According to Max Weber, "Action is 'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course.
"[2] The basic concept was primarily developed in the non-positivist theory of Max Weber to observe how human behaviors relate to cause and effect in the social realm.
This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.The term is more practical and encompassing than Florian Znaniecki's "social phenomena", since the individual performing social action is not passive, but rather active and reactive.
Similarly, 'reflexivity' is commonly used as a shorthand to refer to the circular relationship of cause and effect between structure and agency which Weber was integral in hypothesising.
It is well known that strict churches are strong and growing in the contemporary United States, whereas liberal ones are declining.
Consistent with the notion that religious experience is a collective good, Iannaccone et al. show that churches that extract more resources from their members (in the form of time and money) tend to grow in membership.
Macro institutional theory of Economic Order: Nicole Biggart and Thomas Beamish have a slightly different approach to human habit then Max Weber.
Whereas Weber believed economic organization is based on structures of material interest and ideas, institutional sociologist like Biggart and Beamish stress macro-institutional sources of arrangements of market capitalism.