Mark Granovetter
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Mark Sanford Granovetter (; born October 20, 1943) is an
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
sociologist and professor at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. He is best known for his work in
social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
theory and in
economic sociology Economic sociology is the study of the social cause and effect of various economic phenomena. The field can be broadly divided into a classical period and a contemporary one, known as "new economic sociology". The classical period was concerned ...
, particularly his theory on the spread of
information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
in social networks known as ''The Strength of Weak Ties'' (1973). In 2014 Granovetter was named a Citation Laureate by Thomson Reuters and added to that organization’s list of predicted Nobel Prize winners in economics. Data from the Web of Science show that Granovetter has written both the first and third most cited sociology articles.


Education

Granovetter earned an
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
degree in history at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
(1965) and a PhD in sociology at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
(1970). At Harvard his research was supervised by
Harrison White Harrison Colyar White (born March 21, 1930) is the emeritus Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. White played an influential role in the “Harvard Revolution” in social networks and the New York School of relational sociol ...
.


Career and research

Granovetter is currently the Joan Butler Ford Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford and is the chair of the Department of Sociology. He previously worked at
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...
, the
State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
, and
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
.


The strength of weak ties

Granovetter's paper ''The Strength of Weak Ties'' is one of the most influential articles in social science, with over 60,000 citations according to Google Scholar (). Its thesis is that weak ties—acquaintanceships that are not reinforced by many mutual friendships—are especially pivotal in the flow of information. It has become a core idea in the field of social networks. In marketing, information science, or politics, weak ties enable reaching populations and audiences that are not accessible via strong ties. The concepts and findings of this work were later published in the monograph ''Getting A Job'', an adaptation of Granovetter's doctoral dissertation at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
's Department of Social Relations, with the title: "Changing Jobs: Channels of Mobility Information in a Suburban Population" (313 pages). In 1969 Granovetter submitted this paper to ''
American Sociological Review The ''American Sociological Review'' is a bi-monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology. It is published by SAGE Publications on behalf of the American Sociological Association. It was established in 1936. The editors- ...
'', but it was rejected. Eventually this pioneering research was published in 1973 in
American Journal of Sociology The ''American Journal of Sociology'' is a peer-reviewed bi-monthly academic journal that publishes original research and book reviews in the field of sociology and related social sciences. It was founded in 1895 as the first journal in its disci ...
and became the most cited work in the social sciences.


Economic sociology: Embeddedness

In the field of economic sociology, Granovetter has been a leader 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 In economics and economic sociology, embeddedness refers to the degree to which economic activity is constrained by non-economic institutions. The term was created by economic historian Karl Polanyi as part of his substantivist approach. Polanyi ...
", the idea that economic relations between individuals or firms are embedded in actual
social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
s and do not exist in an abstract idealized market. The concept of embeddedness originated with
Karl Polanyi Karl Paul Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Károly ; 25 October 1886 – 23 April 1964),''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 2003) vol 9. p. 554 was an Austro-Hungarian economic anthropologist and politician, best known ...
in his book '' The Great Transformation'', where Polanyi posited that all economies are embedded in social relations and institutions. Granovetter also published a book called ''Society and Economy'' (2017).


"Tipping points" and threshold models

Granovetter has done research on a model of how
fad A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period. Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short- ...
s 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 Thomas Crombie Schelling (April 14, 1921 – December 13, 2016) was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College ...
and later popularized by
Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...
's book ''
The Tipping Point ''The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference'' is the debut book by Malcolm Gladwell, first published by Little, Brown in 2000. Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling po ...
''.


Security influence

Granovetter's work has influenced researchers in
capability-based security Capability-based security is a concept in the design of secure computing systems, one of the existing security models. A capability (known in some systems as a key) is a communicable, unforgeable token of authority. It refers to a value that refer ...
. Interactions in these systems can be described using "Granovetter diagrams", which illustrate changes in the ties between objects.J.B. Dennis and E.C. Van Horn. Programming semantics for multiprogrammed computations. Communications of the ACM, 9(3):143--155, March 1966
Citeseer entry
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Publications

His publications include: * * * : - Reprinted in * * *


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Granovetter, Mark 1943 births Living people American sociologists Princeton University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Northwestern University faculty State University of New York faculty Johns Hopkins University faculty Stanford University Department of Sociology faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows Network scientists