Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Correspondence Of Contract And Promise, Jody S. Kraus
The Correspondence Of Contract And Promise, Jody S. Kraus
Faculty Scholarship
Correspondence accounts of the relationship between contract and promise hold either that contract law is justified to the extent it enforces a corresponding moral responsibility for a promise or unjustified to the extent it undermines promissory morality by refusing to enforce a corresponding moral responsibility for a promise. In this Article, I claim that contract scholars have mistakenly presumed that they can assess the correspondence between contract and promise without first providing a theory of self-imposed moral responsibility that explains and justifies the promise principle. I argue that any plausible theory of self-imposed moral responsibility is inconsistent with a strong …
Contracting For Innovation: Vertical Disintegration And Interfirm Collaboration, Ronald J. Gilson, Charles F. Sabel, Robert E. Scott
Contracting For Innovation: Vertical Disintegration And Interfirm Collaboration, Ronald J. Gilson, Charles F. Sabel, Robert E. Scott
Faculty Scholarship
Rapidly innovating industries are not behaving the way theory expects. Conventional industrial organization theory predicts that, when parties in a supply chain have to make transaction-specific investments, the risk of opportunism will drive them away from contracts and toward vertical integration. Despite the conventional theory, however, contemporary practice is moving in the other direction. Instead of vertical integration, we observe vertical disintegration in a significant number of industries, as producers recognize that they cannot themselves maintain cutting-edge technology in every field required for the success of their products. In doing this, the parties are developing forms of contracting beyond the …