Stewart Macaulay

Bio: Stewart Macaulay is an academic researcher from University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author has contributed to research in topics: Legal realism & Empirical legal studies. The author has an hindex of 17, co-authored 47 publications receiving 3578 citations. Previous affiliations of Stewart Macaulay include Yale University.

Non-contractual relations in business: a preliminary study

Abstract: Preliminary findings indicate that businessmen often fail to plan exchange relationships completely, and seldom use legal sanctions to adjust these relationships or to settle disputes. Planning and legal sanctions are often unnecessary and may have undesirable consequences. Transactions are planned and legal sanctions are used when the gains are thought to outweigh the costs. The power to decide whether the gains from using contract outweigh the costs will be held by individuals having different occupational roles. The occupational role influences the decision that is made.

The Real and the Paper Deal: Empirical Pictures of Relationships, Complexity and the Urge for Transparent Simple Rules

Abstract: Assume that contract law matters, at least in some subset of all the situations where people consider making or do make contracts. Also assume that contract law should rest to a large extent on choice or responsibility for misleading others about one’s choices. Making these assumptions, we must be concerned with how the legal system deals with the expectations of the parties. One approach is formal. Judges can limit themselves to dealing with only the formal expressions of the parties—the paper deal. They need ask only whether the parties signed or accepted a document, and if they did, what is the ‘plain meaning’ of the words they used. Sometimes, writings labeled ‘contract’ do capture many if not most of the expectations of those who sign them.

Elegant Models, Empirical Pictures, and the Complexities of Contract

Abstract: Studies in nations with different social and economic systems indicate that the norms of contract law are seldom applied through the litigation process and that disputes are avoided or settled where there is a long-term relationship between the parties. Yet legal scholarship, as well as many proposals for reform, continue to be based on a picture of the contracts lawsuit, to a great extent. It is likely that this distortion is prompted by overgeneralization from a nonrepresentative sample of possible and actual disputes, and by the indirect influence of legal norms; it may also express the needs of legal scholars and reformers. It is questionable whether capitalist, socialist, or mixed economic systems would benefit if more disputes were resolved by the application of officially sanctioned contract norms.

Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness

Abstract: How behavior and institutions are affected by social relations is one of the classic questions of social theory. This paper concerns the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of social relations, in modern industrial society. Although the usual neoclasical accounts provide an "undersocialized" or atomized-actor explanation of such action, reformist economists who attempt to bring social structure back in do so in the "oversocialized" way criticized by Dennis Wrong. Under-and oversocialized accounts are paradoxically similar in their neglect of ongoing structures of social relations, and a sophisticated account of economic action must consider its embeddedness in such structures. The argument in illustrated by a critique of Oliver Williamson's "markets and hierarchies" research program.

The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and Sources of Interorganizational Competitive Advantage

Abstract: In this article we offer a view that suggests that a firm's critical resources may span firm boundaries and may be embedded in interfirm resources and routines. We argue that an increasingly important unit of analysis for understanding competitive advantage is the relationship between firms and identify four potential sources of interorganizational competitive advantage: (1) relation-specific assets, (2) knowledge-sharing routines, (3) complementary resources/capabilities, and (4) effective governance. We examine each of these potential sources of rent in detail, identifying key subprocesses, and also discuss the isolating mechanisms that serve to preserve relational rents. Finally, we discuss how the relational view may offer normative prescriptions for firm-level strategies that contradict the prescriptions offered by those with a resource-based view or industry structure view.

The Evolution of Cooperation

Abstract: Cooperation in organisms, whether bacteria or primates, has been a difficulty for evolutionary theory since Darwin. On the assumption that interactions between pairs of individuals occur on a probabilistic basis, a model is developed based on the concept of an evolutionarily stable strategy in the context of the Prisoner's Dilemma game. Deductions from the model, and the results of a computer tournament show how cooperation based on reciprocity can get started in an asocial world, can thrive while interacting with a wide range of other strategies, and can resist invasion once fully established. Potential applications include specific aspects of territoriality, mating, and disease.

Not So Different After All: A Cross-Discipline View Of Trust

Abstract: Our task is to adopt a multidisciplinary view of trust within and between firms, in an effort to synthesize and give insight into a fundamental construct of organizational science. We seek to identify the shared understandings of trust across disciplines, while recognizing that the divergent meanings scholars bring to the study of trust also can add value.