Relational work and economic sociology

Politics and Society

Volumn 40, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 175-201

  Bandelj, Nina ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Economic sociology; Embeddedness; Emotions; Relational work; Theory of action

Indexed keywords

EID: 84860750194     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: 15527514     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329212441597     Document Type: Article

References (152)

1. Viviana Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 32.
2. Viviana Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005) 35.
3. Viviana Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005) 36.
4. Viviana Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005) 35.
5. Viviana Zelizer, "How I Became a Relational Sociologist and What Does That Mean," Paper presented at Relational Work Conference, University of California, Davis, May 1, 2010.
6. Greta Krippner and Anthony Alvarez, "Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects of Economic Sociology," Annual Review of Sociology 33 (2007): 219-40.
7. Mark Granovetter, "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embedded-ness," American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481-510.
8. Mark Granovetter, "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embedded-ness," American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481-510.
9. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy, 35.
10. Joyce Fletcher, Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power and Relational Practice at Work (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999)
11. Victoria A. Parker, "Connecting Relational Work and Workgroup Context in Caregiving Organizations," The Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences 38, no. 3 (2002): 276-297
12. Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra, "Relational Practice in the Workplace: Women's Talk or Gendered Discourse?" Language in Society 33, no. 3 (2004): 377-398
13. Jennifer Binns, "The Ethics of Relational Leading: Gender Matters," Gender, Work and Organization 15 (2008): 600-620.
14. Fletcher calls her concept relational practice and not relational work, but her definition is consistent with how relational work is understood in this paper. To be consistent, I use the original term relational practice when referring directly to Fletcher's writing.
15. Fletcher, Disappearing Acts, 84.
16. Fletcher, Disappearing Acts, 84.
17. Fletcher argues that relational practices is traditionally conceived of as a feminine skill, and is done mostly by women in organizations. Even if required for organizations to function, Fletcher argues, such relational work often "gets disappeared" and regarded as dispensable, irrelevant, or peripheral.
18. Timothy Butler and James Waldroop, "Understanding 'People' People," Harvard Business Review, June (2004): 78-86.
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21. Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006b). 50.
22. Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006b) 9.
23. Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006b) 15.
24. Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006b) 15.
25. Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006b) 19.
26. Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006b) 24.
27. Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006b). 25.
28. To those familiar with Tilly's oeuvre on "big structures, large processes and huge comparisons," it is not surprising that the issue of power and inequality is inserted even if into a very micro account of reason-giving in social interaction.
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47. Lauren Rivera, "Go with Your Gut: Emotion and Stratification in Hiring" (Northwestern University, unpublished paper, 2010).
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49. Bandelj, "Emotions in Economic Action."
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52. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy, 35, emphasis added.
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57. David Ford, Lars Erik Gadde, Håkan Håkansson, and Ivan Snehota, Managing Business Relationships (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2002), emphasis added.
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60. Ronald Burt, Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
61. While some readers may see strategic utility maximization as different or even incompatible with relational work, I use this example to reveal that there can be a strategic dimension to relational work. But if so, are there any instances of economic interactions that do not involve relational work? Based on how Zelizer defines the concept and how I reinterpret it in this paper, all economic interactions where one person orients his/her economic actions to another person involve relational work. This would imply that the growing anonymous computer trading where a person deals with an algorithm, not actual people, does not involve relational work.
62. Alex Preda, "The Interactional Embeddedness of Market Transactions: The Case of Electronic Trading," University of Edinburgh, unpublished manuscript, 2010
63. Karin Knorr Cetina and Urs Bruegger, "Global Microstructures: The Virtual Societies of Financial Markets," American Journal of Sociology 107 (2002): 905-950.
64. Burt, Structural Holes.
65. Ronald Burt, "Structural Holes and Good Ideas," American Journal of Sociology 110, no. 2 (2004): 349-399.
66. David Obstfeld, "Social Networks, the Tertius Iungens Orientation, and Involvement in Innovation," Administrative Science Quarterly 50 (2005): 100-130.
67. Ibid., 102.
68. Ibid., 125
69. Neil Fligstein, "Social Skill and the Theory of Fields," Sociological Theory 19 (2001): 105.
70. Ibid., 106.
71. Ibid., 112.
72. Ibid., 107
73. John F. Padgett and Christopher K. Ansell, "Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434," American Journal of Sociology 98, no. 6 (1993): 1259-1319.
74. What determines whether one is more or less socially (relationally) skilled is an empirical question. It likely depends on a combination of psychological characteristics and social background including, education, cultural capital, and experience.
75. Fligstein, "Social Skill," 113.
76. Alya Guseva and Akos Rona-Tas, "Uncertainty, Risk and Trust: Russian and American Credit Card Markets Compared," American Sociological Review 66, no. 5 (2001): 623-646.
77. Ibid., 626
78. Ibid.," 639.
79. Calvin Morrill, Conflict Management in Corporations (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1995).
80. Ibid., 92.
81. Ibid., 177.
82. Ibid., 141.
83. Given that relational work happens in a context, one may wonder which is causally more determining in explaining the outcome of a particular transaction, the process of relational work or the context. But this is like questioning which is ontologically prior, the agency or structure. Both are always present, and it depends on the particularities of individual empirical cases how the two play out.
84. Nicole Woolsey Biggart, Charismatic Capitalism: Direct Selling Organizations in America, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1989).
85. Mark Zbaracki and Mark Bergen, "Price, Value, and the Marginal Role of the Sales Force: Lessons from Work and Practice" (University of Western Ontario, unpublished manuscript, 2009).
86. Ibid., 12.
87. Lauren Rivera, "Cultural Reproduction in the Labor Market: Homophily in Job Interviews," (Harvard University, unpublished paper, 2009), 8.
88. Ranjan Gulati and Martin Gargiulo, "Where Do Interorganizational Networks Come From?" American Journal of Sociology 104 (1999): 1439-1493.
89. Ibid., 1445, emphasis added.
90. Josh Whitford, The New Old Economy (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005).
91. Ibid., 84.
92. Charles Tilly, Durable Inequality (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999).
93. Brian Uzzi, "Networks and the Paradox of Embeddedness," Administrative Science Quarterly 42 (1997): 35-67.
94. Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner, "Embeddedness and Immigration: Notes on the Social Determinants of Economic Action," American Journal of Sociology 98 (1993): 1320-1350.
95. Gideon Kunda, Engineering Culture (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006).
96. Peter Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001).
97. I thank Fred Block for making this point in his organizing statement for Relational Work Conference, University of California, Davis, May 1, 2010.
98. Krippner and Alvarez, "Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects."
99. Granovetter, "Economic Action and Social Structure."
100. Ibid., 481.
101. Ibid., 481-482.
102. Greta Krippner, "The Elusive Market: Embeddedness and the Paradigm of Economic Sociology," Theory and Society 30 (2001): 775-810.
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104. Mark Granovetter, Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974)
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112. Burt, Structural Holes.
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114. Uzzi, "Networks and the Paradox of Embeddedness."
115. Uzzi, "The Sources and Consequences of Embeddedness"
116. Brian Uzzi, "Embeddedness in the Making of Financial Capital: How Social Relations and Networks Benefit Firms Seeking Finance," American Sociological Review 64 (1999): 481-505.
117. Krippner and Alvarez, "Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects."
118. Mustafa Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin, "Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency," American Journal of Sociology 99, no. 6 (1994): 1414.
119. Arthur L. Stinchcombe, "An Outsider's View of Network Analyses of Power," in Robert Perucci and Harry Potter, eds., Networks of Power (New York: Aldine, 1989), 119-123
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121. Emirbayer and Goodwin, "Network Analysis"
122. Nina Bandelj, "Embedded Economies: Social Relations as Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe," Social Forces 81, no. 2 (2002): 411-444
123. Laurel Smith-Doerr and Walter Powell. 2005. "Networks and Economic Life," in Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds., The Handbook of Economic Sociology, 2nd ed., (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press and New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005), 379-402.
124. Granovetter, Getting a Job.
125. Yanjie Bian, "Indirect Ties, Network Bridges, and Job Search in China," American Sociological Review 62 (1997): 367
126. Kurtulus Gemici, "Karl Polanyi and the Antinomies of Embeddedness," Socio-Economic Review 6, no. 1 (2008): 5-33.
127. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1944).
128. Karl Polanyi, "Economy as Instituted Process," in Karl Polanyi, C.M. Arensberg, and H.W. Pearson, eds., Trade and Market in the Early Empires (New York: The Free Press, 1957), 243-70.
129. Fred Block and Margaret Somers, "Beyond the Economistic Fallacy: The Holistic Social Science of Karl Polanyi," in Theda Skocpol, ed., Vision and Method in Historical Sociology, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 47-84
130. Fred Block, "Foreword," in Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001), vii-xvii
131. Krippner, "The Elusive Market"
132. Nina Bandelj, From Communists to Foreign Capitalists: The Social Foundations of Foreign Direct Investment in Postsocialist Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008)
133. Nina Bandelj, "The Global Economy as Instituted Process: The Case of Central and Eastern Europe," American Sociological Review 74 (2009b): 128-149
134. Krippner and Alvarez, "Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects.
135. Gemici, "Karl Polanyi"
136. Nina Bandelj and Elizabeth Sowers, Economy and State: A Sociological Perspective (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2010).
137. Viviana Zelizer, "Beyond the Polemics on the Market: Establishing a Theoretical and Empirical Agenda," Sociological Forum 3, no. 4 (1988): 614-634
138. Krippner, "The Elusive Market"
139. Neil Fligstein, The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002)
140. Bandelj, From Communists to Capitalists.
141. Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 3, 63.
142. Ibid., 67.
143. Collins, Interaction Ritual Chains.
144. Jonathan H. Turner and Jan Stets, "Sociological Theories of Human Emotions," Annual Review of Sociology 32 (2006): 25-52.
145. Bandelj, "Emotions in Economic Action," 355.
146. Paul DiMaggio, "Nadel's Paradox Revisited: Relational and Cultural Aspects of Organizational Structures," in Nitin Nohria and Robert Eccles, eds., Networks and Organization (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1993), 122
147. Jens Beckert, "Economic Sociology and Embeddedness: How Shall We Conceptualize Economic Action?" Journal of Economic Issues 37, no. 3 (2003): 1-30
148. Bandelj, From Communists to Capitalists.
149. Beckert "Economic Sociology and Embeddedness," 2.
150. Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1996).
151. Whitford, The New Old Economy.
152. Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, "Introduction," in Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 1-38.