Are there studies that empirically validate results in contract theory? I have started learning contract theory of late, and I find some of the assumptions and findings of the theory are too technical. Are there empirical studies that have validated concepts in contract theory? Or are there papers that talk about its relevance to practitioners (economists or operations managers)?
An excellent (if slightly old) survey on the empirics of contracts can be found in


  Pierre-André Chiappori and Bernard Salanie (2003) "Testing Contract Theory: A Survey of Some Recent Work", in Advances in Economics and Econometrics, vol 1, M. Dewatripont, L. Hansen and S. Turnovsky eds, Cambridge University Press.


It is mostly non-technical. Bernard Salanie (literally) wrote the book on contract theory. An ungated pdf of the chapter is available here.