The Sense of Dissonance:
Accounts of Worth in Economic Life
Search is the watchword of the information age, but in this study of innovation David Stark examines a different kind of search – when we don’t know what we’re looking for but will recognize it when we find it. Drawing on John Dewey’s notion of collaborative inquiry, Stark uses ethnography to study the perplexing situations in which actors search for what’s valuable. His cases include machine tool makers in Hungary, new media workers in Silicon Alley, and derivatives traders on Wall Street. In coping with uncertainty, organizations benefit from the friction of competing criteria of worth. The dissonance of diverse principles can lead to discovery.
Chapter 1 | Table Of Contents
Reviews:
Review in the American Journal of SociologyReview in Socio-Economic Review
Review in Administrative Science Quarterly
Review in the Journal of Evolutionary Economics
Review in the European Economic Sociology Newsletter
Endorsements:
"In this book, Stark takes the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery…The Sense of Dissonance is equally a book about how organizations really work and how we should think about the problem of organization--a great accomplishment."--Duncan Watts, author of Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age
"At a time when global crises have shattered standard accounts of economic life, David Stark's The Sense of Dissonance offers powerful alternative explanations of economic activity along with specific prescriptions for twenty-first-century economic survival. This book instructs and inspires."--Viviana A. Zelizer, author of The Purchase of Intimacy
"This wonderful, lively, and personal book is packed with insights for economic sociology and general sociological theory. A mature statement by a leading sociologist, it is also a delight to read."--Walter W. Powell, Stanford University
"This is an important book about an important topic--and it has a strong narrative and impressive, engaging ethnography."--Michèle Lamont, Harvard University
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Postsocialist Pathways:
Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe
Is there a distinctly East European capitalism? This volume analyzes democratization and economic change in the postsocialist societies of East Central Europe. It demonstrates that the collapse of communism was not the same across the region and that the differences in how the pieces fell shaped the building blocks used for reconstructing political systems and restructuring economies in the region. Among the key concepts are the importance of social networks in the economies and of deliberative institutions in the polity that include the interests of subordinate groups in policymaking.
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Endorsements:
"This book is a huge breath of fresh air. Stark and Bruszt defy many conventional understandings about the transition processes and their societal consequences in Central Europe, undertake careful and innovative research, and come up with solid conclusions about the unique shape that these countries are acquiring. This, in turn, provides the basis for truly comparative work, one that benefits students of this and other regions: gaining detailed knowledge of the specificities of each set of cases and deriving from them rich theoretical implications. This is an important and original book, of great value for anyone interested in the present and future trends of newly democratized countries." Guillermo O'Donnell, University of Notre Dame"Originality, intellectual innovation, inspiration derived from sharp observation, and courageous theoretical generalizations--these are rare qualities in transition economics, and characteristic of Stark and Bruszt's book. Some of their propositions are certainly controversial, but that also helps to make Postsocialist Pathways exciting and thought-provoking reading." Janos Kornai, Harvard University and Collegium Budapest
"Stark and Bruszt have opened the 'black box' on privatization in EasternEurope -- and they have discovered circuitry that differs radically from one country to another. Moreover, these emerging patterns of public/privateownership, control and collusion have serious implications for such things as economic growth, international competitiveness, Euro-compatibility, the role of foreign capital, the legitimacy of capitalism itself -- even the type and quality of democracy." Philippe C. Schmitter, European University Institute
"Postsocialist Pathways is suitable for research collections covering economic reforms in Central Europe." Choice
Restructuring Networks in Post-Socialism:
Legacies, Linkages and Localities
This book is about change in Central and Eastern Europe, and about how we think about social and economic change more generally. In contrast to the dominant 'transition framework' that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from, the blueprints of already existing capitalist systems, this book examines the innovative character, born of necessity, in which actors in the post-socialist setting are restructuring organizations and institutions by redefining and recombining resources. Instead of thinking of these recombinations as accidental aberrations, the book explores their evolutionary potentials.
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Endorsements:
""[These] papers counter the neoclassical prescriptions for the post-socialist economies with an alternative conception of development drawn from new insights in evolutionary theory and network analysis."--Journal of Economic Literature "The 14 essays assembled in this volume convey the rich ironies of history, powerfully reminding us that politics do not suffer political theory gladly...expert and novice alike will find much of interest here."--Social Forces "This book is a major contribution to the debate on postcommunist economic transition, but should be read by anyone interested in economic sociology."--American Journal of SociologyRemaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism:
China and Eastern Europe
Economic reforms in China and Eastern Europe have undermined much past thinking about state socialism. These papers represent some serious, though often piecemeal, efforts to find new models and approaches.
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