Diverging patterns of informalizationbetween endogenous and exogenouseconomic actors in the East Germantransformation process - Results froma case-study in the IT-branch in Berlin-Brandenburg

The first years of the transformation processes in the Central East European Countries(CEECs) instigated many social scientific analyses about the institutionalchange in the political and economic systems. Later, it became more and more obviousthat these new institutions would need a longer and deeper embedding process,than first expected, into the everyday life attitudes, the expectations and mentalitiesof the people. In this context, a certain amount of scientific attention shifted to a considerationof the relationship between the formal and informal social ties and interactionsin these countries. In October 1998, an international conference at Potsdamprovoked an interdisciplinary debate about the “transformation of the informal in theCEECs.” The following observation will contribute to this debate, which concentrateson the East German transformation case and on the sphere of economic interactionin an innovative and rapidly changing branch - informational technology.[...]