How do investors enter and navigate markets where there is a general lack of access to information and where the law is open to interpretation? Drawing on interview data with 100 research subjects in Vietnam’s real estate market, this article makes contributions to the literatures of economic sociology and development. First, looking at a diverse set of local, regional, and global investors, I theorize how market actors pursue different strategies to manage risky investments based on their proximity to state officials. Investors’ proximity depends on four processes: legal/regulatory, social ties, cultural matching, and stage of investment. Second, I highlight how multiple state–market relations can coexist within the same state. Investors’ varying levels of proximity to government officials shape their relationship with the state as one of patronage (predatory), mutual destruction (mutual hostage), or transparency (developmental). Heterogeneous state–market relations help account for the persistence of foreign direct investment in markets that display both a great deal of corruption and a great deal of legality and transparency.
AbbottAndrew. 2016. Processual Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
AbramsPhillips. 1988. “Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State.” Journal of Historical Sociology1(1):58–89.
3.
BandeljNina. 2009. “The Global Economy as Instituted Process: The Case of Central and Eastern Europe.” American Sociological Review74(1):128–49.
4.
BandeljNina. 2012. “Relational Work and Economic Sociology.” Politics and Society40(2):175–201.
5.
BandeljNinaWherryFrederikZelizerViviana. 2017. “Introduction.” Pp. 1–24 in Money Talks: Explaining How Money Really Works, edited by BandeljN.WherryF.ZelizerV. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
BeresfordMelanie. 2008. “Doi Moi in Review: The Challenges of Building Market Socialism in Vietnam.” Journal of Contemporary Asia38(2):221–43.
8.
BourdieuPierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9.
BuckleyPeterChenLiangCleggJeremyVossHinrich. 2016. “Experience and FDI Risk-Taking: A Microfoundational Reconceptualization.” Journal of International Management22(2):131–46.
10.
BurtRonald S.2005. Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction to Social Capital. New York: Oxford University Press.
11.
BussellJennifer. 2013. “Varieties of Corruption: The Organization of Rent-Seeking in India.” Presented at the Westminster Model of Democracy in Crisis? conference, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
12.
ChanCheris Shun-ching. 2009. “Invigorating the Content in Social Embeddedness: An Ethnography of Life Insurance Transactions in China.” American Journal of Sociology115(3):712–54.
13.
ClemensElisabeth S.2010. “From City Club to Nation State: Business Netowrks in American Political Development.” Theory and Society39(3–4):377–96.
14.
CohenMark S.AbernethyJonathan S.LeeSoeun Nikole. 2013. “Anti-Corruption Enforcement in Korea: Is an Old Law Coming of Age?” New York Law Journal, November4.
DavisGerald F.MarquisChristopher. 2005. “Prospects for Organizational Theory in the Early 21st Century: Institutional Fields and Mechanisms.” Organizational Science16(4):332–43.
17.
EvansPeter. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
18.
GranovetterMark. 1985. “Economic Action and Scocial Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.” American Journal of Sociology19(3):481–510.
GusevaAlyaRona-TasAkos. 2001. “Uncertainty, Risk, and Trust: Russian and American Credit Card Markets Compared.” American Sociological Review66(5):623–46.
HoangKimberly Kay. 2014. “Flirting with Capital: Negotiating Perceptions of Pan-Asian Ascendency and Western Decline in Global Sex Work.” Social Problems61(4):507–529.
25.
HoangKimberly Kay. 2015. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Oakland: University of California Press.
26.
HoangKimberly KayCobbJessicaLeiYa-Wen. 2017. “Guest Editors Introduction: Inter-Asian Capital Circulations, Cultural Transformations, and Methodological Positions.” Positions: Asia Critique25(4):633–44.
27.
HuynhDu. 2014. “The Misuse of Urban Planning in Ho Chi Minh City.” Habitat International48:11–19.
28.
JungSanghoonHuynhDuRowePeter. 2013. “The Pattern of Foreign Property Investment in Vietnam: The Apartment Market in Ho Chi Minh City.” Habitat International39(1):105–113.
29.
KangDavid C.2002. Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines. New York: Cambridge University Press.
30.
KerkvlietBenedict J.2001. “An Approach for Analysing State-Society Relations in Vietnam.” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia16(2):238–78.
31.
KimHun. 2017. “Capturing World Class Urbanism through Modal Governance in Saigon.” Positions25(4):669–92.
32.
KrippnerGreta R.2001. “The Elusive Market: Embeddedness and the Paradigm of Economic Sociology.” Theory and Society30:775–810.
33.
Lainer-VosDan. 2013. “The Practical Organization of Moral Transactions: Gift Giving, Market Exchange, Credit, and the Making of Diaspora Bonds.” Sociological Theory31(2):145–67.
34.
LeeCheol-Sung. 2016. When Solidarity Works: Labor-Civic Networks and Welfare States in the Market Reform Era. New York: Cambridge University Press.
35.
LewisKevinKaufmanJasonGonzalezMarcoWimmerAndreasChistakisNicholas. 2008. “Tastes, Ties, and Time: A New Social Network Dataset Using Facebook.Com.” Social Networks30(4):330–42.
36.
LiuSida. 2013. “The Legal Profession as a Social Process: A Theory on Lawyers and Globalization.” Law & Social Inquiry38(3):670–93.
37.
MaleskyEdmundMcCullochNeilDuc NhatNguyen. 2015. “The Impact of Governancy and Transparency on Firm Investment in Vietnam.” Economics of Transition23(4):677–715.
38.
MarquisChrisRaynardMia. 2015. “Institutional Strategies in Emerging Markets.” Academy of Management Annals9(1):291–335.
39.
MarquisChristopherZhangJianjunZhouYanhua. 2011. “Regulatory Uncertainty and Corporate Responses to Environmental Protection in China.” California Management Review54(1):39–63.
40.
MartinJohn Levi. 2009. Social Structures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
41.
MaussMarcel. [1990] 2000. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York: Routledge.
42.
MearsAshley. 2015. “Working for Free in the VIP: Relational Work and the Production of Consent.” American Sociological Review80(6):1099–1122.
43.
MorganKimberlyOrloffAnn. 2017. “Introduction: The Many Hands of the State.” Pp. 1–34 in The Many Hands of the State: Theorizing Political Authority and Social Control, edited by MorganK.OrloffA. New York: Cambridge University Press.
44.
NguyenHung. 2015. “Seminar Held on FDI Impact.” Vietnam Economic Times, October4.
45.
NguyenQuang Phucvan WesternA.C.MZoomersAnnelies. 2013. “Agricultural Land for Urban Development: The Process of Land Conversion in Central Vietnam.” Habitat International41(1):1–7.
46.
NguyenTu Phuong. 2014. “Rethinking State-Society Relations in Vietnam: The Case of Business Associations in Ho Chi Minh City.” Asian Studies Review38(1):87–106.
47.
NorthDouglass. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
48.
O’NeillJim. 2013. The Growth Map: Economic Opportunity in the BRICs and Beyond. London, UK: Penguin Books.
49.
OngAihwa. 2011. “Introduction: Worlding Cities, or the Art of Being Global.” Pp. 1–26 in Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global, edited by RoyA.OngA. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Limited.
50.
PitmanGlennSanfordJames. 1994. “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Revisited: Attempting to Regulate Ethical Bribes in Global Business.” International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management30(3):15–20.
51.
PolanyiKarl. [1944] 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.
52.
PortesAlejandroSensenbrennerJulia. 1993. “Embeddedness and Immigration: Notes on the Social Determinants of Economic Action.” American Journal of Sociology98(1):1320–50.
53.
RiveraLauren A.2012. “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms.” American Sociological Review77(6):999–1022.
54.
RodrikDaniRauchJames E. 1997. “Comments: Dani Rodrik and James E. Rauch.” Pp. 109–112 in Corruption and the Global Economy, edited by ElliottK. A. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.
55.
Rose-AckermanSusan. 1999. Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences, and Reform. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
56.
RossmanGabriel. 2014. “Obfuscatory Relational Work and Disreputable Exchange.” Sociological Theory32(1):43–63.
57.
SanyalRajib. 2012. “Patterns in International Bribery: Violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” Thunderbird International Business Review54(3):299–309.
58.
ScottRichard. 2001. Institutions and Organizations: Ideas, Interests, and Identities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
59.
StarkDavidBrusztLaszlo. 1998. Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.
60.
StovelKatherineShawLynette. 2012. “Brokerage.” Annual Review of Sociology38(1):139–58.
61.
SwidlerAnn. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” American Sociological Review51(2):273–86.
62.
TillyCharles. 1998. Double Inequality. Berkeley: University of California Press.
63.
TranHung. 2017. “October 2017 Capital Flows to Emerging Markets.” Capital Flows Report. Washington, DC: Institute of International Finance.
64.
TurleyWilliamSeldenMark. 1993. Reinventing Vietnamese Socialism: Doi Moi in Comparative Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
65.
U.S. Congress, House of Representatives. 2011. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the Committee of the Judiciary, 112th Congress, 1st session, June14.
66.
U.S. Congress, Senate. 2010. Examining Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs of the Committeee on the Judiciary, 111th Congress, 2nd session, November30.
67.
UzziBrian. 1999. “Embeddedness in the Making of Financial Capital: How Social Relations and Networks Benefit Firms Seeking Financing.” American Sociological Review64(4):481–505.
68.
VeblenThorstein. 1899. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Modern Library.
69.
WeberMax. [1922] 1978. Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
70.
WittMichaelReddingGordon. 2011. “Asian Business Systems: Institutional Comparison, Clusters and Implications for Varieties of Capitalism and Business Systems Theory.” Socio-Economic Review11(2):265–300.
World Trade Organization. 2006. “General Council Approves Vietnam’s Membership.” WTO: 2006 Press Releases Press/455. Retrieved August10th, 2007.
73.
YenkeyChristopher B.2015. “Mobilizing a Market: Ethnic Segmentation and Investor Recruitment into the Nairobi Securities Exchange.” Administrative Science Quarterly60(4):561–95.
74.
YenkeyChristopher B.2018. “Fraud and Market Participation: Social Relations as a Moderator of Organizational Misconduct.” Administrative Science Quarterly63(1):43–84. DOI: 10.1177/0001839217694359.
ZelizerViviana A.1997. The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
77.
ZelizerViviana A. 2005. The Purchase of Intimacy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
