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Network Structure and Network Benefits: A Discussion on Strength-of-ties and Job Search Outcomes Song Yang. I am grateful for Yanjie Bian, who guided me through the writing of this manuscript and produced much cogent advices to improve its quality. Goals of this Study.
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Network Structure and Network Benefits:A Discussion on Strength-of-ties and Job Search OutcomesSong Yang I am grateful for Yanjie Bian, who guided me through the writing of this manuscript and produced much cogent advices to improve its quality
Goals of this Study • Critically review prominent theories on network structures and job search outcomes • Identify crucial issues in this line of work that inform future studies
Granovetter’s Weak Tie Theory • Start with an attack on new classical labor market theory that assumes perfect knowledge • In reality, job seekers and employers receive different amount of information • Three methods to maximize information for job openings • Formal means • Personal contacts • Direct applications
The Best Strategy • The best strategy is personal contacts as oppose to direct application and formal means • Personal contacts produce much needed information in an imperfect job market, which lead to high income, high job prestige and high job satisfaction.
Weak Ties Not Strong Ties • Within personal contacts, weak ties rather than strong ties produce the most useful information • Strong ties, formed with family members and close friends, lead job seekers to a set of redundant information • In contrast, weak ties, formed with distant relations, expose job seekers to non-redundant information.
Weak Ties • Weak ties thus enlarge a pool of career opportunities. • Whereas strong ties restrict job seekers to a limited set of openings and block the avenue to good job offers.
Lin’s Social Structures and Social Action Theory • Macro theory: • social structures are hierarchical, • hierarchical resources are transferable • Which means an occupant in command of one type of resource tend to gain controls of resources in other dimensions • Social structures are pyramidal
Micro level • Individuals use homophilous interactions to maintain their resources • Individual use heterophilous interactions to gain addition resources • To gain addition resources, those low in the hierarchical ladder construct heterogeneous ties reach those high in the ladder • Because of the purely instrumental purpose, those engage in heterogeneous interactions are likely to be mere acquaintances than confidants. This converges with the weak tie argument.
Burt’s Structure Hole Theory • Focusing on information benefits, Burt asserts that two types of relationship produce redundant information. • Redundancy by cohesion: social actors form closely tied networks • Redundancy by structural equivalency: disconnected social actors connect to the same set of actors
Structural Holes • In contrast, ego actors connected to a set of disconnected alter actors tap into structural holes, and thus non-redundant information. • Thus with time and resource constraint, job seekers need to span over structural holes to maximize intake of valuable information
Compare and Contrast • By coincident, Burt, Granovetter, and Lin all noted the strengths of weak tie, but with significant different stands • For Burt, structural holes produce non-redundant information. Those ties across structural holes simply happen to be weak. • For Lin, heterophilous interactions produce useful information and resources. Ties across different social ladders happen to be weak ties.
Bian’s Strong Tie Argument • Empirical evidences are inconclusive to weak tie arguments • Marsden and Hurlbert (1988) did not find empirical supports to weak tie theory, whereas Watanabe (1987) and Bian (1997) found strong ties, rather than weak ties, help in Japanese and Chinese societies respectively.
Influence versus Information • Bian suggests that researchers need to distinguish influence from information. • In Chinese labor market, influence, rather than information, is much potent factor for job placement. • This is due to some idiosyncratic institutional arrangements of Chinese labor market under central planning.
Chinese Labor Market • Chinese central planning of its labor market prohibits use of personal contacts in labor allocation. • Thus job seekers, their ultimate helpers, and intermediate persons need considerable trust to engage themselves in the process. • Weak ties do not embrace high trust and social obligations. Strong ties do.
Influences not Information • More cogently, Bian’s research suggests that influences, not information, affect job search outcomes. • This shifts the focus of debate away from strength-of-tie and toward more fundamental issue of causal mechanisms of job search outcomes.
