Waltzing,Relational Work,and the Construction (or Not) of Collaboration in Manufacturing Industries *

Abstract

The article uses a case study of relationships in American manufacturing industries to demonstrate the utility of documenting the “relational work” that managers do as they negotiate circumstances where either roles or norms are ambiguous. It shows that the explicit identification of the role that relational work plays in those relationships story militates for—and extends, improves upon, and arguably completes—a particular understanding of what economic sociologists should mean when they talk about the “embedding” of the economic in social relations. The article hence shows the utility of jointly using otherwise disparate perspectives in the analysis of interorganizational relationships, and thus contributes to the development of a more unified paradigm in economic sociology.