The role of implicit contracts: Building public works in the 1840s in Portugal

Mata, Eugénia

doi:10.1080/00076790701853421

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…19 Substantial anecdotal or partial evidence of the pervasiveness of implicit contracts can be drawn from a variety of contexts in which relationship is preferred to contract. Examples occur in the business history literature on complex infrastructure projects, 20 in the international management literature on German and Japanese corporate governance systems, 21 and in the cross-cultural management literature on Chinese managers' decision-making, 22 to list but a few.…”

Section: Contracts For Novel Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Theoretical Exploration of Consumer Engineering: Implicit Contracts and Market Making

Godley

Heron

2019

Consumer Engineering, 1920s–1970s

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The growing literature exploring the emergence of modern marketing has concentrated on the periodization of different marketing techniques coming into usage, the retailing of different product categories, the internationalization of retail formats, and advertising practices. 1 But recent research has begun to focus on deliberate attempts to elicit consumer spending on novel products by firms and marketing specialists. This more recent literature explores how specialists, in particular designers and market researchers, in the middle decades of the twentieth century began to move away from a product-focused approach to one that placed the consumer at the center of marketing initiatives. This development was also associated with the move away from marketing as simply a promotional activity toward strategic marketing instead. Now marketing management informed the entire organization of activities within the firm. 2 The near paradox of this mid-century movement was that while its adherents were intent on the primacy of consumer interests, consumer agency was viewed with suspicion. In 1952, the German-American market researcher Alfred Politz emphasized that "consumers do not know what they want and why they act." 3 With consumers so resistant to the active search for answers to their problems, specialists had to step in to diagnose and solve their problems for them. 4 These specialist market researchers and product designers developed tools and techniques to elicit the explication of previously unarticulated consumer preferences. This was consumer engineering.The historical debates on consumer engineering, on whether or not it was beneficial to or exploitative of consumers, are summarized elsewhere in this volume. This chapter aims to use economic reasoning to explain why consumer engineering was so successful.

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Section: Contracts For Novel Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Theoretical Exploration of Consumer Engineering: Implicit Contracts and Market Making

Godley

Heron

2019

Consumer Engineering, 1920s–1970s

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“…Substantial anecdotal or partial evidence of the pervasiveness of implicit contracts can be drawn from a variety of contexts where relationship is preferred to contract. Examples occur in the business history literature on complex infrastructure projects (Mata, ) or in the international management literature on German and Japanese corporate governance systems (Jenkinson and Mayer, ), or in the cross‐cultural management literature on Chinese managers' decision making (Graham and Lam, ), to list but a few.…”

Section: Overcoming Costly Pre‐purchase Specification With Credible Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Implicit Contracts, and Market Making for Complex Consumer Goods

Godley

2013

Strategic Entrepreneurship

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This article extends the theory of entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation, outlining how under certain conditions, opportunity exploitation is dependent on market making innovations. Where adverse selection and moral hazard characterize markets, consumers are likely to withdraw regardless of product quality. In order to overcome consumer resistance, entrepreneurs must signal credible commitments. But because consumers purchase without fully specifying requirements, entrepreneurs' commitments take the partial form of implicit contracts, creating strong mutual commitments to repeated transactions. These commitments enable novel markets to function, but introduce additional costs. This article illustrates the theory with the historic case of Singer in sewing machines. © 2013 The Author. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Strategic Management Society.

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The Portuguese railway in time and space – mapping phases of growth, stagnation, and decline (1845–2015)

Isidoro

Marat-Mendes

Tângari

2017

Planning Perspectives

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The role of implicit contracts: Building public works in the 1840s in Portugal

Cited by 3 publications

References 12 publications

A Theoretical Exploration of Consumer Engineering: Implicit Contracts and Market Making

A Theoretical Exploration of Consumer Engineering: Implicit Contracts and Market Making

Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Implicit Contracts, and Market Making for Complex Consumer Goods

The Portuguese railway in time and space – mapping phases of growth, stagnation, and decline (1845–2015)

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