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...