Early Offers

[qwert]

So, I saw on the wiki that the people who got the fly-out at Mount St. Mary have been informed that they want to have a contract signed at the end of January. I have also heard of other schools being under pressure to hire someone before positions get axed.

I'm curious if anyone here knows what the recommended behavior is when one receives such offers. In particular,

1) Does reluctance to undertake the commitment so early count against a candidate?

2) Can the opportunity cost of foregoing possible further offers be used in salary negotiations?

Then again, I imagine most people here are not "inside" the machine, so may know as much as I do.

(EDITS: I have reformulated things a bit, to make the questions clearer)

[anonymous and single]

I'm not sure if your questions presuppose something which you've wrongly inferred from the Mount St. Mary's comment on the wiki.
For example, your first question seems to suggest a scenario wherein the SC asks the candidate to commit to signing by the end of January before the SC has actually made an official offer. That scenario strikes me as highly improbable, though perhaps someone reading this knows of a situation where such a scenario has occurred.

Regardless, here are two things to keep in mind:

1) I don't know if this is current, but in the past the APA has recommended that "In normal circumstances, a prospective employee should have at least two weeks for consideration of a written offer from a properly authorized academic officer...."

leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2004/01/more_advice_for.htm

2) In the above recommendation, note the qualifier "in normal circumstances." It's possible for a job to get axed as late as the contract stage. This is second-hand, but I've heard of one instance where an SC made an offer, the candidate was deliberating (for less than 48 hours), and then the university canceled the position before the candidate signed.

This page also has some advice:
leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2003/12/advice_for_acad.html#more