Mark Granovetter

• 1. Jersey City Valedictorian

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  Mark Granovetter stood at the front of Henry Snyder High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, on a day in January 1961. He was the valedictorian of his class that year. A Princeton University dean later cited him for high honors during his freshman year. This early recognition set a trajectory toward higher education. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Princeton University by 1965. The path continued to Harvard University where he completed his PhD in sociology in 1970. Harrison White supervised his research at Harvard.

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• 2. Academic Career Path

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  Granovetter began his professional life as an assistant professor of social relations at Johns Hopkins University. He held this post from 1970 until 1973. He then moved to Harvard University to serve as an assistant and later associate professor in sociology. His tenure there lasted until 1977. In 1977, he accepted a position at Stony Brook University. He remained there until 1992, eventually becoming chair of the sociology department in 1989. From 1992 to 1995, he taught at Northwestern University as a professor of sociology and organization behavior. He joined Stanford University in 1995. Since at least 2005, he has been the Joan Butler Ford Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.

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• 3. Weak Ties Theory Origin

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  In 1969, Granovetter submitted a paper titled The Strength of Weak Ties to American Sociological Review. Editors rejected the submission that year. The work did not appear in print until 1973 when it was published in the American Journal of Sociology. This article became the most cited work in the social sciences with over 78,000 citations according to Google Scholar. The thesis argued that weak ties are acquaintanceships not reinforced by many mutual friendships. These connections proved pivotal for the flow of information. The concepts later appeared in his monograph Getting A Job. That book adapted his doctoral dissertation from Harvard's Department of Social Relations. The original dissertation title was Changing Jobs: Channels of Mobility Information in a Suburban Population.

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• 4. Embeddedness Framework

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  Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness launched new economic sociology upon its publication in 1985. Granovetter identified this concept as embeddedness. Economic relations between individuals or firms exist within actual social networks rather than abstract idealized markets. Karl Polanyi originated the concept in his book The Great Transformation. Polanyi posited that all economies embed themselves in social relations and institutions. Granovetter expanded on these ideas throughout his career. He published Society and Economy in 2017 to further explore these themes. His leadership in economic sociology stems directly from this 1985 article.

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• 5. Threshold Models Explained

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  Granovetter developed research on how fads emerge through specific behavioral models. Consider a hypothetical mob where each person decides whether to riot based on others actions. Instigators might begin rioting even if no one else is present. Others require seeing a critical number of trouble makers before joining the action. This threshold distributes across some probability distribution. Outcomes may diverge largely despite initial conditions differing only slightly. Thomas Schelling proposed this threshold model of social behavior previously. Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell later popularized the idea in his book The Tipping Point.

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