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Researchers criticize the transaction cost economics (TCE) paradigm for over- generalizing the assumption of opportunism as part of human nature. However, some suggest that individualists have a higher opportunistic propensity in intra-group transactions, and collectivists in inter-group transactions. This cultural specification of opportunism helps TCE to accommodate more effectively some criticisms and more realistically deal with problems of economic organization in today's global economy. Transaction cost economics was first proposed by Coase and later popularized by Williamson. One of its key building blocks is the assumption of opportunism, because individuals, as Williamson claims, "will not reliably self-enforce promises but will defect from the letter and spirit of an agreement when it suits their purposes". Since, evidently, not all economic players are likely to be opportunistic, such a reliance on the assumption of opportunism has resulted in a torrent of criticisms, calling it dangerous, unhealthy, bad for practice, and an ethereal hand for organizational researchers. A primary reason TCE has provoked such a debate is precisely because it is centered on the assumption of opportunism, which touches on a fundamental question of human nature. To further develop this paradigm it is necessary to respond to the criticisms by clarifying and strengthening this important assumption. To be sure, TCE scholars never assumed that all (or most) individuals are likely to be opportunistic all (or most of) the time - a clearly indefensible position. Instead, most individuals are assumed to be "engaged in business-as-usual, with little or no thought to opportunism, most of the time". However, TCE suggests that it is the inability to differentiate opportunists, who may be a minority, from non-opportunists ex ante that necessitates the assumption of opportunism. TCE?s critics, on the other hand, do not suggest that opportunism does not exist; rather, they caution against an over-reliance on the opportunism assumption because it may not be realistic to hold this assumption constant across individuals and organizations around the world. In order to make further theoretical progress, researchers must tackle the harder and more interesting issues of what kinds of individuals are likely to be opportunists, under what circumstances, and to what extent. Such an improved understanding of opportunism is important in today' s increasingly global economy, in which economic players from different backgrounds routinely interact with each other.