Download or read book Contract Formalization and Governance of Exporter-Importer Relationships written by Preet S. Aulakh and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exporting relationships between manufacturers and foreign importers pose unique coordination problems because, on the one hand, transactions are recurrent and both firms make non-trivial relationship-specific investments, but at the same time, the exchange partners maintain separate legal entities with individual profit claims. This study examines the role of contracts as a governance mechanism in these relationships that are neither market-based discrete transactions, nor can be governed through ownership-based hierarchies. Drawing upon recent research on contract law and interorganizational relationships, we develop and empirically test a model that incorporates both the antecedents and performance implications of the nature of contract governing exporter-importer relationships.