Hybrid organizational forms such as franchise systems join two or more independent parties under a contract. The ability of each party to achieve its goals depend upon the relative bargaining power in the relationship established by the contract. Using transaction cost economics and Porter’s (1980) characterization of sources of bargaining power, this paper argues that the franchisor can make i...

Purpose –This paper examines the inter-organisational processes used to control international master franchise agreements from operational, relational and evolutionary perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – The research is undertaken through a qualitative, in depth case study in the international hotel industry. The case comprises an international master franchise agreement between a large...

In this paper we show that fixed-term contracts, which are commonly used to franchise highways, do not allocate demand risk optimally. We characterize the optimal risk-sharing contract and show that it can be implemented with a fairly straightforward mechanism—a least-present-value-of-revenue auction. Instead of bidding on tolls (or franchise lengths), as in the case of fixed-term franchises, i...

This paper describes the Contract Expression Language (CEL), currently being developed at the industry consortium Content Reference Forum. The CEL is an XMLbased language designed to express contractual agreements between different parties for the purposes of capturing and communicating contractual information, and facilitating contract execution and enforcement by machines with respect to gran...

Our purpose in this paper is to provide an overview of what we know about alliance contracts. After a short introduction to the contents of alliance contracts, we start by contrasting alliance contractual form and governance form. Next, we focus on two related constructs: contractual complexity and contractual completeness. We suggest that contractual complexity is a more adequate construct to ...

A core business enterprise function is trading with other business organizations. Such trade relationships are governed by legal contracts. The obligations and fulfillment conditions as stipulated in a business contract demand performance of business activities in the pre-defined choreography. Non-performance could lead to serious legal and/or financial implications. Therefore, it is essential ...

Online purchase and delivery of goods and services requires an electronic contracting process. Formalization of contractual content enables automatic delivery of services and monitoring of the terms and conditions of the contract at service runtime. The Simple Obligation and Right Model (SORM) provides an abstract, domain-independent model of contractual content. Model instances can be interpre...

A companies outsource more product design and manufacturing activities to other members of the supply chain, improving end-product quality has become an endeavor extending beyond the boundaries of the firms’ in-house process capabilities. In this paper, we discuss two contractual agreements by which product recall costs can be shared between a manufacturer and a supplier to induce quality impro...