Markets On Trial: The Economic Sociology of the U.S. Financial Crisis (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 30) - Softcover

Michael Lounsbury

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0857247670 ISBN 13: 9780857247674

Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2011

Synopsis

Since the mid-20th century, organizational theorists have increasingly distanced themselves from the study of core societal power centers and important policy issues of the day. This has been driven by a shift away from the study of organizations, politics, and society and towards a more narrow focus on instrumental exchange and performance. As a result, our field has become increasingly impotent as a critical voice and contributor to policy. For a contemporary example, witness our inability as a field to make sense of the recent U.S. mortgage meltdown and concomitant global financial crisis. It is not that economic and organizational sociologists have nothing to say. The problem is that while we have a great deal of knowledge about finance, the economy, entrepreneurship and corporations, we fail to address how the knowledge in our field can be used to contribute to important policy issues of the day. This book brings together some of the very top scholars in the world in economic and organizational sociology to address the recent global financial crisis debates and struggles around how to organize economies and societies around the world.

About this title

Review:

Bravo! Finally, a stellar group of economic sociologists speak out about the antecedents, processes, and consequences of the 2008 financial crisis. Markets on Trial ably combines sharp analytic insights with much needed policy recommendations. --Viviana Zelizer, Lloyd Cotsen 50 Professor of Sociology, Princeton University, author of Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy

Now that it s clear to just about everyone that there are institutions and organizations behind markets and that both have a major hand in market failures, who are you going to call? Organizational and economic sociologists of course! This book assembles scholars of significant repute from both fields with much to say about why we are where we are today. The messages are provocative and important. It s time to listen to the voices in this timely and important book. At the moment, this book should be on every thinking person's 'to read' list. --Stephen R. Barley, Richard Weiland Professor and Co-Director, Center for Work, Technology and Organization, Stanford University.
Part of a series of texts on the sociology of complex organizations, this collection of twenty-two articles on the sociology of the current U.S. economic crisis showcases current scholarship examining a variety of aspects of financial regulation, markets and corporate policy making. Divided into sections covering the fundamentals of the financial crisis, normal accident perspective, the historical grounds for the crisis, speculative markets and business cycles, and the long term effects of crisis and reform, individual essays address such topics as the anatomy of the mortgage securitization crisis, market architecture, normal accidents and regulatory reform, the political economy of financial exuberance, and aspects of a post-ownership society. Contributors include academics in sociology, business and management from a variety of primarily American universities. Distributed in North America by Turpin Distribution. --Book News Inc. Portland, OR

Markets on Trial is an essential foundation for understanding the Great Recession of 2008-09, and for averting future financial catastrophes. Drawing on research by the era s premier economic sociologists, this volume makes a compelling case for seeing the subprime mortgage disaster, Lehman failure, and financial meltdown as predictable and thus avoidable products of free-market ideology, shareholder-value capitalism, misapplied agency-theory, corporate-elite fragmentation, and, ultimately, a massive failure of leadership. --Michael Useem, Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

About this edition

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0857247670
• ISBN 13: 9780857247674
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 708
• Editor: Michael Lounsbury, Paul M. Hirsch