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In this exploratory study of university--industry sponsored research agreements, we investigate how organizational roles direct the relational learning of contracting personnel, which subsequently influences contract evolution. Integrating theory with comments [...]

The influence of previous interorganizational relations on contract design within the information technology services industry is investigated. Findings revealed that prior relations can result in interorganizational inertia, which influences companies to employ the same degree of contingency planning in future contracts. The significance of governance choices for previous and current contracts is also analyzed.

This study explores the process of organizational change by examining localized social learning in organizational subunits. Specifically, we examine participation in university technology transfer, a new organizational initiative, by tracking 1,780 faculty members, examining their backgrounds and work environments, and following their engagement with academic entrepreneurship. We find that individual adoption of the new initiative may be either substantive or symbolic. Our results suggest that individual attributes, while important, are conditioned by the local work environment. In terms of personal attributes, individuals are more likely to participate if they trained at institutions that had accepted the new initiative and been active in technology transfer. In addition, we find that the longer the time that had elapsed since graduate training, the less likely the individual was to actively embrace the new commercialization norm. Considering the localized social environment, we find that when the chair of the department is active in technology transfer, other members of the department are also likely to participate, if only for symbolic reasons. We also find that technology transfer behavior is calibrated by the experience of those in the relevant cohort. If an individual can observe others with whom they identify engaging in the new initiative, then they are more likely to follow with substantive compliance. Finally, when individuals face dissonance, a situation where their individual training norms are not congruent with the localized social norms in their work environment, they will conform to the local norms, rather than adhering to the norms from their prior experience. Key words: organizational change; entrepreneurship; localized learning; technology transfer, Change, through the pursuit of new strategic initiatives, is essential to organizational survival (Van de Ven 1986). All too often, however, organizations fail to adapt to exogenous shifts in their [...]

An increasing volume of business activity appears to be occurring via alliances or other interfirm arrangements in which complex contracts are featured, yet there has been relatively little study of [...]

Our study investigates the antecedents and performance implications of cooperative exchange norms. We argue that, in early relationships, the level of expected cooperative norms in an exchange is the result [...]

The economic success of industrial clusters like Silicon Valley has prompted governments to replicate the growth factors in the local economy. The reasons for the growth and development of these places into mature industrial clusters are described.

Research summary: A key strategic decision for many firms is the scope of their relationships with partners. Existing theories of relationship scope are limited in that they disregard the facts that: (a) most firms transact within networks of multiple partners, and (b) these partnerships often involve two‐sided moral hazard. We develop a theory of partnership scope in interfirm networks that addresses these deficiencies. We show how, by broadening the scope of business it conducts with its partners, a firm can reduce externalities between them, and thereby sustain self‐enforcing exchange relationships ("relational contracts") in which both parties cooperate with each other repeatedly and maximize the value created. We discuss numerous settings in which our model applies, including franchising, supply chains, and platform‐based ecosystems. Managerial summary: A key strategic decision for many firms is the number of transactions or activities they conduct with a given supplier, business customer, or company that sells complementary products or services. We offer a theory to explain why firms often prefer relationships with broader scope. Whereas other theories are based on the ability to leverage partner knowledge or cheaper supervision, our theory is based on the concept of a "relational contract", in which a firm and its partner cooperate with each other repeatedly according to an informal agreement between them. We show that under relational contracting, broader scope relationships encourage better mutual cooperation than narrow scope relationships, thereby maximizing the value created by them. We discuss how our model applies to franchising, supply chains, and platform‐based ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]