Restructuring Networks in Post-Socialism: Legacies, Linkages and Localities

by Gernot Grabher, David Stark

Overview

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.

The starting premise of Restructuring Networks in Post-Socialist Societies is that the actual unit of entrepreneurship is not the isolated individual personality but the social network that links firms and the actors within them. Drawing insight from evolutionary economics and from the new methods of network analysis, leading sociologists, economists, and political scientists report on changes in organizational forms in Hungary, Poland, Eastern Germany, Russia, and the Czech Republic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198290209
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/20/1997
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.98(d)
Lexile:	1510L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

1. Organizing Diversity: Evolutionary Theory, Network Analysis, and Post-Socialism. Gernot Grabher and David Stark
I. RECOMBINANT NETWORKS: PROPERTY TRANSFORMATION AND RESTRUCTURING OF LARGE FIRMS
2. Recombinant Property in East European Capitalism. David Stark
3. Renegotiating the Ties that Bind: The Limits of Privatization in the Czech Republic. Gerald A. McDermott
4. Adaptation at the Cost of Adaptability? Restructuring the Eastern German Regional Economy. Gernot Grabher
II. ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS: NEW FIRM FORMATION
5. Network Dynamics of New Firm Formation: Developing Russian Commodity Markets. Judith S. Sedaitis
6. Too Many, Too Small: Small Entrepreneurship in Hungary—Ailing or Prospering?. Istvan R. Gabor
7. Towards Industrial Districts? Small-Firm Networking in Hungary. Tibor Kuczi and Csaba Mako
8. Regional and Local Factors in the Restructuring of South-Eastern Poland. Jerzy Hausner, Tadeusz Kudlacz, and Jacek Szlachta
9. Private Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses in the Transformation of the Czech Republic. Vladimir Benacek
10. The Social and Cultural Embeddedness of Entrepreneurs in Eastern Germany. Thomas Koch and Michael Thomas
III. POLICY NETWORKS: RESTRUCTURING INSTITUTIONS
11. The Antinomies of Privatization in Eastern Europe. Peter Rutland
12. Privatization by Means of State Bureaucracy? The Treuhand Phenomenon in Eastern Germany. Wolfgang Seibel
13. Mediating Institutions in the Transition from State Socialism: The Case of Local Government. Chris Pickvance
14. Between Institutional Transfer and Legacies: Local Administrative Transformation in Eastern Germany. Hellmut Wollmann
Index

Editorial Reviews

"[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 Sociology

From the Publisher