Martin Ruef
Where Do Organizations Come From?
While formal organizations (and the institutions that support them) are key features of the contemporary social landscape, sociologists have only recently developed empirical descriptions of the processes that lead to their emergence. My research considers the social context of entrepreneurship from both a contemporary and historical perspective. Large-scale surveys of entrepreneurs in the United States permit me to explore team formation, innovation, exchange processes, and boundary maintenance in nascent startups. My historical analyses address entrepreneurial activity leading to the founding of U.S. medical schools since the 18th century and the organizational transformation of Southern agriculture and industry in the post-bellum period.
Selected Publications:
Ruef, M. (2010). The Entrepreneurial Group: Social Identities, Relations, and Collective Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ruef, M. and K. Patterson. (2009). Credit and classification: The impact of industry boundaries in 19th century America, Administrative Science Quarterly, 54, 486-520.
Ruef, M. and K. Patterson. (2009). Organizations and local development: Economic and demographic growth among Southern counties during Reconstruction, Social Forces, 87, 1743-1776.
Ruef, M. and M. Lounsbury (eds). (2007). The Sociology of Entrepreneurship. New York: Elsevier.
Aldrich, H. and Ruef, M. (2006). Organizations Evolving. London: Sage.
Ruef, M. (2004). The demise of an organizational form: Emancipation and plantation agriculture in the American South, 1860 - 1880, American Journal of Sociology, 109, 1365-1410.
Ruef, M., Aldrich, H., and Carter, N. (2003). The structure of founding teams: Homophily, strong ties, and isolation among U.S. entrepreneurs, American Sociological Review, 68, 195-222.