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Who Can Tell? Network Diversity, Within‐Industry Networks, and Opportunities to Share Job Information
Author(s) -
Marin Alexandra
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
sociological forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1573-7861
pISSN - 0884-8971
DOI - 10.1111/socf.12022
Subject(s) - seekers , diversity (politics) , business , information technology , information industry , marketing , knowledge management , public relations , computer science , sociology , economics , political science , economy , anthropology , law , operating system
This article examines opportunities to share job information. It adds to the growing body of research on information holders and complements existing research that explains what kinds of networks and network positions provide the greatest benefit to job seekers. Data from an exploratory study of entry‐level, white‐collar workers are used to relate opportunities to share information—defined to consist of both knowledge of a job opening and awareness of a potential applicant among one's network members—with information holders’ network composition. The data show that information holders with strong within‐industry networks have more opportunities to share information and do share more information. Information holders with diverse networks more often identify potential applicants for jobs and thus have more opportunities to share information. However, despite having more opportunities to do so, they do not share information more often than those with less diverse networks. These findings, combined with the growing literature on information holders, suggest that different aspects of network composition affect the flow of job information at different stages and thus by different mechanisms.