Journal of Iranian Cultural Research

Journal of Iranian Cultural Research

"The spider's web" explaining the embeddedness of network marketing in the economic sociology paradigm

Document Type : Scientific Research Manuscript

Authors
Zeinab Shafiei 1
Fatemeh Rezaee 2
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
2 MA in Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
10.22035/jicr.2025.3491.3726
Abstract
Network marketing is a form of direct selling in which products are sold through direct contact between customers and independent distributors. Direct selling organizations are often depicted as home-like environments characterized by horizontal collaboration and emotional bonds. In these organizations, the networking process consists of two main parts. First, distributors activate various types of personal relationships to create business deals. Second, distributors change the form and substance of their social/business networks to strengthen trust and resolve the tensions inherent in network-based economic activities. This overlap of earning and making friends in direct selling raises fundamental sociological questions: How do distributors maintain trust and consolidate networks? How do they channel personal relationships into profitable economic activities? The present article, which is an exploratory-qualitative study using the virtual ethnography method, has used the concept of embeddedness in economic sociology to answer these questions. In this article, the embeddedness process of network marketing is explained at four levels: network, interest, organization, and culture. The categories of information suppression and commercialization of connections belong to the network level, liberal individualism and belief marketing to the interest level, quasi-family community and opinion leaders to the organization level, and finally the dream of entrepreneurship and the realization of justice to the culture level.
Keywords
Economic sociology
network marketing
embeddedness
culture
network
organization
interest

Subjects

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  • Receive Date 18 April 2025
  • Revise Date 18 May 2025
  • Accept Date 02 June 2025