The October Issue of the AMJ

| Nicolai Foss |

The October issue of the Academy of Management Journal is the best in a very long time. It contains at least three articles that 1) are excellent and 2) should be of direct interest to O&M readers. They are:

Rekha Krishnan, Xavier Martin and Niels G Noorderhaven. “When Does Trust Matter to Alliance Performance?”. One of the few empirical studies that takes seriously the Williamsonian distinction between behavioral uncertainty and environmental uncertainty.
Kyle J Mayer and Robert M Salomon. “Capabilities, Contractual Hazards and Governance: Integrating Resource-based and Transaction Cost Perspectives” (WP version here). The latest paper in a small but expanding literature that empirically integrates TCE and RBV. Argues that strong internal technological capabilities may ease outsourcing.
Stephen J Carson, Anoop Madhok, and Tao Wu. “Uncertainty, Opportunism, and Governance: The Effects of Volatility and Ambiguity on Formal and Relational Contracting.” Clearly distinguishes between the effects of ambiguity and the effects of volatility on opportunism, and compares the effectiveness of relational and contractual governance with respect to constraining opportunism under these two situations. Interesting that Madhok seems to be coming full circle round to TCE.