Braided Agreements and New Frontiers for Relational Contract Theory

This Article, written for a symposium at Wharton celebrating Ron Gilson's scholarship, assesses Gilson, Sabel & Scott's "braided contracting" thesis, presented in their 2010 article, Braiding: The Interaction of Formal and Informal Contracting in Theory, Practice, and Doctrine. Focusing particularly on the application of the braiding thesis to preliminary agreements, this Article presents new evidence of a preliminary negotiation process called "alpha contracting," used from time to time by the Department of Defense in sole-source situations, that exhibits many of the key characteristics of braided contracting's logic. The piece then turns to the limits of the braiding thesis, identifying a number of new questions for relational contracting research to explore