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Explains that Michael Polanyi was an internationally reputed philosopher who may be remembered as the greatest epistemologist of the twentieth century. The one aspect of his philosophy which has been neglected is his philosophy of history. Sets out to explicate Polanyi’s interpretation of the history of the late modern period. He emphasized the historical importance of three revolutions: the French Revolution; the Bolshevik Revolution; and the Hungarian Revolution. Polanyi called for a return to traditional moral values, such as truth, justice, and love. Presents a clarification of Polanyi’s interpretation of late modern history which it is hoped will contribute to the resolution of the crisis which threatens contemporary civilization.

This chapter examines Karl Polanyi's critique of formalism in economics and his case for a more institutional economics based upon a reconstitution of the facts of economic life on as wide an historical basis as possible. The argument below reviews Polanyi's argument with regard to the relation between economic anthropology and comparative economics, the contrast between the formalist and substantive approaches to economic analysis, the notion of an economistic fallacy, the most important limitations of the conventional formalist economics approach, and the nature and import of the new departure that Polanyi envisioned.

This article aims to show that studies of transnational risk regulation can benefit from Polanyian and neo-Polanyian research agendas in the field of law, economy, and society. Risk regulation would then be understood as a corrective force within the market society. Drawing on the relevant literature in the field, Karl Polanyi’s work is contextualized both in the past (“scholarship before and beside Polanyi”) and in the present (“scholarship after and beyond Polanyi”). The review considers developments within sociology, its neighboring disciplines economics and jurisprudence, and the interdisciplinary research fields of “economy and society,” “law and society,” and “law and economy.” The article demonstrates that Polanyi is a “late classic” who shares the holistic orientation of classical historical scholarship. At the same time, it is argued that his “early revival” is due to the topicality of his criticism of the market society, and its inherent risks, in an era of neoliberalism and globalization. By going back and forth in time, the article situates Polanyi in a line of holistically minded scholarship that combines insights of general, economic, and legal sociology in what can be called the “economic sociology of law.” This is “old” and “new,” at the same time.

This article starts from the assumption that economic sociology, including Karl Polanyi’s work, can contribute fresh perspectives to regulation debates because it opens up new understandings of the nature of economic activity, a key target of legal regulation. In particular this article examines Polanyi’s idea that society drives regulation. For Polanyi the “regulatory counter-movement” is society’s response to the disembedding – in particular through the proliferation of markets – of economic out of social relationships. Section One of the article identifies three key challenges that arise from this Polanyian take on regulation for contemporary regulation researchers. First, Polanyi focuses on social norms restraining business behavior, but neglects social norms embedded in law as also shaping regulation. Second, he seems to imply a clear-cut conceptual distinction between “economy” and “society.” Third, his analysis sidelines the role of interest politics in the development of regulation.

Addressing the first of these three key challenges, Section Two of this article therefore argues that a Polanyian vision of “socialized” legal regulation should build on contemporary accounts of responsive law and regulation, which focus attention on social norms informing legal regulation. Section Three of this article tackles the second key challenge raised by Polanyi’s work for contemporary regulation researchers, that is, how to transcend a modernist perspective of “economy” and “society” as clearly demarcated, distinct fields of social action. It argues that discourse theory is an important alternative theoretical resource. Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe, the article suggests that understanding “economy” and “society” as performed by open and relationally constructed discourses helps to capture interconnections between “economy” and “society” that become particularly visible when we analyze how specific regulatory regimes work at a medium- and small-scale level. These points are further brought to life in Section Four through a discussion of the European Union (EU) regulatory regime for trade in risky, transgenic agricultural products, and in particular the current reform debates about the consideration of the “socioeconomic impacts” of such products.

Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) was educated in Hungary, worked in exile in Vienna in the 1920s, and after 1933 alternated his residence between England and the USA. His early career was in law and philosophy, then international relations. From 1940 to his death, he concentrated on universal economic history, a broadly defined area encompassing fields that are more conventionally known as economic anthropology, economic history, and comparative economic systems. This work aimed ultimately at the creation of a new and more universal economic theory, founded on the interaction of economy and society, i.e., social economics.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of management ideas as a resource for developing a new understanding of science and society.

Three important articles of Polanyi are studied in detail.

That writings of Graicunas, Foch and Liddell Hart definitely influenced the development of Polanyi’s thinking and writings of Gulick, Mooney among other management/organization theorists also likely contributed to Polanyi’s thought.

The study opens a new seam for Polanyi intellectual – historical scholarship.

The article sheds light on facets of scientific life, including how scientists themselves participate in the overall management of science.

This discussion of Polanyi deepens the appreciation of Liberal society’s functioning.

No other Polanyi scholar has dug deeply into the history of management, considering its intellectual value to Polanyi.

Whereas much of the renewed interest in Polanyi’s Great Transform-ation speculates that the rebalancing of economy and society he foresaw might now be emerging in the context of the financial crisis, the systems theory perspective adopted in this article concludes that there are good reasons to believe that such a shift may be no closer. From an examination of credit default swaps and corporate bonds, the article suggests that finance may best be understood as an internally differentiated subsystem of the economy and thus perhaps peculiarly proof against efforts to exert control over it. Concluding that Polanyi’s analysis lacks the conceptual tools to cope with contemporary conditions when compared to systems theory, the article nevertheless suggests that his approach may usefully be extended by adding a fourth fictitious commodity – risk – to the familiar trio of land, labor, and money.

This chapter highlights the personal side of research methods. We begin with an overview of Hans-Georg Gadamer's insights into the general problem of method in the social sciences and hermeneutics. This is followed by an overview of Michael Polanyi's explanation of the practice of scientific investigation. The second half of the chapter considers implications of the personal side of methods for how we conduct management research. This section discusses critical realism as a philosophy of science consistent with the assumptions of our field, the reasons for methodological pluralism and possible responses, and management research as a social practice.

This study aims to discuss how organizational researchers use the concept of tacit knowledge. The concept has become a “buzzword” in the last decade and has given rise to an extensive literature. The current study views tacit knowledge as a crucial concept that may help link individual understanding and skills and organizational routines and capabilities, a rare topic of discussion in extant literature.

The paper also addresses some of the misunderstandings in the theoretical and empirical organizational literature on tacit knowledge. Organizational researchers usually refer to Michael Polanyi's conception of the term as tacit knowledge, though they mean Gilbert Ryle's concept of “knowing‐how” instead.

Accordingly, the primordial nature of tacit knowing is lost in the transition and what is left is a linear dichotomy of tacit and explicit knowledge.

This misunderstanding creates an obstacle in the way toward establishing the link between individual skills and organizational routines and capabilities. The paper ends with suggestions offered toward bringing the individual and the organization under the same theoretical explanation of human action.

Purpose – Inspired by “old” institutional arguments, this chapter presents the ideas of both the “old” and “new” institutional perspective as their arguments appear in the economic anthropology literature following the substantivist–formalist debate of the 1960s.

Design/methodology/approach – During the 1960s the substantivist–formalist debate, otherwise known as the “Great Debate,” thrust institutional thought to the forefront of economic anthropology. By the close of the 1960s, the substantivist–formalist debate passed unresolved. Institutional economic anthropology reached a crossroad – it could continue the legacy of the substantivism as represented by “old” institutionalism or follow the path of “new” institutional economics. Against the long shadow of the “Great Debate,” this chapter identifies key epistemological ideas that are present within the recent history of the institutional economic anthropology literature.

Findings – On the basis of epistemological arguments, the chapter suggests that if the substantivist–formalist debate, often times referred to as the “Great Debate,” is ever to achieve closure, then practitioners of institutional economic anthropology would benefit by moving beyond “new” institutional thought.

Originality/value – This chapter provides a unique evaluation of the institutional perspective within the history of economic anthropology. Residing within this history are clear and poignant distinctions between the “old” and “new” institutional perspectives. As a result, this chapter seeks to bring to social scientists interested in institutional economists, important insights from economic anthropology that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.