Abstract
A sociological framework for relating the division of labor to the market areas of manufacturing firms is reformulated. The growth of exchange and the dynamics of differentiation and integration are discussed as key processes that explain changes in these market areas from local to regional to multiregional to national and also the rise of industrial regions. A case study of nineteenth-century plow manufacturing in the United States illustrates the utility of the proposed framework.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aldrich, Howard andSusan Mueller 1982 “The evolution of organizational forms: Technology, coordination, and control.” Research in Organizational Behavior 4:33–87.
Ardrey, R. L. 1894 American Agricultural Implements. Chicago, IL (privately published).
Atack, Jeremy 1985 “Industrial structure and the emergence of the modern industrial corporation.” Explorations in Economic History 22:29–52.
Atack, Jeremy andFred Bateman 1984a “Mid-nineteenth-century crop yields and labor productivity growth in American agriculture: A new look at Parker and Klein.” In Gary Saxon-house and Gavin Wright (eds.), Technique, Spirit and Form in the Making of the Modern Economies: Essays in Honor of William N. Parker: 215–242. Research in Economic History, Supplement 3. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
1984b “Self-sufficiency and the marketable surplus in the rural North, 1860.” Agricultural History 58:296–313.
Baker, Wayne E. 1984 “The social structure of a national securities market.” American Journal of Sociology 89:775–811.
Bidwell, Charles E. andJohn D. Kasarda 1985 The Organization and Its Ecosystem: A Theory of Structuring in Organizations. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Bishop, J. Leander 1866 A History of American Manufactures. 3 Vols. Philadelphia: Edward Young & Company.
Blau, Peter M. 1974 On the Nature of Organizations. New York: Wiley.
Broehl, Wayne G., Jr. 1984 John Deere's Company. New York: Doubleday.
Carroll, Glenn R. 1984 “Organizational ecology.” Annual Review of Sociology 10:71–93.
Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. 1977 The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. andFritz Redlich 1961 “Recent developments in American business administration and their conceptualization.” Business History Review 35:1–27.
Clark, John G. 1966 The Grain Trade in the Old Northwest. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Cooley, Charles Horton 1930 Sociological Theory and Social Research. New York: Henry Holt.
Danhof, Clarence H. 1969 Change in Agriculture: The Northern United States, 1820–1870. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Duncan, Beverly andStanley Lieberson 1970 Metropolis and Region in Transition. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Duncan, Otis Dudley, W. Richard Scott, Stanley Lieberson, Beverly Duncan, andHal H. Winsborough 1960 Metropolis and Region. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Durkheim, Emile 1964 The Division of Labor in Society. George Simpson, tr. New York: Free Press.
Hannan, Michael T. andJohn Freeman 1977 “The population ecology of organizations.” American Journal of Sociology 82:929–964.
Harvey, David 1982 The Limits to Capital. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hawley, Amos 1950 Human Ecology. New York: Ronald Press.
Hoover, Edgar M. 1948 The Location of Economic Activity. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Isard, Walter 1956 Location and Space-Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kass, Roy 1973 “A functional classification of metropolitan communities.” Demography 10:427–445.
Lathrop, William G. 1926 The Brass Industry in the United States, rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Wilson H. Lee.
Leifer, Eric M. 1985 “Markets as mechanisms: Using a role structure.” Social Forces 64:442–472.
Lösch, August 1954 The Economics of Location, 2d ed., rev. William H. Woglom, tr., with the assistance of Wolfgang F. Stolper. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Marx, Karl 1967 Capital. 3 Vols. New York: International Publishers.
Meyer, David R. 1983 “Emergence of the American manufacturing belt: An interpretation.” Journal of Historical Geography 9:145–174.
Parker, William N. andJudith L. Klein 1966 “Productivity growth in grain production in the United States, 1840–60 and 1900–10.” In Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States After 1800. Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 30:523–580. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Perrow, Charles 1979 Complex Organizations, 2d ed. New York: Random House.
Rogin, Leo 1931 The Introduction of Farm Machinery in its Relation to the Productivity of Labor in the Agriculture of the United States During the Nineteenth Century. University of California Publications in Economics, Vol. 9. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rosenberg, Nathan 1963 “Technological change in the machine tool industry, 1840–1910.” Journal of Economic History 23:414–443.
Rueschemeyer, Dietrich 1982 “On Durkheim's explanation of division of labor.” American Journal of Sociology 88:579–589.
1986 Power and the Division of Labor. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Smelser, Neil J. 1959 Social Change in the Industrial Revolution: An Application of Theory to the British Cotton Industry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, Adam 1952 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. (1776*) Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Sokoloff, Kenneth L. 1984 “Was the transition from the artisanal shop to the nonmechanized factory associated with gains in efficiency? Evidence from the U.S. manufacturing censuses of 1820 and 1850.” Explorations in Economic History 21:351–382.
South, Scott J. andDudley L. Poston, Jr. 1982 “The U.S. metropolitan system: Regional change, 1950–1970.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 18:187–206.
Spencer, Herbert 1897–1906 The Principles of Sociology. 3 Vols. London: Williams and Norgate.
Taylor, George Rogers 1951 The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860. The Economic History of the United States, Vol. 4. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
1960 “Comment.” In Trends in American Economy in the Nineteenth Century. Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 24:524–544. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Temin, Peter 1964 Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Tilly, Charles 1984 Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Tönnies, Ferdinand 1957 Community and Society. Charles P. Loomis,, tr. and ed. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
U.S. Census Office 1865 Manufactures of the United States, Eighth Census, 1860. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
1883 Report of the Manufactures of the United States, Tenth Census, 1880. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Wanner, Richard A. 1977 “The dimensionality of the urban functional system.” Demography 14:519–537.
Weber, Alfred 1929 Theory of the Location of Industries. Carl J. Friedrich, tr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weber, Max 1978 Economy and Society. 2 Vols. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press.
White, Harrison C. 1981 “Where do markets come from?” American Journal of Sociology 87:517–547.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Meyer, D.R. The division of labor and the market areas of manufacturing firms. Sociol Forum 3, 433–453 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01116434
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01116434