Economic action runs through concrete social relations, so neither atomised self-interest nor pure norm-following describes it.
Granovetter's 1985 argument against both under- and over-socialised accounts. His case: trust in business runs through concrete relationships, not through generalised morality or naked calculation.
In practice
- A supplier is chosen over a marginally cheaper one because the buyer's operations manager worked with them before and knows they answer the phone.
- A landlord lets to the friend of a current tenant rather than the highest bidder, and this is neither charity nor calculation alone.