Contract Enforcement Across Cultures

Abstract

The importance of contract enforcement and formal and informal agreements has recently become an increasingly researched area in management. A major part of this research is the difference between the sociological and management approach and that of the recent developments in organization economics. Recent works in this area include Barney (1990), Eisenhardt (1989) and Noord erhaven (1992). The main purpose of this paper is to try and develop the ideas in these works further with respect to agreements and non-legal forms of contracts. We do this by comparing systems of cooperation and agreements in Eastern Europe, East Asia and Southeast Asia.