University
of Washington
Geography 493
Spring 2002
QUESTIONS FROM GRANOVETTER’S GETTING A JOB
Introduction and Appendix A
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In what field is Granovetter’s Ph.D.?
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What’s Granovetter’s research question for his Boston study (his dissertation)?
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Describe his research method: what was his source of data, how did he identify
and contact his sources, and how did he analyze his data?
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What’s "PTM"?
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What does Granovetter mean by "formal," "personal," and "direct application"?
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What are the characteristics of people who tend to find jobs by directly
applying for an open position?
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What are other ways of finding a job?
Chapter 1
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How would a "perfect" labor market (the labor market of first-year microeconomics)
operate?
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Why don’t real labor markets operate this way?
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If an economist decides to recognize the process of job search, (s)he’ll
typically set up an equilibrium model in which the value of the time spent
searching equals the expected value of finding a better job than one has
or than one can find with less searching. Why is this irrelevant in the
case of PTM jobs?
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What are alternatives to "searching" for a job?
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What the characteristics of people who tend to find jobs by searching?
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What are the alternatives to looking for someone to fill a job?
Chapter 2
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From pages 53-4, what are "the strengths of weak ties" (which is essentially
the title of a famous article by Granovetter)?
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What are the characteristics of people who tend to find jobs by making
use of family or social contacts? Of people who make use of work contacts?
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What is the geography of job links made through family or social contacts?
Work contacts? Strong ties? Weak ties?
Chapter 5
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How are job-relevant contacts acquired? Family/social contacts, versus
work contacts?
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What influences the geography of contacts?
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How are contacts maintained? Family/social contacts, versus work contacts?
Chapter 6
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What relationship did Granovetter find between (a) length of job tenure
and (b) use of work contacts to find new jobs? How did he explain this
relationship?
Overall
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What do these chapters suggest to you about the ways you might conduct
your job search, now and over the course of your career?
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Does this book suggest any research questions for you, beyond the questions
that Granovetter posed in the research he reports?
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Have you any idea why Granovetter’s work (especially "Economic Action and
Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness" (Appendix D) and "The Strength
of Weak Ties") has been very widely cited by human geographers?
copyright James W. Harrington, Jr.
revised 11 April 2002