Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Social processes drive the current market turbulence and the eventual future for biotechnology products in agriculture. We examine those processes using central ideas from the sociology of markets: Markets are socially constructed by buyers and sellers, and markets are embedded in the broader sociopolitical environment in which they exist. Those seeking to construct a market for genetically modified soybeans using the existing commodity market as a platform conflict with the sociopolitical environment that withholds normative and regulatory legitimacy from this outcome. We conduct a content analysis on recent public dialogue about the problems and solutions in constructing the market(s) for genetically modified soybeans, and we apply a model traditionally used in the social construction literature for expost analyses of technology adoption. The model proves valuable for identifying pathways for resolving the conflict.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Dacin, T. (1997). Isomorphism in context: The power and prescription of institutional norms. Academy of Management Journal, 40, 46-81.

Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481-510.

Lie, J. (1997). Sociology of markets. Annual Reviews of Sociology, 23, 341-360.

McGuire, P. , & Granovetter, M. (in press). Shifting boundaries and social construction in the early electricity industry, 1878-1915. In J. Porac (Ed.), Constructing markets and industries. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.

Pinch, T. (1997, August 19-22). Why you go to a piano store to buy a synthesizer: Path dependence and the social construction of technology. Paper prepared for the Workshop on Path Creation and Dependence, Copenhagen Business School.

Pinch, T. J. , & Bijker, W. E. (1987). The social construction of facts and artifacts: Or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other. In W. E. Bijker et al. (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology (pp. 17-50). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Porac, J. , & Rosa, A. J. (1996). Rivalry, industry models, and the cognitive embeddedness of the comparable firm. Advances in Strategic Management, 13, 363-388.

Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Swedberg, R. (1997). New economic sociology: What has been accomplished, what is ahead. Acta Sociologica, 40, 161-182.

10.

Thornton, P. H. , & Ventresca, M. J. (in press). Entrepreneurial strategies and boundary redefinition in organizations, markets and industries: An actor-based method to study institutional change. In J. Porac (Ed.), Constructing markets and industries. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.

Social Construction of the Market(s) for Genetically Modified and Nonmodified Crops

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References