Socio-Economic Review - current issue

Austrian economics and economic sociology: past relations and future possibilities for a socio-economic perspective

Mikl-Horke, G. — 2008-04-01

The diversity of approaches within modern economics is often overlooked by economic sociology focusing on the neoclassical orthodoxy. At the time of the dispute over methods there had been mutual influences between Max Weber and the Austrian version of neoclassical theory, but in the later approaches of economic sociology the special features of Austrian economics, which has developed from being one of the neoclassical schools into a strand of thought with unique characteristics, have not been recognized. Modern Austrian economics emphasizes time, uncertainty, knowledge and dynamic market processes, which are themes of importance for economic sociology. Moreover, the conceptions of individual action and social order in Austrian economics can be of relevance for a socio-economic perspective with regard to overcoming the division between social and economic factors.

National capitalisms and global production networks: an analysis of their interaction in two global industries

Lane, C. — 2008-04-01

This paper studies the interaction between global systems of production/innovation and national capitalisms, from the theoretical perspectives of varieties of capitalism and global value chains or global production networks (GPNs). The paper's theoretical contribution lies in two areas: it links firms' construction of GPNs to national institutional configurations of lead firms but it also argues that under the impact of global markets the notions of national institutional reproduction and comparative economic advantage need to be re-conceptualized to reflect the complexity of global effects. The empirical part presents a comparative study of two industries in three countries—the UK, the United States and Germany. The paper utilizes original data on GPNs, based on a large number of interviews in firms and associations.

From hierarchical districts to collaborative networks: the transformation of the French apparel industry

Courault, B., Doeringer, P. B. — 2008-04-01

The French apparel industry has always had a distinctive industrial organization based on agglomeration economies of common skills and the need for direct coordination among fashion designers, manufacturers, suppliers and buyers. Often referred to as ‘garment districts’, these local clusters of apparel-related firms were dominated by small and medium-sized (SMEs) firms until the 1960s when mass markets encouraged the development of large firms using mass production methods and hierarchical contracting with smaller suppliers. Since the 1980s, delocalization of production along with dramatic changes in apparel retailing have almost completely destroyed large manufacturers and their hierarchical contracting arrangements. What remains is an industry in which SMEs are largely the survivors. While many of these firms remain marginal, there is a significant core that is developing new business strategies, more diversified competencies and new types of horizontal production networks. This paper examines the recent evolution of the French apparel industry from district to network forms of organization in two of France's main apparel and knitwear regions, based upon nearly 20 years of field research. This research identifies a set of countervailing factors to global outsourcing in which SMEs can have a competitive advantage.

Contradiction, convergence and the knowledge economy: the confluence of academic and commercial biotechnology

Vallas, S. P., Kleinman, D. L. — 2008-04-01

Efforts to understand the structure of the emerging knowledge economy have paid particular attention to the shifting boundary between academic and commercial (for-profit) research, especially in life sciences. Yet, empirical studies have tended to adopt a segmented approach, focusing on either industry or the academy, thus obscuring the increasingly interwoven nature of these two domains. In this paper, we explore the changing organizational logics that govern both academic and corporate science, using interview data gathered from two important clusters of the biotechnology industry: Route 128 in Massachusetts and the San Francisco Bay area. These data, while provisional, lead us to suggest that cultural traffic between university and commercial science has increased, blurring the boundary between them and generating a new and often contradictory knowledge regime, the product of a growing confluence of organizational logics that had previously been distinct. The emergence of this regime, which conforms to Stark's (2001) notion of ‘heterarchy’, holds important implications for prevailing theories of university–industry relations and of organizational change as well.

Transformational organizations and institutional change: the case of the Institut Pasteur and French science

Hage, J., Mote, J. — 2008-04-01

This article seeks to articulate the concept of the transformational organization, an organization with the capacity to transform its institutional environment with discontinuous changes in normative patterns or institutional rules. The possibility of an organization successfully departing from the contours of the institutional environment seems doubtful given our understanding of institutional processes, such as institutional isomorphism and path dependency. Drawing on the historical case of the Institut Pasteur, we identify the primary institutional mechanisms that allowed the Institut Pasteur to successfully alter the French scientific environment with the creation of the discipline of biomedicine.

Convergent perspectives in economic sociology: an Italian view of contemporary developments in Western Europe and North America

Ballarino, G., Regini, M. — 2008-04-01

During the last 30 years or so, different theoretical and empirical perspectives have come to see economies as embedded in institutional, social and cultural structures. Such perspectives developed in contrast to the neoclassical economic paradigm of a rational actor isolated from his/her social and cultural context, as well as to sociological functionalism, which sees economic action as heavily determined by values and social–structural factors. The general idea behind these perspectives is that economic action is always shaped by institutions rooted in history, and by the structures of social relationships in which economic actors are embedded; with the consequence that the former cannot be explained without including the latter in the explanation. This article shows how this perspective is shared by the ‘comparative political economy’ approach, which developed starting in the 1970s especially in Western Europe, and the ‘new economic sociology’ approach, which developed a decade later in the United States.

After reviewing the main features of both approaches, the article shows how Italian economic sociology has built a relevant research tradition. More specifically, it reviews the main contributions that this ‘school’ has given to our understanding of how modern capitalist societies work, especially regarding labour markets, welfare systems, local economies and industrial relations. The lack of a strong dominant and unifying paradigm has often been seen as a weakness of Italian economic sociology, as well as of economic sociology tout court. Yet this weakness has to some extent been turned into an advantage, since Italian economic sociologists have been more willing to cooperate with scholars in other disciplines and sub-disciplines and have also been more interested in entering new territories, from both a theoretical and a substantive point of view.

Beyond the frontier of the skin: blood, organs, altruism and the market

Steiner, P. — 2008-04-01

Peer Hull Kristensen and Jonathan Zeitlin Local Players in Global Games: The Strategic Constitution of a Multinational Corporation. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005

Ferner, A., Belanger, J., Westney, D. E. — 2008-04-01