Socioeconomics and Economic Sociology

This article presents an overview of the new multidisciplinary field known as socioeconomics. Although socioeconomics resembles the older cross-disciplinary field of economic sociology in that both generally examine economic data and behavior from a sociological perspective, socioeconomics attempts to incorporate virtually all the social sciences, philosophy, law, business and management studies, and more recently the natural sciences. The impetus for the cross-disciplinary study of sociology and economics is primarily the pronounced relationship between social patterns and economic structures and processes, which Karl Marx and Max Weber recognized well. Amitai Etzioni, the sociologist who contributed to the foundation of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) in 1989, termed his multidisciplinary discipline "socioeconomics." An extension of the multidisciplinary "paradigm" associated with socioeconomics is termed Science II by its proponents. Economic sociology and sociological economics (a vague precursor of socioeconomics) were largely defined by Max Weber, but both schools of thought have also expanded substantially — as have other forms of multidisciplinary economics. The curious element about socioeconomics is that it encompasses both normative (that is, idealistic and moral) goals and the technical and financial practices of corporate managers and executives.

Keywords Communitarian; Economic Sociology; Embeddedness; Etzioni, Amitai; 'I' and 'We' Model of Zones; Deontological Economics; Economic Man (Homo Economicus); Institutions; Moral Economy; Neoclassical Economics; Science I; Science II; Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE); Sociological Economics; Social Economy; Third Sector

Sociology & Related Fields > Socioeconomics & Economic Sociology

Overview

Whereas economic sociology is largely considered a prominent sub-discipline within both economics and sociology (Zafirovski, 1999), sociologist Amitai Etzioni considers socioeconomics a "bridging" (or "interstitial") discipline like biochemistry or social psychology. The "socio" in socioeconomics is meant to represent numerous social sciences rather than just sociology. His ambitious goal is to develop a new "paradigm" that moves away from (or "decenters") individualistic neoclassical models in the social sciences. As such, he admits that socioeconomics is a highly provisional and speculative field (Etzioni, 2003), and he does not hesitate to be bold, partisan, or, for that matter, to invite criticism of his speculate models. The challenge to decenter the neoclassical model of social science has been embraced through an effort to link social science and natural science by the Science II model.

The multidisciplinary nature of socioeconomics and the efforts of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) is the means by which this "paradigm shift" is encouraged. In other words, such a cross-field approach is intended to counter the sub-specialization of academic disciplines by creating a "nested structure" that allows for disciplinary change (Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth, 2002). Etzioni (2003) identifies Galileo, Darwin and Freud as innovators in the history of science who have very successfully drawn on multiple disciplines. Darwin, for example, has influenced biology, geology, meteorology, and even computer science (Hollingsworth & Müller, 2008).

Although socioeconomics has not been thoroughly established as a distinct academic discipline, more representation in the field is evidently in demand in the business sector. Some participants in the SASE, however, are not overly interested in influencing public policy and public opinion (Etzioni, 2003). Etzioni's specific criticism is directed at the individualistic ideological assumptions he identifies in neoclassical economics, but other studies in socioeconomics, particularly those in the Socio-Economic Review, extend the critique to other social sciences (Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth, 2002). The SASE, which is represented in dozens of countries and includes academics, members of the business sector, politicians, and other organizational leaders, is more diplomatic in its approach. The homepage of the SASE states that "economics is not a self-contained system, but is embedded in society, polity, and culture," and that the methodology it embraces is intended to be "predictive, exemplary, and morally sound" (Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, 2008).

The "I" & "We"

The alterative Etzioni provides to the individualistic neoclassical model is straightforwardly termed a "social" paradigm. These two models or paradigms are termed the "I" (or individual) and "We" (or social) zones, and each is ascribed an appropriate field of economic activity. Lynne (2000) interprets this distinction as a reflection of polarization among the social sciences with economics and sociology at opposite ends of the spectrum. Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth (2002) interpret the "social"/"We" paradigm as a normative and political alternative to the dominant underlying assumptions of academia more generally.

Etzioni's alternative model can also be termed communitarian, but he does not attempt to undermine the traditional emphasis on competition and equilibrium in the supply and demand of needed resources in neoclassical economics. Rather, he attempts to illustrate how the conventional model of competition does not account for social factors. The SASE homepage neatly summarizes this distinction:

The term embeddedness reflects a well known principle that resulted from the attempts of sociologists and economists to incorporate moral, ethical, or normative principles into economics much earlier in the twentieth century. Socioeconomics attempts to provide a further explanation of the extent to which economic markets are embedded in social structures and, as such, affect societal development. Hollingsworth, Müller, and Hollingsworth (2002) identify "institutionalism" as the key factor in the multidisciplinary approach that is intended to pose — or just identify — questions highly-specialized academic disciplines can leave undressed and thereby expand upon the general understanding of embeddedness. Social institutions include values, norms, rules, and customs and conventions, but "institutionalism" is meant to extend the study of the social and structural elements of social institutions across the conventional geographic, political, organizational, and — especially — disciplinary boundaries (Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth, 2002). Science II provides one such strategy, but it might well be even more speculative than Etzioni's version of socioeconomics.

Applications

Socioeconomics & Economic Sociology

Socioeconomics largely encompasses economic sociology, and both fields attempt to examine the social factors that traditional economics tends to neglect (Bruyn, 2005). The probable point of differentiation is that Etzioni goes a step further and seeks to minimize the deductive logic (that is, arguments that proceed from the general to the specific) used in neoclassical economics to explain individual economic behavior; this deductive model is associated with the concept of "Economic Man" (or Homo Economicus). In other words, Etzioni attempts to alter a fundamental theoretical assumption of neoclassical economics and posit an alternate logical method based on inductive reasoning (that is, based on provisionality and probability and that moves from the specific to the general) (Etzioni, 2003).

The SASE homepage provides an example of how this approach would function: "Methodologically, socio-economics regards inductive studies as co-equal in standing with deductive ones. For example, a study of how firms actually behave has the same basic merit as treating the firm as an analytic concept in a mathematical model" (Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, 2008).

Economic sociology is broadly concerned with the social elements of areas in which economic activity and non-economic institutions interact, including the consumption, creation, exchange, and distribution of goods and services; in other words, with sociological features of economic systems. Socioeconomics is more specifically concerned with behavioral factors including:

• Competition in social institutions;
• Social networks in economic contexts; and
• The nature of individual economic choices (Bruyn, 2005).

Etzioni (2003) agrees that economic changes do affect societal structure and that customs, values, and social bonds affect economic behavior, but his point of emphasis is that the economic market is not an independent, "self-sustaining" system.

De-Ontological Economics

Etzioni (2003) attempts to illustrate that rationality or reason, for better or worse, is not often an important element of economic behavior. Zafirovski (1999) terms Etzioni's theory "moral economy" (that is, a moral theory of the economy) or "deontological economics": a moral, social, and obligation-based theory rather than a utility-based functional or structural theory of how economic principles operate. He argues, for example, that individual choices are limited by both imperfect knowledge and impeding values and emotions, that moral and social obligations are in almost constant conflict with a desire to seek pleasure or pursue utility (that is, self-interest or profit-maximization), but also that obligation-based economic decisions can be either financially efficient or inefficient (Etzioni, 2003).

In one respect, his argument resembles the conventional economic arguments of economists that economic behavior has an internal logic or a "natural" field (Zafirovski & Levine, 1997), but his criteria for determining efficiency includes further psychological factors. Etzioni (2003) claims, for example, that detached "observers" would likely find most economic decisions less than fully rational; that groups usually make sounder decisions than individuals; and that economic behavior should be examined on a long-term rather than short-term basis (2003). He does not exactly, however, seem to claim that morality and social obligation should always be included in the study of economics. Rather, he claims, albeit speculatively, that failing to account for the psychological effects of meeting or rejecting social obligations results in an incomplete understanding of economic behavior.

Both socioeconomics and economic sociology, in short, attempt to take what neoclassical economics assumes is as a single, constant, and rational factor regarding economic decisions and treat it as a variable or multiple variables in need of explanation (Zafirovski & Levine, 1997). Bruyn (2005) observes that economic sociology is "ecumenical" in the sense that it is inclusive and pluralistic, and it uses both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to examine how issues such as culture, health, freedom, and dignity are related to an understanding of economic behavior. The focus is often primarily on how economic behavior informs social behavior. These categories provide some of the "variables" that the conventional notions of utility and self-interest may not explain (Bruyn, 2005).

Etzioni provides a specific methodological formula for analysis in this context: a social "independent variable" is applied to economic "dependent variables." The appropriate issues this method addresses might include:

• Whether ideological conservatives tend to save more of their income than other ideological groups;
• Whether socially isolated individuals tend to be unproductive employees;
• Whether political lobbyists affect the prices of industrial or consumer products; or
• Whether economic growth is dependent on specific social, political, or economic conditions.

Etzioni identifies Max Weber's well-known view of the prominent role of the Protestant reformation in the development of capitalism as an example of the proper field of study in socioeconomics (Etzioni, 2003).

The Third Sector

The definition of a part of his alternative model results in a little more terminological confusion. Etzioni also developed ideas about social economy, which is generically described as a mixture of public and private organizations. The terminological confusion is confounded by the conventional definition of "political economy" as a fusion of economic and sociopolitical analyses; according to one definition, "political economy" includes "pure" economics and "impure" sociology (Zafirovski, 1999). Etzioni termed his own version of social economy the "Third Sector"; he defined it as a mixture of market-based and governmental organizations and for-profit and non-profit organizations that may not fully belong to either sphere (Bruyn, 2005). To some degree, the SASE fosters the development of a social economy. Etzioni's chief qualification of neoclassical economics, however, resides not in social economy or political economy but in an attempt to illustrate that moral and social obligations are necessarily a component of economic behavior.

Morality, Intra-Personal Conflict, & Irrational Economic Behavior

Etzioni sets out to systematically undermine the individualistic "I" paradigm in the social sciences, but he does so largely on logical rather than normative or idealistic grounds. The argument also almost entirely uses examples economists would find familiar. Etzioni's central tenet is: "There are no transactions among equals;" a second important precept is: "Power is the source of structure" (1988, p. 82; 2003). In this context, "transactions" can seemingly be social and/or financial.

These ideas inform his theory about conflicts between pleasure-seeking behavior and moral obligations in individual economic behavior, but they are easier to demonstrate on a larger scale. He penned the formula "cost + power = price" to illustrate the role of social, financial, and political influence in determining consumer prices. In this context, "power" includes overt political authority and corporate wealth, but also protective power such government legislation and regulation. Etzioni argues that incentives directed at individuals, the conventional manner of influencing economic behavior, often do not work. For example, tax incentives have been provided for the past few decades to encourage individuals to — act rationally and — save more income. This strategy is burdensome on the US Treasury, but it would be much more costly if those incentives were not so widely ignored or otherwise left unused. The alternative measure Etzioni proposes to address individual economic health is increasing budgetary surplus and reducing national debt at the national level (Etzioni, 2003).

He also contends that economists cannot explain why wages do not fall during a recession. Most of his argument is focused on the importance of group behavior, how emotions and values prevail over rationality in decision making (often beneficially), and the personal conflicts that result from the tension between pleasure-seeking behavior and social obligation. One of his claims in defense of the assertion that most economic behavior is not necessarily "informed" also involves — and targets — the financial sector. Despite ample media coverage revealing that high-fee investment practices through stock brokers do to not, as a rule, result in superior market performance in comparison with cheaper investment indexes, investment through brokers continues at a high rate. Etzioni's main point is that individuals simply tend not to assimilate consumer-related information. Most economists now, however, appear to acknowledge that consumers are not the information-gathering memory banks they were once considered (Etzioni, 2003).

Etzioni (1995) argues that economic decisions are influenced by multiple factors: cultural views, preferences, and constraints; the influence of peers and authority figures; and socialization. His point of emphasis, however, is on the constant conflict between pleasure, self-interest, and rationality on one hand, and the burden of meeting obligations on the other. In other words, some level of intra-personal (or psychic) conflict is inevitable. The exercise of personal obligations, in this model, leads others to expect that those obligations will continue to be met, and the pursuit of pleasure or self-interest leads others to cumulatively expect that social obligations will not be met. A hypothetical example is a smoker who supports taxes on cigarettes out of a sense of civic duty to endorse healthier lifestyles; a slight variation is a libertarian non-smoker who opposes taxes on cigarettes out of opposition to government influence on individual behavior (Etzioni, 2003).

Failing to meet social obligations can result in greater psychic discomfort than the conflict between utility and obligation. As such, meeting obligations can be more socially and economically efficient, though problematic financial decisions can also be difficult to reverse. In other cases, however, individuals can exceed the psychic rewards (or absence of anxiety) from meeting social obligations. An example would be an individual who personally cares for an aged, ill relative who has no chance of recovery, and who, therefore, will not be capable of reciprocating on the social "debt." In more philosophical terms, he argues that utility functions within "deontological conceptions" (that is, obligations) rather than vice versa (Etzioni, 2003).

Etzioni's arguments about social obligations, group decision-making ability, and group creativity seem to fit into the business model mentioned by the SASE. The critique of conventional economic thought might appear to be tempered by the alternate model for economic behavior. This critique, however, is clearly meant to be more of an academic manifesto than a diplomatic study of productive business practices.

Social Institutions & Financial Structure Across Nations

Hollingsworth, Müller, and Hollingsworth (2002) apply the multidisciplinary techniques of socioeconomics in a comparative analysis of social institutions and financial structures in the United States and East Asia. The result is a comprehensive study of the sociology of business that might also be of use for the purposes of corporate research.

One broad trend this study identifies is that social institutions (or in this context, social networks) in Western nations are organizationally individualistic, whereas in East Asian nations social institutions are more organizationally familial, communal, or communitarian. These trends are recognizable in the organization of businesses, but also in economic and even legal structures. Businesses in East Asia are dominated by social networks, but the pattern differs across countries. In Japan, distinct communitarian logic is evident, whereas in Korea that logic is patrimonial (that is, based on ancestral or inherited lineage) and in Taiwan the logic is patrilineal (that is, based on kinship through the father's ancestral line). In the United States, the legal system places a heavy emphasis on the individual rights and obligations that tend to be present in the rules and norms of American social institutions. Financial transactions, moreover, tend to occur at an "arm's length," or in other words, with less interpersonal contact than in East Asian financial practices. Cost is very important in American business practices, whereas East Asian business organizations often primarily value long-standing working relationships (Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth, 2002).

These organizational differences are roughly paralleled by structural differences. American firms are often both the suppliers and the processors of products, which is known as vertical integration. In Japan, suppliers and processors tend to form groupings based on earlier subcontracting relationships; stock is owned in a cross-company manner that allows long-term strategies to develop at the expense of short-term profits, which encourages further interdependence and trust. The corresponding situation in the United States is atypically complicated because the economy is so large and the nation is ethnically diverse. The use of loans from banks has also been less common than the use of earnings or capital from bonds or equity to finance operating expenses. As such, stockholders and bond owners have grown very influential, and assets can be sold off quickly in a time of crisis or mismanagement. Layoffs are common during such a period. These factors encourage the short-term maximization of profit. In Germany and Japan, by contrast, banks are involved with companies over long periods of time and securities are less important (Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth, 2002).

As such, the American economic market, which is associated with the neoclassical individualism that socioeconomics challenges, is of particular importance in terms of the formation and maintenance of social institutions. The complexity of capitalist market organization across such a large nation does not necessarily lend itself to the orderly functioning of social institutions. Societal order and economic efficiency are generally dependent either on relative communal harmony and trust or government control (Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth, 2002).

This description of the central role of neoclassical individualism in economic, ideological, and social organization in the United States suggests that Etzioni's goal of establishing a new social or communitarian paradigm in the social sciences will be a substantial challenge.

Viewpoints

Science I & II

Hollingsworth and Müller (2008) are quite confident that a new paradigm termed Science II is capable of challenging Science I, the dualistic mind-body distinction that has dominated the categorization of intellectual activity for centuries. They assert that socioeconomics has developed strong empirical and comparative techniques to test the fundamental assumptions of neoclassical social science, but a valid theoretical basis remains to be established. One possible approach is a stronger link between social science and natural science. They argue that multidisciplinary approaches can produce weak analogies, but that the more common trend has been to reject useful analogies (Hollingsworth & Müller, 2008). This study proceeds to describe some very ambitious multidisciplinary analogies.

Whereas Science I describes a world comprised of atoms just as society is comprised of individuals, Science II emphasizes such factors as the unpredictability of change, a logic of probabilities, non-linear causation, and numerous reappearing patterns across disciplines. For example, the economies of the United States and Germany have seemed to move in inverse directions in terms of performance over last few decades; they are structurally different, but both are stable and are therefore similar in other ways. An analogy with "degeneracy" in physics is used to explain these patterns. In one of the most easily understandable of these analogies with natural science, entomologists have successfully applied a model about cooperation among business groups to an explanation of insect behavior (Hollingsworth & Müller, 2008).

The appearance of this ambitious Science II paradigm may suggest that intensive specialization in the social sciences has come full circle. In 1894, a schism occurred between economists and sociologists at a meeting of the American Economic Association. The sociologists evidently desired more independent territory to cover. In the 1930s, a further schism developed in the social scientists between "rationalists" and "irrationalists." An analogy between rational and biological processes, on one hand, and the irrational and cultural processes, on the other, has long been conventional in the social sciences. In colloquial terms, economics is about how choices are made, whereas sociology is more relativistic and studies data that may reflect situations in which those "choices" are ambiguous. At the same time, however, economics is partially based on abstract theorizing and deductive reasoning, whereas sociology is empirical (Lynne, 2000). Science II apparently attempts to combine the scope of broad theorizing and deductive reasoning with the demonstrability of empiricism.

Economic sociology has been criticized for treating economic markets like social institutions that can be influenced through behavioral or cultural conditioning, whereas the behavior of the markets tends to be more spontaneous (Bruyn, 2005). Krier (1999) terms contemporary economic sociology and socioeconomics the "New Synthesis" of economics and sociology, and criticizes both equally for minimizing the study of poverty, class, and capitalism itself, as the "Old Synthesis" had done in the early twentieth century. The fact that scholars among both sub-fields, including Etzioni, are personally associated with high-earning professionals and Ivy-League institutions is included as evidence. Ironically, Krier (1999) praises Etzioni for portraying a complex psychological portrait of individual economic behavior. This praise seems ironic, that is, because Etzioni is commended for his construction of the social individual, rather than for his attempt to inject a social or communitarian element into neoclassical social science. Among the harshest critiques by Etzioni and others associated with the SASE is that neoclassical individualism in academic study is heavily loaded with ideological assumptions (Hollingsworth, Müller, & Hollingsworth, 2002; Etzioni, 2003).

Terms & Concepts

Communitarian: A communitarian organization is a small cooperative or collective community that usually requires a high degree of social responsibility and tends to hold anti-individualist views. A communitarian is a member or supporter of such a community. The root word is the same as that of communism, but of course, communism is politically associated with large authoritarian nation-states rather than small communities.

Economic Sociology: Economic sociology can be defined as the sociological investigation and analysis of economic phenomenon, or, a little more specifically, as the sociological study of institutions that are affected by economic forces. Socioeconomics general performs the same sort of investigations, but some generic definitions emphasize the study of societal changes resulting from economic forces.

Embeddedness: The concept of embeddedness was developed in Karl Polanvi's 1944 book "The Great Transformation." The central idea is that the economic market is embedded in social structures, and that therefore economic forces are likely to have a powerful, and often detrimental, effect on individuals associated with those social structures. The term "embeddedness" is often taken as indicator that social and even moral considered are being introduced into a discussion of economic phenomenon. Other movements that reflect this socio-economic trend in the early twentieth century were known as The Association for Social Economics and Institutional Economics.

Economic Man (Homo Economicus): Economic Man, or Homo Economicus, is literally a practical model used by economists to flesh out the implications of theoretical models. The Economic Man is rational in the sense that "he" (the model) is rational, informed, and utilitarian in that "he" will accomplish self-interested tasks in an efficient, non-wasteful, but also safe and relatively low-risk manner. A similar model, known as "Rational Choice Theory" includes concepts of "preference" and "constraints," and, as such, is more useful to sociologists than Economic Man. Both Homo Economicus and Rational Choice Theory are used to test hypotheses in theoretical models rather than to explain actual phenomenon. Etzioni (2003) uses Economic Man/Homo Economicus to question whether the idea that the aggregation of individual economic behavior is a meaningful socio-economic category, but he largely does so in order to introduce social and moral obligations into the proverbial formula or model.

Institutions: In this context, the term institutions largely means social institutions such as norms, standards, social rules and customs, and values rather than actual institutions such as schools, churches, or government buildings. The places at which social institutions are evident, however, are often in those sorts of locations.

Neoclassical Economics: Neoclassical economics builds on ideas from classical economics, including the connection between competition and the efficient allocation of resources and an equilibrium between supply and demand of products and services, but adds more analytic mathematical analysis. Etzioni and other involved with the SASE tend to find a methodological similarity and ideological assumptions that leave several important questions undressed within all the social sciences, but the abstract mathematical modeling and deductive reasoning of economists receives the bulk of the criticism.

Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE): The Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, established in 1989, is a multidisciplinary association that incorporates academics, politicians, and corporate managers and executives. The SASE homepage indicates how its research interests are critical of the work of mainstream economists and of interest to sociologists: "Socio-economics […] assumes that individual choices are shaped by values, emotions, social bonds, and moral judgments rather than by narrow self-interest. There is no a priori assumption that people act rationally or that they only pursue self-interest or pleasure" (The Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, 2008). The SASE is roughly the sort of social economy-related organization that Etzioni termed the "Third Sector." Etzioni is more of a partisan activist than many academics who contribute to the organization, as he quick to point out.

Science I: Science I is termed the "Descartes-Newtonian perspective" which established a separate "ontological kingdom" for physical and mental phenomenon, and has been the dominant scholarly paradigm for the past few centuries (Hollingsworth & Müller, 2008).

Science II: Science II is a name given to a new multidisciplinary field that attempts to develop scholarship based on, in this case, analogies between social science and natural science. Hollingsworth and Müller (2008) identify five pronounced areas of study in this field: "self-organizing processes, complex networks, power-law distributions, the general binding problem and multi-level analysis." Science II has ambitiously been identified as the theoretical groundwork for a new academic paradigm and resembles Etzioni's socioeconomics in that both are highly multidisciplinary.

Sociological Economics: The distinction between economic sociology and socio-economics largely involves drawing fine distinctions between two similar sub-fields, but it done fairly frequently. Both are multidisciplinary. Max Weber often seems to have viewed economic sociology as socio-economics: as the analysis of the influence of non-economic social phenomenon on economic events; a common contemporary definition of both sub-fields is the study of the influence of economic events on social phenomenon. At other times Weber and other early German social scientists seems to describe "social economics" as "economics" as it is now understood. Much more recently, economic sociology has also been considered as a sub-branch of economics — rather than a combination of the two disciplines — that addresses only the issues that neoclassical economics neglects. Modern economists usually describe economic sociology as conceived of by sociologists (other than Etzioni) as "socio-economics" or "social-economics" (Zafirovski, 1999).

Social Economy: Social economy, a seemly uncommon term, refers to organizations that are involved with both the public and private sector in some way, and yet are not primarily involved with either. Other terms for social economy included "Middle Way" and "Third Sector."

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Suggested Reading

Anderson-Connolly, R. (2006). On the state of the economic in sociology: A content analysis. American Sociologist, 37, 5-28. Retrieved September 15, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=25149636&site=ehost-live

Bögenhold, D. (2013). Social network analysis and the sociology of economics: Filling a blind spot with the idea of social embeddedness. American Journal Of Economics & Sociology, 72, 293–318. Retrieved November 4, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=86367712

Convert, B., & Heilbron, J. (2007). Where did the new economic sociology come from? Theory & Society, 36, 31-54. Retrieved September 15, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=25462840&site=ehost-live

Davern, M.E., & Eitzen, D.S. (January 1995). Economic sociology: An examination of intellectual exchange. American Journal of Economics & Sociology, 54, 79-88. Retrieved September 15, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=9502072345&site=ehost-live

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