Contemporary articles citing Fligstein N (1990) Transformation Corpo

economic, change, market, institutional, fields, organizational, approach, organizations, american, modern

Fligstein, Neil & Doug McAdam. 2011. "Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields." Sociological Theory. 29:1 1-26. Link
In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement studies and organizational theory. While we are generally in sympathy with this work, we think it implies a far more radical rethinking of structure and agency in modern society than has been realized to date. In this article, we offer a brief sketch of a general theory of strategic action fields (SAFs). We begin with a discussion of the main elements of the theory, describe the broader environment in which any SAF is embedded, consider the dynamics of stability and change in SAFs, and end with a respectful critique of other contemporary perspectives on social structure and agency.

Schneiberg, Marc & Elisabeth Clemens. 2006. "The Typical Tools for the Job: Research Strategies in Institutional Analysis." Sociological Theory. 24:3 195-227. Link
Institutional theory rests on a rejection of reductionism. Instead of reducing higher-order phenomena to aggregates of behavior, institutional theory reverses this causal imagery. It attributes the behavior of organizations and nation-states to contextual factors, notably organizational fields, national institutional systems, or the emerging global polity, Institutionalists, particularly within sociology, also emphasize specifically cultural mechanisms for these higher-order effects. This article develops the methodological foundations for these claims. It surveys and elaborates research designs for documenting higher-order effects and for differentiating the cultural mechanisms of institutional influence. It also presents new strategies for assessing multiple logics and the coherence of institutional orders, moving beyond adoption and diffusion studies to analyze the dynamic and contested processes of institutionalization and institutional change.

Collins, R. 2000. "Situational Stratification: a Micro-macro Theory of Inequality." Sociological Theory. 18:1 17-43. Link

Vallas, SP. 1999. "Rethinking Post-fordism: the Meaning of Workplace Flexibility." Sociological Theory. 17:1 68-101. Link
Social scientists increasingly claim that work structures based on the mass production or ``Fordist'' paradigm have grown obsolete, giving way to a more flexible, ``post-Fordist'' structure of work. these claims have been much disputed, however, giving rise to a sharply polarized debate over the outcome of workplace restructuring. I seek to reorient the debate by subjecting the post-Fordist approach to theoretical and empirical critique. Several theoretical weaknesses internal to the post-Fordist approach are identified, including its uncertain handling of ``power'' and ``efficiency'' as factors that shape work organizations; its failure to acknowledge multiple responses to the crisis of Fordism, several of,which seem at odds with the post-Fordist paradigm; and its tendency to neglect the resurgence of economic dualism and disparity within organizations and industries. Review of the empirical literature suggests that, despite scattered support for the post-Fordist approach, important anomalies exist (such as the growing authority of ``mental'' over manual labor) that post-Fordism seems powerless to explain. In spite of its ample contributions, post-Fordist theory provides a seriously distorted guide to the nature of workplace change in the United States. Two alternative perspectives toward the restructuring of work organizations are sketched-neoinstitutionalist and ``flexible accumulation'' models-which seem likely to inspire more fruitful lines of research bn the disparate patterns currently unfolding within American work organizations.

Liu, TL. 1998. "Policy Shifts and State Agencies: Britain and Germany, 1918-1933." Theory and Society. 27:1 43-82. Link

Roy, WG & R Parker-Gwin. 1999. "How Many Logics of Collective Action?." Theory and Society. 28:2 203-237. Link

Hass, JK. 1999. "The Great Transition: the Dynamics of Market Transitions and the Case of Russia, 1991-1995." Theory and Society. 28:3 383-424. Link

Eyal, G. 2000. "Anti-politics and the Spirit of Capitalism: Dissidents, Monetarists, and the Czech Transition to Capitalism." Theory and Society. 29:1 49-92. Link

Krippner, GR. 2001. "The Elusive Market: Embeddedness and the Paradigm of Economic Sociology." Theory and Society. 30:6 775-810. Link

Swedberg, R. 2003. "The Case for an Economic Sociology of Law." Theory and Society. 32:1 1-37. Link

Guillen, MF. 2003. "The Economic Sociology of Markets, Industries, and Firms." Theory and Society. 32:4 505-515. Link

Emirbayer, Mustafa & Victoria Johnson. 2008. "Bourdieu and Organizational Analysis." Theory and Society. 37:1 1-44. Link
Despite some promising steps in the right direction, organizational analysis has yet to exploit fully the theoretical and empirical possibilities inherent in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu. While certain concepts associated with his thought, such as field and capital, are already widely known in the organizational literature, the specific ways in which these terms are being used provide ample evidence that the full significance of his relational mode of thought has yet to be sufficiently apprehended. Moreover, the almost complete inattention to habitus, the third of Bourdieu's major concepts, without which the concepts of field and capital (at least as he deployed them) make no sense, further attests to the misappropriation of his ideas and to the lack of appreciation of their potential usefulness. It is our aim in this paper, by contrast, to set forth a more informed and comprehensive account of what a relational - and, in particular, a Bourdieu-inspired - agenda for organizational research might look like. Accordingly, we examine the implications of his theoretical framework for interorganizational relations, as well as for organizations themselves analyzed as fields. The primary advantage of such an approach, we argue, is the central place accorded therein to the social conditions under which inter- and intraorganizational power relations are produced, reproduced, and contested.

Dobbin, Frank. 2008. "The Poverty of Organizational Theory: Comment On: ``bourdieu and Organizational Analysis''." Theory and Society. 37:1 53-63. Link
American organizational theorists have not taken up the call to apply Bourdieu's approach in all of its richness in part because, for better or worse, evidentiary traditions render untenable the kind of sweeping analysis that makes Bourdieu's classics compelling. Yet many of the insights found in Bourdieu are being pursued piecemeal, in distinct paradigmatic projects that explore the character of fields, the emergence of organizational habitus, and the changing forms of capital that are key to the control of modern organizations. A number of these programs build on the same sociological classics that Bourdieu built his own theory on. These share the same lineage, even if they were not directly influenced by Bourdieu.

Wang, Junmin. 2009. "Global-market Building as State Building: China's Entry Into the Wto and Market Reforms of China's Tobacco Industry." Theory and Society. 38:2 165-194. Link
This article analyzes how China's increasing engagement in the global market induced significant institution-building in China's tobacco industry and enabled a power shift from the local authorities to the central authority in controlling this market. During this process of ``getting onto the international track,'' the central government reorganized the industrial tobacco systemand broke up the ``monopolies'' set up by local governments in order to enhance the competitive capacities of China's tobacco industry in the global market. Given such a concrete institutional change in China's tobacco industry, I propose the theory of `` global-market building as state building'' to explain the interactions among the global market, the nation-states, and the domestic market-building projects. I suggest that nation-states strategically seek to engage themselves in the global market and that, under certain circumstances by taking advantage of their global market engagement, the nation-states can enhance their abilities to govern the domestic market.

Chan, Cheris. 2009. "Creating a Market in the Presence of Cultural Resistance: the Case of Life Insurance in China." Theory and Society. 38:3 271-305. Link
This article brings together two different conceptions of culture-a shared meaning system on one hand and a repertoire of strategies on the other-to understand the emergence of a market. Based on ethnographic data, it examines how a Chinese life insurance market is emerging in the presence of incompatible shared values and ideas acting as cultural barriers, and how these cultural barriers shape the formation of the market. The findings reveal a burgeoning Chinese life insurance market despite local cultural logics incompatible with the profit-oriented institutional logic of life insurance. This Chinese market, however, has developed along a different trajectory from what might be expected. It first emerged as a money management, rather than a risk management, market. I argue that the very cultural barriers that compose the local resistance to a new economic practice also necessitate the mobilization of the cultural tool-kit to circumvent this resistance. These dual processes, shared ideas composing the resistance and the cultural tool-kit circumventing the resistance, shape the trajectory and characteristics of an emergent market. I propose a theoretical model specifying the mechanisms through which the two forms of culture interplay to influence the development of the life insurance. I apply this model to extend Zelizer's (1979) insights and discuss how culture matters in forging a new market in the global diffusion of capitalism.

Fuchs, Frieda. 2010. "Historical Legacies, Institutional Change, and Policy Leadership: the Case of Alexandre Millerand and the French Factory Inspectorate." Theory and Society. 39:1 69-107. Link
Focusing on Alexandre Millerand's reform of the French factory inspectorate, this article highlights the dilemmas of mezzo-level administrative leadership and policy reform in states that have strong administrative capacity, but low public trust and weak associational life. Building on the insights of theories of political and bureaucratic entrepreneurship derived from studies of American political development, the article challenges their taken-for-granted assumptions and comparative applicability, and demonstrates the explanatory potential of the older sociological institutionalism exemplified in the work of Philip Selznick. In particular, the article highlights the unintended consequences of the formal and informal cooptation of targeted social groups for the reputational autonomy of administrative leaders, the (re)definition of institutional mission, and organizational success or failure.

Overdevest, Christine. 2011. "Towards a More Pragmatic Sociology of Markets." Theory and Society. 40:5 533-552. Link
A satisfactory sociology of markets requires that both order and disorder in markets be addressed, yet sociologists have seemed more concerned with theorizing market stability and order. Change, however, is too fundamental a part of markets to receive so little sociological attention. One perspective that provides a fertile ground for moving ahead with developing an agenda for studying both stability and change in markets is American pragmatist social theory. This article therefore examines the influence of a pragmatist viewpoint on two broad modern theoretical approaches that have implications for the sociology of markets, one focused on stabilization processes, the other on institutional designs for promoting change. Most particularly, it draws on work carried out from a pragmatist viewpoint and illustrates a pragmatic approach to change in markets using the case of the EU's Forest, Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan and initiative.

Fourcade, Marion & Rakesh Khurana. 2013. "From Social Control to Financial Economics: the Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America." Theory and Society. 42:2 121-159. Link
This article draws on historical material to examine the co-evolution of economic science and business education over the course of the twentieth century, showing that fields evolve not only through internal struggles but also through struggles taking place in adjacent fields. More specifically, we argue that the scientific strategies of business schools played an essential-if largely invisible and poorly understood-role in major transformations in the organization and substantive direction of social-scientific knowledge, and specifically economic knowledge, in twentieth century America. We use the Wharton School as an illustration of the earliest trends and dilemmas (ca. 1900-1930), when business schools found themselves caught between their business connections and their striving for moral legitimacy in higher education. Next, we look at the creation of the Carnegie Tech Graduate School of Industrial Administration after World War II. This episode illustrates the increasingly successful claims of social scientists, backed by philanthropic foundations, on business education and the growing appeal of ``scientific'' approaches to decision-making and management. Finally, we argue that the rise of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago from the 1960s onwards (and its closely related cousin at the University of Rochester) marks the decisive ascendancy of economics, and particularly financial economics, in business education over the other behavioral disciplines. We document the key role of these institutions in diffusing ``Chicago-style'' economic approaches-offering support for deregulatory policies and popularizing narrowly financial understandings of the firm-that sociologists have described as characteristic of the modern neo liberal regime.