Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China
While the idea that contacts matter in finding a job is intuitively appealing, we still do not know—after decades of research—how and why strong ties benefit job seekers. To resolve this confusion, we need to theorize how specific characteristics of ties are related to the mechanisms that make job s...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Elsevier B.V.
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/75369 |
| _version_ | 1826197545846571008 |
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| author | Obukhova, Elena |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Obukhova, Elena |
| author_sort | Obukhova, Elena |
| collection | MIT |
| description | While the idea that contacts matter in finding a job is intuitively appealing, we still do not know—after decades of research—how and why strong ties benefit job seekers. To resolve this confusion, we need to theorize how specific characteristics of ties are related to the mechanisms that make job search through contacts effective. We have reasons to expect that, while a contact’s motivation influences the likelihood that a job seeker receives an offer, her homophily with the job seeker on occupation and other job-relevant attributes influences the quality of the offer. The use of strong ties among university students to find jobs in China provides a unique opportunity to empirically isolate the relationship between contact characteristics and the mechanisms through which contacts benefit the job seeker. I tested my hypotheses with data on both the successful and unsuccessful job searches of 478 graduates of China’s flagship universities, who, as first-time job seekers, primarily used strong ties. Survey results are consistent with my hypotheses: job seekers who used strong ties to look for jobs had more offers—but not better offers—than those who used only formal methods. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:49:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/75369 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:49:20Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | Elsevier B.V. |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/753692022-09-27T15:14:46Z Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China Obukhova, Elena Sloan School of Management Obukhova, Elena While the idea that contacts matter in finding a job is intuitively appealing, we still do not know—after decades of research—how and why strong ties benefit job seekers. To resolve this confusion, we need to theorize how specific characteristics of ties are related to the mechanisms that make job search through contacts effective. We have reasons to expect that, while a contact’s motivation influences the likelihood that a job seeker receives an offer, her homophily with the job seeker on occupation and other job-relevant attributes influences the quality of the offer. The use of strong ties among university students to find jobs in China provides a unique opportunity to empirically isolate the relationship between contact characteristics and the mechanisms through which contacts benefit the job seeker. I tested my hypotheses with data on both the successful and unsuccessful job searches of 478 graduates of China’s flagship universities, who, as first-time job seekers, primarily used strong ties. Survey results are consistent with my hypotheses: job seekers who used strong ties to look for jobs had more offers—but not better offers—than those who used only formal methods. Social Science Research Council (U.S.) (International Pre-dissertation Fellowship) Social Science Research Council (U.S.) (Blakemore Fellowship for the Study of East Asian Languages) 2012-12-11T15:23:02Z 2012-12-11T15:23:02Z 2012-05 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0049-089X 1096-0317 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/75369 Obukhova, Elena. “Motivation Vs. Relevance: Using Strong Ties to Find a Job in Urban China.” Social Science Research 41.3 (2012): 570–580. Web. en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.12.010 Social Science Research Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ application/pdf Elsevier B.V. SSRN |
| spellingShingle | Obukhova, Elena Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China |
| title | Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China |
| title_full | Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China |
| title_fullStr | Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China |
| title_short | Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China |
| title_sort | motivation vs relevance using strong ties to find a job in urban china |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/75369 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT obukhovaelena motivationvsrelevanceusingstrongtiestofindajobinurbanchina |