Members:
Klaus Kraemer (spokesperson), Jakob Gasser, Nathalie Posch, Mario Rossmann, Nico Tackner
Former members:
Florian Brugger, Luka Jakelja, Se-Jun Kim, Sebastian Nessel
Brief description
The modern economy cannot be adequately understood without considering its social and societal foundations and framework conditions. Based on this fundamental premise, the research focus on economic sociology develops approaches to the sociological analysis of the economy in modern societies and investigate the social constitutional conditions of key economic institutions such as companies, markets, money and property. In particular, the research seeks to address the following questions: What are the social, political-institutional and cultural preconditions of economic markets? What significance do social conflicts and inequalities, value ideas and conventions have for markets and companies? How can the emergence, establishment and decline of markets be explained from a sociological perspektive? How can we explain why numerous exchange relationships are organized in the form of markets, while in other areas markets are rejected or even legally prohibited? To what extent do social structures not only shape economic processes, but are themselves shaped by economic structures?
The research focus is dedicated to advancing theoretical concepts, assessing their analytical capacity for understanding the economy of modern societies and conducting empirical studies on social issues in selected economic domains, including labour markets and consumer behaviour.
The following research topics are currently being investigated:
- Sociology of the economy and markets
- Sociology of financial markets and money
- Analyses of modern capitalism
- Transformation in labour and employment / research on precarisation
- Consumer markets, consumer practices and consumer organisations