Table Of ContentGetting A Job
A Study of Contacts and Careers
Second Edition
Mark Granovetter
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
To my parents
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
Copyright © 1974, 1995 by Mark Granovetter
Appendix D © 1985 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. First Edition originally published 1974
Second Edition 1995
Printed in the United States of America
01 00 99 98 97 96 95 6 543 2 1
ISBN 0-226-30581-3 (pbk.)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grano vetter, Mark S.
Getting a job : a study of contacts and careers / Mark
Granovetter.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
1. Applications for positions—Case studies. 2. Employees—
Recruiting—Case studies. 3. Vocational guidance. I. Title.
HF5383.G68 1995
650.14—dc20 94-34203
CIP
@The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z39.48-1984.
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition vii
Preface X
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction 3
Part One: Toward Causal Models 23
Chapter 1 “Job Search” and Economic Theory 25
Chapter 2 Contacts and Their Information 41
Chapter 3 The Dynamics of Information Flow 51
Chapter 4 The Dynamics of Vacancy Structure 63
Chapter 5 Contacts: Acquisition and Maintenance 73
Chapter 6 Career Structure 85
Chapter 7 Some Theoretical Implications 93
Part Two: Mobility and Society 105
Chapter 8 Mobility and Organizations 107
Chapter 9 Comparative Perspectives 119
Chapter 10 Applications 131
Afterword 1994 Reconsiderations and a New Agenda 139
Appendix A Design and Conduct of the Study 183
Appendix B Coding Rules and Problems 195
Appendix C Letters and Interview Schedules 201
Appendix D Economic Action and Social Structure:
The Problem of Embeddedness 211
References 241
Index 249
Preface to the Second Edition
When Getting a Job (hereafter GAJ) was published in 1974, interest in the
sociological study of the economy, especially in the U.S., was in decline.
Mid-century economic sociology, sometimes known as the “economy and
society” perspective, had culminated in the ambitious attempt of Talcott
Parsons and Neil Smelser (1956) to integrate the economy into a general
theory of social systems. But perhaps because this highly abstract argu
ment did not offer clear guidelines for empirical research, little research
followed it. And, as Parsons himself noted, the work did not find the audi
ence among economists that he had hoped for (Parsons 1968: vii n). Mean
while, the earlier lively interest in industrial sociology that flourished from
the 1940’s through the 1960’s (for example, Homans 1950; Whyte 1955;
Dalton 1959) had run out of steam, in part for the opposite reason—the
lack of any clear-cut theoretical framework—and was absorbed into the
more general subject of organization theory.1
In retrospect, GAJ was one of the first exemplars of what I have called
the “new economic sociology,” which differed from older work in its atten
tion to a core rather than a peripheral aspect of the economy, and in its
willingness to challenge the adequacy of neoclassical economic theory in
one of those core domains.1 2 It thus was one of the early works in what
proved to be a vigorous revival of interest in the economy that continues
unabated among sociologists. The decision by the University of Chicago
Press to undertake a twentieth-anniversary edition of GAJ reflects this
continuing vigor and also the centrality of labor market outcomes to sev
eral different areas of sociology, including stratification and organizations.
To “update” GAJ might have involved rewriting the text, but we de
cided instead to reprint the original in its entirety. Although there are
certainly parts I would write and analyze differently with twenty years of
hindsight, and with the explosion of new statistical methods, the original
1 For a more detailed account of the ups and downs of economic sociology in the twenti
eth century, see my 1990 paper on “The Old and the New Economic Sociology.”
2 In the Introduction to our reader, The Sociology of Economic Life (1992), Swedberg
and I analyze in more detail the variety of styles of work in current economic sociology,
and the particular characteristics of the “new economic sociology.”
version seems still to serve its purpose as an exploratory study that stimu
lates new research, and it is accessible to readers with a variety of back
grounds—including undergraduates, who have generally received the
book well. The theoretical and empirical supplementation that a new edi
tion requires has been achieved with two additions. On the theoretical
side, I think it is fair to say that I did not fully appreciate the framework
in which I was operating until some years after publication, especially
when I wrote my 1985 article “Economic Action and Social Structure: The
Problem of Embeddedness.” That article provides a theoretical backdrop
and justification for much of the argument in the book, and puts it in the
broad context of a tradition of economic sociology tracing back to Max
Weber. For this reason, several members of the editorial board at the Uni
versity of Chicago Press urged that the article be reprinted as an appendix
to the new edition, which we have done. Having this article available here
will be especially useful for readers whose interest lies not only in labor
markets but also in the more general issues of economic sociology.
The other quite obvious needs are for: 1) an assessment of whether the
world has changed so much that the findings of GAJ are quaint relics of
an earlier time, or are still pertinent to modern labor markets, and 2) a
critical review of recent work in economics and sociology on the recruit
ment of labor. These needs I have addressed with an Afterword, summa
rizing and commenting upon recent work. That it took me far longer than
I had imagined to research and write this essay indicates what a rich and
growing field of study GAJ explores. My review suggests that the original
findings lie well within the boundaries of what a current investigation
might find, and that whatever dramatic technological, political, and eco
nomic changes may have occurred in the interim, contact networks still
occupy in many labor markets a central role that cries out to be better
understood, for theoretical and practical reasons alike. It is my hope that
this new edition will make a serious contribution to that understanding,
and will influence other scholars to see the value of a sociological ap
proach to labor.
Evanston, Illinois
July 1994
REFERENCES
Dalton, Melville. 1959. Men Who Manage. New York: Wiley.
Granovetter, Mark. 1985. “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Em
beddedness.” American Journal of Sociology 81(3): 489-515.
Granovetter, Mark. 1990. “The Old and the New Economic Sociology: A History and
an Agenda.” Pp. 89-112 in Beyond the Marketplace, edited by Roger Friedland and
A. F. Robertson. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Granovetter, Mark, and Richard Swedberg, eds. 1992. The Sociology of Economic Life.
Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Homans, George. 1950. The Human Group. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Parsons, Talcott, and Neil Smelser. 1956. Economy and Society. New York: Free Press.
Parsons, Talcott. 1968. Introduction to the paperback edition of The Structure of Social
Action. New York: Free Press.
Whyte, William F. 1955. Money and Motivation. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Preface
Because the subject matter of this book cuts across several
academic and practical fields—especially sociology, economics, and
manpower allocation—it can be read from several different view
points. In the text I try to make these various routes into the subject
explicit. After finishing the manuscript, however, I had a chance to
read Inequality, by Christopher Jencks and his associates (New
York: Basic Books, 1972), which brought into sharp focus, for me,
a theme that I ought to have treated in more detail. At this stage,
the best I can do is to alert the reader that there is a reading of my
material somewhat different from the ones I have suggested within.
I was very much struck by the way the argument of Inequality
dovetails with mine, despite the differences in assumptions and
methods. Jencks and his colleagues argue—supported by an impres
sive array of analysis and data—that factors usually supposed to be
at the root of inequality do not even seem to be very closely
correlated with it statistically. Knowing a man’s family background,
intelligence (by standard measures such as I.Q.), educational attain
ment and even occupation—gives us remarkably little leverage in
the prediction of his income level. The question then arises of what
is at the root of the enormous observed variations in income. They
speculate that an important factor is “luck: chance acquaintances
who steer you to one line of work rather than another, the range of
jobs that happen to be available in a particular community when
you are job hunting, the amount of overtime work in your particular
plant, whether bad weather destroys your strawberry crop, whether
the new superhighway has an exit near your restaurant, and a
hundred other unpredictable accidents. ... In general, we think
luck has far more influence on income than successful people admit
(p. 227)”
These comments are really an afterthought, rather than part of
their analysis. This may explain the pessimistic attitude toward the
possibility of subjecting “luck” to systematic study. By contrast, the
central theme of Getting a Job involves the explication of one ele
ment of what is usually considered “luck” in job-finding: having the
right contact in the right place at the right time. The Jencks group
found almost as much inequality of income within as between
occupations. This is consistent with the considerable variations of
income in my professional, technical, and managerial sample. Also
consistent with the Jencks argument, I find this variation strongly
related to whether or not personal contacts were the source of
job-information—the higher the income, the more likely the pres
ence of contacts. My basic argument is that one can pursue a
systematic analysis of this variety of “luck” by developing and
applying ideas about social structure. The point is not to deny the
significance of chance in social life—in this I agree wholeheartedly
with the argument of Inequality—but to bring the operation of
chance into its social context, where it can be more properly under
stood.
Mark S. Granovetter
Cambridge, Massachusetts
January 1974
