Everything about Mark Granovetter totally explained
Mark Granovetter is an
American sociologist who has created some of the most influential theories in modern sociology since the 1970s. He is best known for his work in
social network theory and in
economic sociology, particularly his theory on the spread of
information in a community known as "The Strength of Weak Ties" (1973).
Background
Granovetter earned an
A.B. at
Princeton University and a
Ph.D at
Harvard University. He is currently the
Joan Butler Ford Professor in the
School of Humanities and Sciences at
Stanford University and was formerly the department chair of sociology. He has previously worked at
Northwestern University, the
State University of New York at Stony Brook, and
Johns Hopkins University.
Major ideas
The strength of weak ties
Granovetter's most famous work is "The Strength of Weak Ties". It is considered one of the most influential sociology papers ever written.
In marketing or politics, the weak ties enable reaching populations and audiences that are not accessible via strong ties.
The concepts of this work were later published in the related monograph "Getting A Job".
Economic sociology: embeddedness
In the field of economic sociology, Granovetter has been a leader ever since the publication in 1985 of an article that launched "new economic sociology", "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness". This article caused Granovetter to be identified with the concept of "embeddedness", the idea that economic relations between individuals or firms are embedded in actual
social networks and don't exist in an abstract idealized market (a concept originally described in
Karl Polanyi's book
The Great Transformation). He is currently working on a book provisionally called
Society and Economy.
"Tipping points" / threshold models
Granovetter has also done research on a model of how
fads are created. Consider a hypothetical mob assuming that each person's decision whether to riot or not is dependent on what everyone else is doing. Instigators will begin rioting even if no one else is, while others need to see a critical number of trouble makers before they riot, too. This threshold is assumed to be distributed to some probability distribution. The outcomes may diverge largely although the initial condition of threshold may only differ very slightly. This threshold model of social behavior was proposed previously by Thomas Schelling and later popularized by
Malcolm Gladwell's book
The Tipping Point.
Security influence
Granovetter's work has been an inspiration to some researchers working in the field of
capability-based security. Interactions in these systems can be described using "Granovetter diagrams", which illustrate changes in the ties between objects.
Bibliography (selected)
- (1973). "The Strength of Weak Ties"; American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 6., May 1973, pp 1360-1380
- (1974). "Getting A Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers"
- (1978). "Threshold Models of Collective Behavior"; American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 83, No. 6, November 1978, pp 1420-1443
- (1983). "The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited"; Sociological Theory, Vol. 1, 1983, pp 201-233 » - Reprinted in P.V. Marsden & N. Lin (eds.) 1982, Social Structure and Network Analysis, Sage Publications
- (1985). "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness"; American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 91, No. 3., November 1985, pp 481-510
- (1992). "Problems of Explanation in Economic Sociology", in N. Nohra & R. Eccles (eds.), Networks and Organizations: Structure, Form, and Action, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass.
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