; agency theory and the class of models that are considered to constitute contract theory, with discussions of moral hazard and trade with asymmetric information; and the theory of relational contracts. The final chapter offers a nontechnical review that provides a guide to which model is the most appropriate for a particular application. End-of-chapter exercises help students expand their understanding of the material, and an appendix provides brief introduction to optimization theory and the welfare theorem of general equilibrium theory. Students are assumed to be familiar with general equilibrium theory and basic constrained optimization theory.

Contracts in employment are of two kinds: the formal, written contract and the equally important, informal and unwritten psychological contract—how people think they should be treated. Both involve rights, obligations and expectations on the part of the employer and the employee, and a breach in one can have important effects on the other. For example, how people feel they are being treated by the organization can affect their perception of their levels of pay. Organizations and the Psychological Contract has two main aims in exploring these issues: to act as a handbook for practicing managers, and as a basic text in management courses. Organizations and the Psychological Contract has two main aims in exploring these issues in the organizational context: to act as a handbook for practicing managers, and as a basic text in management courses. Relevant theories are explained and developed using practical examples, self-assessment exercises, and case studies. This is a revised and much expanded version of Managing People at Work, with the addition of chapters on Selection and Career Development, Understanding and Coping with Change, Empowerment and Self-Management, and the Behavioural Approach to Motivation. As well as undertaking research into many aspects of organizational life, the authors have many years' experience as consultants, acting for industrial and commercial organizations in all sectors of the economy.

The relationships between workers and firms are changing worldwide. Nowhere is this more evident than in the psychological contracts of employment - that is, the obligations workers owe to their employer, and vice versa. Psychological Contracts In Employment contains the cross-national perspectives of organizational scholars from 13 countries to examine how societies differ in the nature of psychological contracts in employment and how global business initiatives are bridging these differences. The author team assembled by Editors Denise Rousseau and René Schalk includes social scientists with deep knowledge of the particular societies they describe, and whose personal scholarship involves psychological contract phenomena locally as well as abroad. Readers of Denise Rousseau′s award-winning book Psychological Contracts in Organizations (Sage, 1995), will welcome the extension of this ground-breaking work into the global arena. Both the introductory and concluding chapters, written by the editors, provide several themes to structure and frame the book′s content. Every chapter in this volume maintains a clear focus on the importance of a cross-cultural perspective on psychological contracts for today′s managers, social scientists, and public policy makers.

Businesses and organizations today are entering into more - and increasingly complex - contracts. The need for contract managers and administrators to add tangible value to an organization's contracting process is increasing. This book is designed to examine all major contracting activities, using a life cycle approach, enabling contract managers and administrators to add value throughout the contracting process.Effective contract management means excelling at many different aspects of contracting, including: understanding the organizational needs that a contract must meet, knowing your supplier, executing effective negotiations, creating contracts and managing them throughout their term. Review the major phases of the contracting life cycle and develop a broad understanding of the context within which contracting activities take place.

When should organisations contract out services traditionally produced in-house? Based on over a decade of research and consulting experience, this book develops an analytical decision-making framework for assessing contracting options.