Transaction Costs

""This article investigates land transactions in relation to intended land use change from a micro-scale perspective. A better understanding of land transactions is important for understanding and influencing how land is used. The aim is to explore how the different aspects and their interrelations influence landowner behaviour during land transactions initiated by the government. The study draws on 42 explorative interviews with land purchasers, land policy experts, planning professionals and local farmers.

The study shows that uncertainty, and feelings of justice are pivotal aspects during land transactions. Moreover, land transactions are co-evolving with the planning process. Landowners exhibit strategic behaviour based on their personal situation and their expectations on uncertain aspects. The strategies are strongly interrelated with the evolution of land use change. Land use changes are both input on which actors base their strategies, as well as the outcome of those strategies. The aspects found in this study were strongly interrelated and changed over time. Some aspects were context dependent, while others are expected to influence land transactions in general. In this light, the strength of a successful planner is twofold: on the one hand a planner needs to be a good communicator; on the other hand a planner should be able to deal with uncertainty and expectations during plan processes.""

In the past decade, international entrepreneurship has centered largely on the internationalization of small- to medium-sized enterprises through dispersed production networks. Although network relationships are crucial in entrepreneurial internationalization, the dynamics underlying the establishment and coordination of interfirm linkages remain uncertain and unclear. Using a global value chain framework, this article uses a case study to explore how two small enterprises engage in the establishment of a cross-border alliance. Findings suggest that the global value chain approach provides a better understanding of the governance of global relationships. The study also denotes the room for further improvement in this area

This qualitative study examines the role of clients in petty corruption by analyzing actual corrupt exchanges between ordinary citizens and low level public and private employees in post-communist Hungary. Using a grounded theory approach, interviews reveal how clients from different social strata deal with low-level agents in corrupt situations. Findings suggest two contrasting forms of low-level corruption: transactions where the client and the agent do not have a prior relationship and where external factors dominate the relationship; and cases with stronger social ties between the actors, where the client has more freedom to structure the transaction. However, a client's social background frequently determines the form of corrupt transaction and the form of resources illegally exchanged in the deal.

""Corruption has become one of the most popular topics in the social scientific disciplines. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary communication about corruption. Models developed by different
academic disciplines are often isolated from each other. The purpose of this paper is to review several major approaches to corruption and draw them closer to each other. Most studies of corruption fall
into three major categories: (i) rational-actor models where corruption is viewed as resulting from cost/benefit analysis of individual actors; (ii) structural models that focus on external forces that determine corruption; and (iii) relational models that emphasize social interactions and networks among corrupt actors. Focusing on actors’ behavior and the social context, this article explains corruption concepts taken from sociology, economics, organization studies, political science, social anthropology, and social psychology.""