Economic Institutions as Social Constructions

A Framework for Analysis

Bibliographic Data

ID2302759
AuthorsMark Granovetter (Department of Sociology, State Unwersity of New York at Stony Brook, corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume35
Issue1
Pages3-11
Publication date1992-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueActa Sociologica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0001-6993 • E-ISSN: 1502-3869
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/000169939203500101
OpenAlexW2157629842
LanguageEN
Citations received258
References cited26

Institutional economics has moved from a position, earlier in the twentieth century, of drawing eclectically on several other disciplines, to a stance of building its arguments almost entirely out of neoclassical materials This paper argues that such a stance cannot provide a persuasive account of economic institutions, and suggests a broader toundation based on classical sociological arguments about the embeddedness of economic goals and activities in socially oriented goals and structures Emphasis is placed on how economic activity comes to be coordinated by groups of people rather than carried out by isolated individuals Firms in developing countries, busmess groups, and the origins of the electrical utility industry in the United States are posed as cases of the 'social construction of economic institutions' It is argued that, although proper analysis of such cases involves a high level of contingency. these contingencies can be taken into account in a systematic theoretical argument, and that historicist pitfalls can be avoided Such an argument is posed as the distinctive agenda for a new economic sociology

Argument (complex analysis · Contingency · Economic analysis · Economic sociology · Embeddedness · Historicism · Position (finance · Economic Theory and Institutions · Economic Theory and Policy · Political Economy and Marxism

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