New Economic Sociology: What Has Been Accomplished, What Is Ahead?

Abstract

An attempt is made in this article to assess what has been accomplished since the mid-1980s in what has become known as 'New Economic Sociology'. The reason for choosing 1985 as the point of departure has to do with the fact that this year saw the publication of what was to become the 'manifesto' of this type of sociology: Mark Granovetter's 'Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness'. Research during the period after the mid-1980s is presented and discussed, and it is argued that New Economic Sociology has especially drawn on three strands of sociology: networks theory, cultural sociology and organizational sociology. A critique is made of the two main theoretical concepts in New Economic Sociology: 'embeddedness' and 'the social construction (of the economy)'. The paper concludes with a critique of New Economic Sociology and a brief statement of its prospects.