Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: Acknowledgments -- The Sociological view of the economy -- Institutions: From The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism -- Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony -- The Iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organisational fields -- From pricing the priceless child: The changing social value of children -- The Social construction of organisations and markets: the comparative analysis of business recipes -- The Decline and fall of the conglomerate firm in the 1980s: The Deinstitutionalization of an organizational form -- Networks: From the Division of labor in society -- Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness -- Embeddedness and immigration: notes on the social determinants of economic action -- A Structural approach to markets -- From structural holes: the social structure of competition -- Embeddedness in the marketing of financial capital: how social relations and networks benefit firms seeking financing -- From the German ideology -- From the transformation of corporate control.