Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how contracts are used to build and develop long‐term relationships in contexts where trust cannot be expected in advance – i.e. there is a lack of initial trust. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a qualitative...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the significance of contracts in long‐term relationship building comparing public and private contexts. In order to investigate this, the paper addresses literature about relationship building, negotiation process and the role of...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the links between contractual governance and performance measurement in a value network for public service business, in the context of public transport, by positing service‐dominant logic (S‐D logic) as an alternative paradigm to the...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to deepen the understanding of how service quality factors are stipulated in advance within contracts, in order to ensure the providing of a high‐quality service to the user, when the service is contracted out to an external partner. It aims to identify,...