Relational Governance Mechanisms and their effect on Contractual Completeness : A case study within a top European company in the Oil & Gas Industry

Sammanfattning: This document investigates the relationship between the usage of relational forms of governance and the completeness of contractual documents. It further examines howthis relationship is presided by the development of social norms between contracting parties. A case study was conducted within Company X, a top European company in the Energy Sector, where interviews to managers and contractual documents were inspected for aqualitative analysis of the aforementioned relationship. The results indicate that the employment of relational governance mechanisms does affect contractual completeness on one of its two dimensions: contingency adaptability. This aspect is enhanced as relational norms are interwoven in the exchange agreement. A clear connection with the second dimension, term specificity, could not be identified, and is instead attributed to contextual idiosyncrasies such as industry type andgovernance structure design. A theoretical model depicting this phenomenon was developed, including mediating effects by situational variables.