IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-030-65099-5_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Social Science of Contracting

In: Contracting in the New Economy

Author

Listed:
  • David Frydlinger

    (Cirio Law Firm)

  • Kate Vitasek

    (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)

  • Jim Bergman

    (Commercial Officers Group, Inc)

  • Tim Cummins

    (World Commerce & Contracting)

Abstract

In this chapter, the Social Science of Contracting is given thorough and deserved attention. Stewart Macaulay astutely observed that in business, the commercial activities are carried out in a social context. While the written contract and legal guidance matters, social norms often matter much more. While Macaulay’s research sparked the conversation, the original thinking behind the importance of social norms in contracting can be traced back to Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of sociology. Durkheim’s research, as well as that of many other scholars, is explored. A vital aspect of the relational contract is, as we will see, to deliberately leverage these social norms to the benefit of both parties, not least by lowering friction between the parties. Contracting professionals need a solid understanding of the social side of contracts and the role of social norms in all commercial relationships, and this chapter enables that understanding.

Suggested Citation

  • David Frydlinger & Kate Vitasek & Jim Bergman & Tim Cummins, 2021. "The Social Science of Contracting," Springer Books, in: Contracting in the New Economy, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 45-54, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-65099-5_4
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-65099-5_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-65099-5_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.