This book introduces the research agenda of relational economics as a political economy for the governance of local and global economic transactions in modern societies. It analyses the mechanisms of global value creation and production networks by studying cooperation in intra- and inter-firm networks, intersectoral stakeholder management, and transcultural leadership. The author develops a categorical taxonomy for private and public value creation based on the effective and efficient interlinking of, and interaction between, a range of resources and abilities. In contrast to mainstream economics, which largely focuses on the laws of discrete and dyadic exchange transactions, this book assesses the polyvalent characteristics of relational transactions. The chief categories involved in an economic theory of the relations between events are the relational transactions and their various forms of governance; the polycontextual cooperation between economic, political and civil society agents; and the factor incomes and relational rents that relational transactions produce. Today, relational transactions are the rule, not the exception, in modern economies and their global value creation networks. Given its scope and focus, this book will appeal to scholars of economics, economic sociology, organisational studies and related fields.

Prof. Josef Wieland is the Chair of Institutional Economics, Organizational Governance, Integrity Management & Transcultural Leadership, and Director of the Leadership Excellence Institute Zeppelin (LEIZ) at Zeppelin University, Germany. He is an expert in the field of responsibility, values, and compliance in local and global production networks. With more than 20 years of research experience in the field, he initiated the Forum Compliance & Integrity (FCI). He chaired the German Network of Business Ethics (DNWE) and is a member of, e.g., the National CSR Forum and the jury for the German government's CSR Award. During Germany's G20 presidency in 2016/2017, Prof. Wieland co-chaired the working group on "Sustainability in Global Value Chains" as part of the Think20 process. In 2004, he received the highly estimated State Research Prize for Applied Research from the State of Baden-Württemberg. Since 2017, he is Vice-President (Research) of Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany.