Although economic theory has emphasized that moral hazard and hold-up problems influence the design of contracts, very little is known about the process by which explicit contracts are established and the effect of contractual arrangements on firm performance. This paper attempts to demonstrate...

The question of how initial resource endowments-the stocks of resources that entrepreneurs contribute to their new ventures at the time of founding-affect organizational life chances is one of significant interest in organizational ecology, evolutionary theory, and entrepreneurship research....