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What can a good’s durability tell us about its market organization? This paper argues that the socially expected durability of goods is one of their most important features. It illuminates temporal and material aspects of market organization and social change across different markets. While recent literature in the sociology of markets tends to emphasize financial goods, intangible assets, and the service economy, markets for material durable and nondurable consumer goods are still surprisingly pervasive in everyday life and in the household economy, as well as in modern economies’ basic infrastructure. Based on a comparison of the extreme cases of durable housing and fresh fish markets, we come to the general finding that the higher a good’s expected durability, the smaller the share of its new production will be and the larger its aftermarkets. Furthermore, it will be more tightly linked to credit and insurance markets, and its market will be more volatile in the short-term, but more inert in the long-term. Beyond this static distinction, we show how socio-technical mechanisms can “durabilize” or “dedurabilize” goods and hence change their market form. By comparing markets along the durability dimension, this paper contributes to a comparative sociology of market organization that goes beyond single-market studies, while at the same time opening up space for a more dynamic understanding of social change and market segmentation over time. Vers une sociologie économique comparée de l’organisation des marchés : l’importance de la durabilité socialement attendue des biens économiques Que nous apprend la durabilité d’un bien quant à l’organisation de son marché ? Cet article montre que la durabilité socialement attendue des biens est l’une de leurs caractéristiques les plus importantes. Il met en lumière les aspects temporels et matériels de l’organisation des marchés et du changement social sur différents marchés. Alors que la littérature récente de la sociologie des marchés tend à mettre l’accent sur les biens financiers, les actifs intangibles et l’économie de service, les marchés des biens de consommation durables et non durables sont encore étonnamment omniprésents dans la vie quotidienne et dans l’économie des ménages, ainsi que dans les infrastructures de base des économies modernes. En comparant les cas extrêmes des logements conventionnels et des marchés du poisson frais, nous arrivons à la conclusion générale que plus la durabilité attendue d’une marchandise est élevée, plus sa part de production nouvelle est faible et plus ses marchés secondaires sont importants. En outre, il sera plus étroitement lié aux marchés du crédit et de l’assurance, et son marché sera plus volatil à court terme, mais plus inerte à long terme. Par delà cette distinction statique, nous montrons comment les mécanismes socio-techniques peuvent « durabiliser » ou « dé-durabiliser » les biens et donc modifier leur forme marchande. En comparant les marchés selon la dimension de durabilité, cet article contribue à une sociologie comparative de l’organisation des marchés qui va au-delà des études de marché unique, tout en ouvrant un espace pour une compréhension plus dynamique du changement social et de la segmentation des marchés dans le temps. Skizze einer Wirtschaftssoziologie von Wichtigkeit der social Durabilität von Gütern Was sagt die Haltbarkeit eines Gutes über seine Marktorganisation aus? Dieser Beitrag zeigt auf, dass die gesellschaftlich erwartete Haltbarkeit von Gütern eines ihrer wichtigsten Merkmale ist. Er untersucht zeitliche und materielle Aspekte der Marktorganisation und des sozialen Wandels auf verschiedenen Märkten. Während die neuere Literatur der Marktsoziologie dazu tendiert, den Schwerpunkt auf Finanzgüter, immaterielle Güter und Dienstleistungen zu legen, sind Märkte kurz- und langlebiger materieller Konsumgüter im Alltag und in der häuslichen Wirtschaft sowie in der Basisinfrastruktur moderner Volkswirtschaften immer noch überraschend weit verbreitet. Basierend auf einem Vergleich der Extremfälle – konventioneller Wohnungs- versus Frischfischmärkten – kommen wir zu der allgemeinen Feststellung, dass die erwartete Haltbarkeit eines Gutes proportional steigt, je geringer der Herstellungsanteil und je größer der Sekundärmarkt ausfällt. Darüber hinaus wird ein Gut enger mit den Kredit- und Versicherungsmärkten verbunden, sein Absatzmarkt kurzfristig volatiler, langfristig aber träger sein. Über diese statische Differenzierung hinaus wird aufgezeigt, wie sozio-technische Mechanismen dazu führen, dass Güter langlebiger oder kurzlebiger werden und somit ihre Marktform verändern. Marktvergleichend, die Durabilitätsdimension integrierend, leistet dieser Aufsatz einen Beitrag zu einer vergleichenden Soziologie der Marktorganisation, die über Einzelmarktstudien hinausgeht und gleichzeitig Raum für ein dynamischeres Verständnis des sozialen Wandels und der Marktsegmentierung im Laufe der Zeit eröffnet. Introduction Different worlds of goods and markets Durability and market organization Nondurable and durable goods - a comparison General features of markets for durables and nondurables Reorganizing markets: the mechanisms of durabilization and de-dedurabilization Making good durable Making goods less durable Conclusion references

The profound and extensive influence of Spencer’s thought is now generating a good deal of analysis, as is his contribution to evolutionist philosophy, to pedagogy, ethics, and anthropology. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Spencer’s theoretical work on economic thought. It also analyses the way in which this work was discussed and interpreted by the Italian economists at the turn of the 19th Century. In particular, it investigates the influence of Spencer’s theory of evolution for the thought of Maffeo Pantaleoni (1857-1924) and Francesco Saverio Nitti (1868-1953). These two very representative Italian scholars, both belonging to the liberal-radical political area, were nevertheless on opposite sides for their economic methodology and the issue of government intervention in the economy. However, they both found their divergent inspiration in Spencer. Extending the study of the reception of his work to the Italian sociologists, this paper explains how, from those same theories, two diametrically opposed visions and perspectives on social change could arise.

This dissertation advances scholarship on how financialization – the increasing power of financial ideologies and markets – has transformed diverse organizations, including non-profits, state institutions, and households. In three papers, I explain how financialization has contributed to rising organizational inequality in U.S. undergraduate education education since the 1990s: 1) “The Financialization of U.S. Higher Education” develops new quantitative measures to find large but skewed relative increases in the financial costs and returns from endowments, colleges’ institutional borrowing, equity offerings by for-profit colleges, and student loan borrowing, 2) “The Transformation of U.S. For-Profit Colleges,” uses a unique college-level and multi-wave longitudinal dataset to show how the spread of shareholder value ideology led to a new industrial-scale business model with negative consequences for student outcomes, and 3) “The Ivory Tower Tax Haven” explains how long-standing tax exemptions have supported new endowment investment strategies that have fueled rising expenditures to maximize the prestige of the wealthiest universities. Altogether, I highlight the importance of finance ideologies in the shifting balance of resources between and within the many heterogeneous types of U.S. colleges.

Yeni iktisat sosyolojisi (YİS) alt alanının özünü, sosyologların yerleşik iktisada yönelttiği birbiriyle ilişkili iki farklı temel eleştirinin oluşturduğu iddia edilebilir: i) rasyonel tercih kuramı “toplumsallaşmasını tamamlayamamış” (under-socialized) birey kavramına yol açmaktadır; ii) piyasa ilişkilerini doğru anlayabilmek için “toplumsal iç içe geçmişlik” (embeddedness) kavramını çözümlemenin merkezine koymak gerekir. Bu yazıda her iki eleştirinin de yetersiz olduğu iddia edilecektir. İlkin, bireyin bu şekilde kavramsallaştırılmasına yönelik eleştiriler, YİS araştırmacıları bunları öne sürmeden çok daha önce, iktisat disiplininin kendi içinde zaten tartışılmış ve geleneksel iktisat tarafından kuralın istisnaları olarak kabul edilmişti. İkincisi, YİS’in “toplumsal iç içe geçmişlik” kavramını öne sürerek neoklasik iktisadı alaşağı edebileceği iddiaları yersizdir; nitekim bu konuda da YİS ile geleneksel iktisadi anlayışı benimsemekle birlikte anaakım iktisada eleştirel yaklaşan iktisatçılar arasında, her iki düşünce geleneği de iktidar ilişkilerini kişilerarası ve durumsal boyutlarıyla ele alıp yapısal boyutunu göz ardı ettiği için, ciddi bir fark söz konusu değildir., It can be argued that the core of the subfield of new economic sociology (NES) is consisted of two inter-related yet distinct foundational criticisms by the sociologists to mainstream economics: i) that its commitment to rational choice leads to an “under-socialized” concept of the agent; and ii) that it can correct the mainstream understanding of market affairs, if the concept of “embeddedness” is included in the analysis. In this paper, I will argue that these dual criticisms are insufficient, due to; first, even in the economics discipline itself, such a reconceptualization of the agent had already been posed long before the NES scholars even formulated their criticisms, and thus such criticisms had already been absorbed by the conventional economic thinking as exceptions to the rule; and second, the introduction of the concept of “embeddedness” by the NES cannot overturn neoclassical economics, since the NES scholars hardly differ from the heterodox-minded economists as both focus merely on the interpersonal and situational (while largely dismissing the structural) dimensions of power relations.

All social roles have positive and rewarding as well as negative or problematic aspects. Research on the work–family interface has predominantly focused on conflicting roles. In contrast, this paper extends research on work–family enrichment (WFE), a positive aspect of work and gender differences in WFE in a cross-national context. Drawing upon social role theory and the culture sensitive theory on work–family enrichment, we examined gender differences in experiences of developmental WFE in a sample of service sector employees in eight European countries. In line with traditional gender roles, women reported more WFE than men. The relationship was moderated by both an objective and subjective measure of gender egalitarianism but in the opposite direction as hypothesized. The gender gap in WFE was larger in more gender-egalitarian countries, where women may be better able to transfer resources from the work domain to benefit their family role than in low egalitarian societies. National differences in labor market factors, family models and the public discourse on work–life balance mainly explain the unanticipated findings.

This paper presents a brief history of the discipline of economic sociology. Three historical periods are extracted: pre-classical, classical, and modern. These are the three main processes of this sociological discipline and they represent its occurrence, development and its renewal. With special attention we deal with socio-historical and intellectual factors of each period because we believe that they have had main influence in development of economic sociology. In order to understand its intellectual marginalization till almost 80's it is important to know its history of development as well as reasons why the renewal happened in the first place.

This paper discusses ways that the question of social acceptability of eco-innovation can usefully be addressed with sociological methodologies and theoretical frameworks contributions, both in the study and the management of innovation processes. It will first discuss the types of contributions that sociology can provide into innovation management, through a specific conception of users. The particularity of sociological contribution reposes on the vision of the users. It will secondly show how the sociological approach allows to observe and build up a picture of the interactions between the different types of economic actors involved in the innovation process. Our examples are drawn from a program implementing intelligent charging infrastructures for electric vehicles. We show how economic sociology of uses and consumption permits to define user positionality in the innovation network. The understanding of the interactional processes inside our socio-technical space permits us to identify institutional impediments that slow down social acceptability of an eco-innovation such as the electric vehicle.

In fact, [new] economic sociology is a meeting place for economists and sociologists. It is a rejection of the maximization hypothesis of orthodox economic theory. Thus its approach regarding new venture creation might be controversial. This paper attempts to connect these two areas, following a qualitative approach. Findings show that three main elements, i.e. (i) social action, (ii) embeddedness, and (iii) social relations, affect new venture creation. These elements are elaborated in this research and three main propositions are proposed.