Bringing together perspectives from the new economic sociology and new cultural sociology, this paper proposes that because economic phenomena are imbued with meaning they can be studied as cultural objects. In particular, the goal is to analyze the public discussions surrounding the sales of...

How do individuals shape societies? How do societies shape individuals? This paper develops a framework for studying the connections between micro and macro phenomena. The framework builds on two ingredients widely used in social science - population and variable. Starting with the simplest case...

In this paper we test the celebrated `Strength of weak ties' theory of Granovetter (1973). We test two hypotheses on the network structure in a data set of collaborating economists. While we find support for the hypothesis of transitivity of strong ties, we reject the hypothesis that weak ties...

Both "actions" and "interactions' can be considered as micro-operations that can be aggregated from a systemic perspective. Whereas actions operate historically, interactions provide the events retrospectively with meaning. Luhmann's sociology of communication systems adds to the approach of...

This paper advances research on institutional work in market constitution processes. I show how purposive, coordinated action is organized under conditions of uncertainty through practices of rendering irreducible uncertainty tolerable. Building on recent developments in institutional theories...

This paper reports on an analysis of original data from a cross-national survey in 17 countries of couples and their social relationships. The survey focused on cohabiting couples, who have the Internet at home. Each member of each couple was asked how they met their partners, what dating...