Emily Erikson
Emily Erikson (Yale University)
Emily Erikson is an associate professor of sociology at Yale University working on social networks, organizations, and the development of the institutions of capitalism and democracy. Her award-winning book, Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company (Princeton University Press, 2014) shows how an informal social network linking autonomous employees fostered the Company’s long-term success, shedding light on the processes underpinning the emergence of early multi-national firms and the structure of early modern global trade. Her forthcoming book, New Knowledge: The Rise of Economics and Development of the Public Sphere, identifies the role of new organizational forms and state-merchant relations in stimulating the development of pre-classical economic thought in the seventeenth century (Columbia University Press). Her work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, Sociology Theory, and Social Science History, among others. She serves on the council for the economic sociology section of the American Sociological Association and the executive council of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, sits on the editorial board for Social Science History, the editorial committee for the Relational Sociology Series (Palgrave MacMillan), and is a founding member of the advisory board for the Journal of Historical Network Research.
Network Diffusion and Group Events: How Parties Can Change Processes
Social Network Analysis has trouble distinguishing between group processes in which several people interact concurrently and sequentially unfolding dyadic interactions. This manuscript suggests that there are substantial differences between these two types of interactions and that the concept of events can help distinguish between the two. Examples drawn from economic sociology and collective action demonstrate the different effects that may result from group events versus aggregated dyadic interactions.