Interdependent entrepreneurs and the social discipline of their cooperation: a research programme for structural economic sociology in a society of organizations
Year: 2002
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Economists have long focused on markets as exchange mechanisms, and many economic sociologists have also used the same approach. This focus emphasized the importance of price and that of the social embeddedness of economic transactions among actors, whether individuals or organizations. Focusing on the production side of economic activity, however, underlines the fact that society is a society of organizations (Presthus, 1962; White, 1981b; Stokman et al., 1985; Coleman, 1990; Perrow, 1991), with specific social mechanisms underlying collective action. From the latterOs perspective, saying that society is an organizational society is also equivalent to saying that its intrinsically multi-level dimension should frame Ð much more than it currently does Ð sociologistsO perspective on human, including economic, activity. In our view, this additional focus reframes analyses of both market exchange and social exchange (Blau, 1964) of resources as they are connected in production. This approach advocates new combinations of theories of individual action and theories of collective action. Within such a perspective, priority is given here to the study of social exchange and cooperation among interdependent entrepreneurs, at the intraorganizational and interorganizational levels. In short, this study is about the social discipline that helps interdependent entrepreneurs in their collective action. Entrepreneurs are not conceived as individuals acting on their own, but as individuals, and organizations, interacting with, and investing in, other entrepreneurs as peers or quasi-peers in order to make collective action possible. The sociology of organizations has been able to design an ideal-typical
Source: Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks
Authors: Emmanuel Lazega, Lise Mounier
Language: English
Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1531435947