At the Crossroads: The Embedding Work of Market Participants in and around Markets

Abstract

Market participants stand at the intersection of at least two perennial contexts: their target market and their experience in other social spheres. A question remains regarding how market participants manage this position at the crossroads and how it affects their market activities. Thus far, market sociology has paid scant attention to these issues. To more closely investigate the enmeshment of market participants in multiple contexts, this article introduces the concept of embedding work and applies it to self-employed market participants, who engage in embedding work in two directions: They establish equivalences to target markets and biographic experiences, and at the same time, they draw distinctions from these contexts. Case studies of nascent entrepreneurs in Germany illustrate how embedding work impacts the choice of target markets and the maneuvering within these markets. The article contributes to market sociology by dealing with the embedding of markets in other social contexts as mediated by market participants.