Estimating the Causal Effect of Social Capital: A Review of Recent Research

Mouw, Ted

doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.32.061604.123150

Cited by 417 publications

(311 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…As a result, a better-connected job seeker should have better labor-market outcomes. However, social-network studies suffer from an omitted-variable problem (Mouw 2003(Mouw , 2006; for a more general statement of this problem, see Manski 1995). Specifically, an observed or unobserved characteristic of the job seeker, such as her education or temperament, might create a spurious correlation between her social capital and her labor-market outcomes.…”

Section: Within-individual Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, an observed or unobserved characteristic of the job seeker, such as her education or temperament, might create a spurious correlation between her social capital and her labor-market outcomes. In fact, in a recent review of the social-network literature across a variety of areas, including job search, educational attainment, engaging in delinquency, and in migration, Mouw (2006) finds that taking network homophily into account leads to a substantial decline in the observed effects of contacts. This eliminates the possibility that observed or unobserved individual differences create a spurious correlation between social networks and labor-market outcomes.…”

Section: Within-individual Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China

Obukhova¹

2012

Social Science Research

107

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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.

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Section: Within-individual Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Within-individual Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China

Obukhova¹

2012

Social Science Research

107

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“…While it seems intuitively plausible that the jobseekers benefit from contacts, the literature is plagued by the theoretical disagreement and inconclusive empirical evidence (Mouw 2006;Obukhova and Lan 2013). McDonald finds the evidence that individuals with more occupation-specific social capital are more likely to engage in search through contacts, in brief, that the individuals working in a particular occupation acquire the occupation-specific social capital.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors influencing employment for tertiary education graduates at the selected universities

Stojanová¹,

Tomšík²

2014

AGR ECON-CZECH

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Th e graduates of tertiary education level are one of the risk groups in the economically active age, who have a signifi cant problem to fi nd a job in the labour market. Th e research has been focused on defi ning the key factors infl uencing the creation of competitive advantages of the tertiary education graduates entering labour market as well as to identify the eff ectiveness of these factors in the process of entering the tertiary education graduates in the labour market. Th e methods of analysis were used in the processing of a survey of graduates from three universities of the Czech Republic, namely: the Masaryk University Czech Republic, the Mendel University in Brno, and the Brno University of Technology, at all levels of the higher education degree (Bachelor, Master, PhD) completed by the respondents graduating no earlier than two years ago. Th e data were collected through an online questionnaire, published in the February and March 2013 on the server http://rela.mendelu.cz, at the number of 150 returned fi lled questionnaires. Based on the analysis of secondary sources, there were for the research purposes defi ned fi ve key factors infl uencing the effi ciency of entering the labour market. Th ese factors are the analysis of the current labour market situation and the rational preference of specialization, the active search and participating in programs and the internships focused on gaining the practical experience, the acquisition of professional skills, the use of institutional support and professional assistance and the factor of the building and use of networking.

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“…These issues include job satisfaction (Moore, 1997), perceived work overload (Kirmeyer & Dougherty, 1988), perceived work/home conflict (Kreiner, 2006), strain (Moore, 2000), professional self-efficacy (Moore, 1997), job insecurity (Ashford, Lee, & Bobko, 1989), turnover intention in the organization (Moore, 1997), turnover intention in the IS profession (Moore, 1997), and friendship networks (Mouw, 2006;Lin & Erickson, 2008).…”

Section: Theoretical Framework and Key Constructsmentioning

confidence: 99%