Contracts as Organizations

The purpose of this Article is threefold: first, to describe how theoretical perspectives on contracting have motivated empirical work on contracts; second, to highlight the dominant role of economic theories in framing empirical work on contracts; and third, to enrich the empirical study of contracts through application of four organizational theories: resource theory, learning theory, identity theory, and institutional theory. Outside economics literature, empirical studies of contracts are rare. Even management scholars and sociologists who generate organizational theories largely ignore contracts. Nevertheless, we assert that these organizational theories provide new lenses through which to view contracts and help us understand their multiple purposes.