Markets combine distinct forms of coordination beyond network embeddedness, including reflexive temporal coordination.

Evidence

Since Granovetter’s influential work (1985), embeddedness has been used to make sense of the social organization of the economy (see, e.g., Swedberg 1997, p. 162; Carruthers and Uzzi 2000, p. 487); research has focused on relational embeddedness—that is, the embeddedness of economic action in social networks and relationships—and structural embeddedness—that is, the interdependence of market exchanges and cultural, political, and social background institutions (Barber 1995; Portes 1995, p. 6). The intersubjectivity that we identified suggests a third type of social organization, defined by the interiorized characteristics of markets as they are performed in practice. One implication of the present research, with regard to embeddedness arguments, is that we need to distinguish between different forms of market coordination (see also TheĀ“venot 2001) and to explain how they evolve and relate to each other. Presumably, pure relational or network forms of coordination and the reflexive, temporal form of coordination that we have described are two different things. — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 101

Categorization

  • DEFINE: Distinguishes relational from structural embeddedness and proposes a third form: intersubjective, interiorized market coordination.
  • XREF: Builds on Granovetter’s embeddedness and connects to ThĆ©venot’s conventions-of-coordination sociology, relevant to the reader’s financialization ethnography work. — connects to: Geographically dispersed but mutually oriented actors form global microstructures that bind markets together. — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 18; Shared temporal structuring of a common object distinguishes global markets from ordinary electronic groups — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 141; Global markets form communities of time bound by a common observed screen object. (+6 more)

Broader Connections