Partnership contracts require nonopportunistic adaptation and advance warnings before dropping suppliers.

Evidence

Partnership clearly implies something more than what is stated on the order form. It is not merely a question of not buying more than you know you can pay for. It seems rather to involve the following: in exchange for improved performance by the subcontractor on quality and delivery, the client firm will make every effort to guarantee a level of work; furthermore, any adaptations to price, quantity, and delivery are to be made in a nonopportunistic way by both sides, with full disclosure of the relevant information. In particular, this implies that the subcontractor will not be unconditionally dropped if a differential in terms of price or quality emerges with respect to competitors. Rather, clients stated that they operate a system of advance warnings; a reasonable period is allowed to their partner to match the competition. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2602

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘moral contract’ of partnership as nonopportunistic mutual adaptation with full information disclosure—precisely the observable-constraint behavior Hardin’s trust theory requires.
• XREF: ‘Nonopportunistic’ and ‘full disclosure’ map directly onto the Luhmann/Hardin familiarity-versus-opportunism frame from the reading purpose.