**4. Conclusion**

One of the mostly discussed problems in sociology is that of bridging individuals and social structure and hence taking into account social, cultural, and economic aspects when explaining and analyzing society. Because of this the development of multi-level and mostly action-based explanations turned out to be one of the most important developments in sociology in general and in economic sociology in particular. In this regard, institution theories are very helpful because social institutions in a broad sense as socially constituted expectations can be explained as a result of individual actions and, in particular, social situations. Furthermore, the intended as well as the unintended by-products of such institutions can be analyzed according to the underlying problem structure as well as to individuals' capabilities and motivations. On this basis, I have argued that the rise of both business firms and mass markets can be explained as attempts of formally free individuals to improve their living conditions by the coordination through central hierarchies as well as decentralized market exchange, both, however, going along with the need for further institutions. While the large firm is predominantly characterized by its conflict structure that has to be framed by collective ideas or bargaining mechanisms, markets always need social definitions about goods, sellers, and buyers, and most of the time trust-building institutions that help running exchange relations by strangers when competition fails or when there is a lack of information. Due to the logic of the underlying problem, social institutions like cultural symbols, tacit knowledge, networks, or even – in more problematic cases – formal rules and hierarchies are helpful in stabilizing or substituting market mechanisms. In doing so, we can now not only state that institutions matter in economy, but we can more precisely formulate theses about when and why which sorts of institutions might be helpful and also possible. That means that the market can no longer be seen as the most effective coordination mechanism in economy, but only as one of many that works most efficiently when functioning by defining prices that state the resource structure.

Some additional work has to be done to widen the action theory so that interests as well as duties or customs be integrated, in the sense that we can give theoretical arguments about economic actions that are interest-based as well as governed by normatively or habitually founded institutions. Also, some more work has to be done to pay more attention to specific human abilities, especially rationality and creativity, which help to describe problem constellations and to find social solutions. But as I have clearly mentioned above, the main sociological task is to explore social interdependencies or situations that cause social expectations and provide the opportunity structure to define and maintain them.

What I intended to do, was to look at economy from a general sociological view and to provide a clear thesis about the rise of the two main economic institutions in modern economy: the business firm and the mass market. By using the tools of social and institutional theory, I argued that under the integrated roof of institution theory we can and should explain as well as analyze economic institutions as a form of social-expectation building. But in order to overcome the restrictions of classics we have to analyze their functioning with regard to individuals and the underlying problem logic of typical social constellations. In doing so, we can now state that market mechanisms help to coordinate strangers or morally no longer integrated individuals, but only based on socially defined preferences, skills, and property rights. Furthermore, we can now argue that most of economic life needs at least additional social mechanisms in order to enforce market mechanisms and sometimes also to be a proper alternative. This is what economic sociology could do in the future, whereas sociology in general could concentrate more on the effects economic institutions have on social life by using and destroying traditional social institutions like temporal rhythms, family relations, religious rituals, traditional knowledge, networks, ethics, etc. This means also considering how firms and market actors can be socially included or at least bring social concerns into the economic scene.
