Mark Granovetter

Mark S. Granovetter ( born October 20, 1943) is an American sociologist. He became famous for his studies on weak ties and strong ties in social networks; Jens Beckert he is " probably the world's most prominent representatives of the network analysis ."

Life

Granovetter studied at Princeton University and Harvard University. Later, he held teaching positions at Northwestern University (Illinois, USA), the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA). Granovetter currently teaches at Stanford University. He was the 1981/82 Guggenheim Fellow in 2008 was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The University of Stockholm (1996) and the Institut d' études politiques de Paris ( 2006) Granovetter awarded an honorary doctorate.

Work and influence

Granovetter's most important contributions to sociology are employ his thoughts on social networks, on the one hand with the success of "weak " relationships ( " weak ties " ) and another with the " embedding " ( " embeddedness " ) individual economic behavior in social relationships.

Strong ties and weak ties

Networks in which the relationships between the actors of strong ties ( " strong ties " ) are made, are strongly integrated and intensively linked, for example, close friends or family.

This compares with relationships that are less intense, such as casual acquaintances ( weak ties ). Granovetter found in his doctoral thesis, one of the first explicitly network- theoretical studies that dealt with occupational mobility out that just attended the weak links for successes of the actors in the network. Its this observation imagine Leaning Tower With approximately 24,000 mentions of the most cited in sociology and is by far the most cited in network- theoretical contexts.

Embedding

Granovetter's second influential paper deals with the embedding ( " embeddedness " ) individual behavior, thereby making a proposal, such as macro - and micro - approaches can be combined to explain human behavior at an intermediate level.

He criticized the fact that in economic theory usually untersozialisierte, so abstract theories provide comprehensive explanatory models that assume the individual always rational, efficient behavior and thus be the complex reality does not do justice. On the other hand, he looks at a purely sociological point of view the risk that it is limited to the individual differences between people because of their different interests and thus each represents a übersozialisiertes actor model in which the individual human being is regarded as an isolated individual.

Therefore, it holds Granovetter necessary that the connections of people to be involved in his social context, that is his personal environment in which he trusts. Thus, cultural and symbolic factors come back into view of the sociological network analysis.

Writings (selection )

As author

  • The Strength of Weak Ties. In: American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973 ), pp. 1360-1380 (PDF of the author's website at Stanford University, 2.2 MB).
  • Economic Action and Social Structure. The Problem of Embeddedness. In: American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985 ), pp. 481-510 (PDF of the author's website at Stanford University; 3.2 MB).
  • Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers. 2nd edition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995, ISBN 0226305813 ( preview on Google Books ).
  • The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes. In: Journal of Economic Perspectives 19 (2005), No. 1, pp. 33-50 (PDF of the author's website at Stanford University, 114 kB).

As editor

  • ( with Richard Swedberg ): The Sociology of Economic Life ( Paperback ), Westview Press, 2nd edition 2001, ISBN 0,813,397,642th
Social network analysis Stony Brook University Dirk Kaesler Integrated Authority File
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