Introduction to A Modern Guide to Economic Sociology

The chapter provides an introduction to A Modern Guide to Economic Sociology. The volume offers a modern guide to the basic ideas, principles and results of economic sociology and its elements and implications in economics. The volume includes contributions from both modern economic sociologists and sociologically-minded economists working in this and related fields. The introduction argues and demonstrates that the concepts, premises and stages of economic sociology correspond and converge with its elements or implications in economics. It proposes that the fundamentals of economic sociology are generally compatible with its variations in economics. It infers that there is a correspondence and compatibility between economic sociology and its elements in economics in a shared set of core concepts and principles and a common sequence of phases of development. This includes primarily the concept of a social economy, including institutional, political and cultural, constitution and determination, i.e., embeddedness, of economic actors and actions. It provides instances from the various stages of development of economic sociology and its elements in economics. It concludes that economic sociology primarily makes sociology and economics closely related and allied social sciences.