Weak Ties, Information, and Influence: How Workers Find Jobs in a Local Russian Labor Market Export

@article{citeulike:5436698, abstract = {In 1973 Granovetter formulated the strength-of-weak-ties hypothesis (SWT), which became the foundation of a vast sociological literature on social networks in labor markets. Until now, SWT has never been directly tested but treated instead as a surrogate for the relationship between an actor's network and labor market outcomes such as characteristics of a job obtained. The paper restates SWT as a proposition about the probability of getting a job as a function of within-actor differences in tie strength and tests it with data on hires carried out in one Russian city in 1998. In support of SWT, the results show that a worker is more likely to get a job through one of her weak ties rather than strong ties. The advantages of weak ties lie in their abilities to provide timely access to non-redundant information and to influence employers directly. In contrast, strong ties are associated with indirect influence on employers through well-connected intermediaries. The estimates come from a within-worker fixed-effect conditional logistic regression and thereby provide rare evidence of an association between information and influence transferred through social ties and labor market outcomes, independent of workers' individual characteristics.}, author = {Yakubovich, Valery}, citeulike-article-id = {5436698}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4145388}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/4145388}, doi = {10.2307/4145388}, issn = {00031224}, journal = {American Sociological Review}, keywords = {information, interaction, networks, russia}, number = {3}, pages = {408--421}, posted-at = {2009-08-14 15:22:13}, priority = {2}, publisher = {American Sociological Association}, title = {Weak Ties, Information, and Influence: How Workers Find Jobs in a Local Russian Labor Market}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4145388}, volume = {70}, year = {2005} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5436698 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5436698 N2 - In 1973 Granovetter formulated the strength-of-weak-ties hypothesis (SWT), which became the foundation of a vast sociological literature on social networks in labor markets. Until now, SWT has never been directly tested but treated instead as a surrogate for the relationship between an actor's network and labor market outcomes such as characteristics of a job obtained. The paper restates SWT as a proposition about the probability of getting a job as a function of within-actor differences in tie strength and tests it with data on hires carried out in one Russian city in 1998. In support of SWT, the results show that a worker is more likely to get a job through one of her weak ties rather than strong ties. The advantages of weak ties lie in their abilities to provide timely access to non-redundant information and to influence employers directly. In contrast, strong ties are associated with indirect influence on employers through well-connected intermediaries. The estimates come from a within-worker fixed-effect conditional logistic regression and thereby provide rare evidence of an association between information and influence transferred through social ties and labor market outcomes, independent of workers' individual characteristics. IS - 3 JF - American Sociological Review SN - 00031224 EP - 421 TI - Weak Ties, Information, and Influence: How Workers Find Jobs in a Local Russian Labor Market PB - American Sociological Association VL - 70 SP - 408 KW - information KW - interaction KW - networks KW - russia AU - Yakubovich, Valery PY - 2005/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4145388 ER -