Niklas Lars Hallberg

Senior lecturer

Barriers to Learning in Contracting : An Empirical Exploration of Contracting Capabilities in Buyer-Supplier Relationships

Author

Niklas Lars Hallberg

Summary, in English

Under what conditions do firms in buyer-supplier relationships learn to contract? Contract design capabilities are typically understood as a function of the contractual problems faced by firms. However, a firms’ learning to contract is also likely affected by the organizational and institutional conditions in which contracts are entered. Based on five inductive case studies of buyer-supplier relationships, we explore the potential organizational and institutional learning barriers that are likely to affect the development of contracting capabilities. The result show that firms had arrived at stable contracting processes and that learning beyond this point was modest. Learning was found to be constrained by low levels of organizational integration between technical, commercial and legal tasks, reliance on contractual templates, and the perceived prominence of relational factors.

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