Contract Law, Relational Contracts, and Reputational Networks in International Trade: An Empirical Investigation into Cross-Border Contracts in the Software Industry

Abstract

The following case study investigates the contract enforcement institutions that enable German customers to purchase software in Asia and Eastern Europe. The case study shows that nation‐states are hardly able to generate a legal “shadow” for cross‐border business relations. The same holds true for the so‐called New Lex Mercatoria. Instead, economic actors create their own informal mechanisms. Relational contracts and reputational networks are nowadays far more effective due to developments in the field of information and communication technology. Overall, the importance of formal contract law in international trade is even smaller than is assumed by the classic theory of relational contracts.

L’agriculture sous contrat : quelles perspectives sociologiques ?

“…Pour cela, elle restitue des travaux empiriques sur les pratiques contractuelles montrant l'influence des routines d'organisation collective, des formes d'organisation du travail ou des liens de solidarité sur l'architecture du contrat. Ces exemples peuvent être relus à la lumière de travaux plus conceptuels qui réinscrivent la relation contractuelle dans des relations dont la temporalité dépasse celle de l'instrument formel (Dietz, 2012 ;Macaulay, 1963). Ils font aussi écho aux travaux en sociologie économique sur « l'encastrement social » des activités économiques (Granovetter, 1985 ;Uzzi, 1996).…”

Contracts as Compliance Mechanisms: Legal Intermediation and the Failure of French Retail Regulation

“…The ability of large organizations to circumvent anti-discrimination law has lied in the intrinsic weakness of those legal devices. By contrast, since they determine with whom and how they collaborate, contracts are at the heart of large corporations' business strategy (Dietz, 2012;Granovetter, 1985;Li-wen & Whitford, 2013). Standing between the public and the private legal orders, contracts are inherently ambiguous legal objects that perform symbolic compliance and key business functions at the time.…”

Pharmaceutical Public-Private Partnerships in the United States and Europe: Moving from the Bench to the Bedside

“…99 Similarly, a study of German contracts for the purchase of software in Asia and Eastern Europe found that German companies use formal contracts "as a communication document," which is especially important when there are "no common sociocultural norms that could implicitly govern the exchange beyond the contract itself." 100 As one German expert put it, "…”