Cfp: Markets as networks, Sofia, 25-26.9.2009

Markets as Networks
Date: 25th - 26th of September, 2009
Site: Sofia University, Department of Sociology, Sofia, Bulgaria
Organiser: ISA, RC02 “Economy and Society”, the Department of Sociology, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and the Bulgarian Sociological Association

Topics: The conference aims at reviewing the major conceptual tools that economic sociology has proposed to understand the various forms of interplay between markets and network structures.How markets are socially constructed via networks, whether markets are social networks? How networks of individuals and firms can serve as a competitive advantage on the market? As a context, of interest here is market opening and closing as an interaction of global orders and national traditions. Globalization is primarily geared toward the opening of markets. However, open markets produce tensions and crises, whose settlement involves new forms of closure through reregulationon a transnational level. In this way, national forms of market order are getting under pressure of adjustment.

How do these macroprocesses influence the formation, maintenance and dissolution of networks of market players? How do the corporations build their networks and what is their effect on the national (dis)integrity in particular? What kind of networks form and maintain the small entrepreneurs? How their development is connected to the migration streams in the global world and what is the specific role of the family networks? The expectation is to study how the interaction of processes located at different levels of institutionalizatio n produces new, more open and more flexible market and network structures. The important focus is expected to be the theoretical clarification of the very concept of network and the way in which the networksmechanisms generate social capital. Social capital is seen here as competitive advantage on the market which has network origin. Related focus of interest is on information as a core of intersection between market and network: how and under what circumstances the structure of priorrelations among people and organisations in a market can affect, or replace, the flow of marketinformation and what people can do with it? The network mechanisms such as contagion(imitation ), prominence (reputation) , closure, brokerage, etc. should be explored.

Topics:
· The Concept of Network; Network Formation, Maintenance and Dissolution: the NetworkStructure of Social Capital; Markets as Social Networks
·Small Entrepreneurship, Family Networks and Migration in a Globalizing World
·Corporation in Networks – National (Dis)Integrity?
· Different Market Routes – Different Networks

The general objective of the conference is to attract papers reporting on recent empirical research, theoretical contributions and, of course, good combinations of the two.

Language: English

Fee: 80 € and is payable upon arrival or via bank transfer (For details see conference registration form on the website.) For early bird registration until 1 May 2009: 50 €.

Limited grants available for young researchers and also scholars from CEE who canapply for a fee waiver and contribution to their travel expenses.

Deadline: March 1, 2009. The abstracts should not exceed 500 words. Please send an abstract using the form on the website and also a short CV with a list of publications. Information on acceptance will be sent to participants at the end of March 2009.

The final deadline for papers is set for 5th of September 2009.

Contact: Assoc. Prof. Tanya Chavdarova (Sofia University, Department of Sociology, 125 Tzarigradsko Shosse Blvd., Bl. 4, Sofia 1113, Bulgaria)

Email: netmark@bsabg. org, Fax: +359 2 870 6260

Internet: http://www.netmark. bsabg.org


OVIDIU PALCU

PhD Candidate
University of Athens
Faculty of Political Science

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