Business in action: Framing and overflowing in the logistics of an Australian company

As market relations become more pervasive, so the classical sociological issue of the tension between ‘economic’ and ‘social’ explanations becomes more salient than ever. Michel Callon has proposed that the Actor-Network Theory (A-NT) developed in science and technology studies provides a useful approach to this tension. In this article we outline his innovatively traditional ‘market test’ of A-NT, and then test and illustrate it through a contract between an Australian company and a transport logistics consortium that it fostered under changing conditions in its market. We exemplify Callon’s case for the co-emergence of calculative and cultural effects, and conclude that business in action is a promising research site for their global reconfiguration.