Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Economics Department, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

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This thesis is an in-depth study of the labour market in the UK publishing sector. The aim is to study the role of social ties in publishing in external recruitment and internal promotion. Conventional sociological studies on social ties and labour market outcomes either neglect the perspective of the recruiter and the referrer or fail to explore the mechanisms by which social ties bring about labour market outcomes. This thesis fills these gaps. I used qualitative research methods, i.e. semi-structured interviews and participant observation for this research. The semi-structured interviews were with 40 interviewees, who were working in different roles (e.g. editorial and design) and levels (e.g. senior and junior) in Oxford and London-based publishing houses. I also served as a committee member of a publishing association in Oxford for seven months. Participant observation serves to triangulate the information I obtained through semi-structured interviews. This thesis examines different aspects of the labour market process and mechanisms. Regarding recruitment methods, I found that whether recruiters use formal or informal (word of mouth) methods depend on the level of uncertainty of recruiting a wrong person and the cost of making such mistakes. The greater the uncertainty and the cost, the more likely recruiters are to use social ties. Social ties serve to provide information about the availability of suitable employees. With regard to selection processes, I found that professional skills are a must but not enough in themselves. Recruiters use informal method at the final stage of selection to ensure the recruits possess the relevant qualities. As for job-hunting methods, I found that most newcomers introduce themselves using formal methods to get into publishing but in fact informality is often embedded in formal methods. Interviewees at managerial level almost entirely got their job through informal channels. Social ties have different functions as people rise through the different levels: whereas first entrants use social ties to obtain information about job opportunities, senior level staff members and freelancers carry with them reputation of their fitness to fill a particular position. Finally, when it comes to internal promotion, employers in my sample promote staff from within the company who already possesses the relevant skills, so as to minimize training costs and get around the uncertainties in settling in new staff. From the employees’ point of view, so long as they perform well in the job and establish a cooperative link with their boss and team members, they would be able to be promoted.

In this dissertation, I explore how male university graduates in Lahore go about securing mainly government employment. Ethnographic exploration of what seems to be an individual quest in the temporal juncture between completing a degree and securing full time employment is in fact an intensively social and political process. Participant observation of these career-building endeavors in and around a hostel, an ‘academy,’ and in a call center speaks to the way graduates orient themselves and endeavor to create their future in a stratified society. Accounts of experiences of job seekers reveal how different forms of capital are mobilized in educational processes. The goal that shapes aspirations and strategies is that of elite government service, indicative of a time of anemic economic growth and perceived political instability. The state then sets the standard for achievement of graduates’ career goals, motivated by security, status, and stability. Thus, the state looms large in the ways young men figure their future, in a way, becoming an arbiter in an encounter between job seekers and the structure of power relations. That is, unemployed graduates need to become worthy or achieve merit, adjusting or cultivating one’s habitus in order to get there. The foregoing suggests power relations in the eyes of young men are configured not only through social or cultural capital but by political capital. I thus highlight power in the self-making process that produces what I argue could be seen as a culturally-specific middle class subjectivity. I make the case for a ‘habitus’ that can be cultivated and shaped by political and economic conditions, loosening theory’s conceptual rigidity while highlighting the ways it mediates the temporal juncture between education and employment.

Excerpt: National Public Radio’s All Things Considered recently featured a piece by Annie Baxter called “Fear Is The Biggest Hurdle For Some Job Seekers” (February 16, 2012). This feature presented a hurdle that most people probably do not realize exists; namely, that for many long-term job-seekers, the fear of going back to work is quite real and intimidating.

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The main purpose of the current study was to explore predictors of Job Search Behaviour in Australian and Canadian undergraduate students within the context of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. An expansion of the theory was investigated, to determine if Emotional Intelligence contributed to the prediction of Job Search Behaviour. Gender differences as well as Australian versus Canadian differences in Job Search Behaviour and Emotional Intelligence were also explored. Participants were undergraduate students (N = 253) at the University of Victoria in Canada and the University of Melbourne in Australia in the final term prior to graduation. Results revealed support for the Theory of Planned Behaviour with the predictors of Social Norm, Job Search Attitude, and Perceived Behavioural Control contributing to the prediction of Job Search Intensions and thus indirectly Behaviour and Job Search Intentions and Perceived Behavioural Control contributing to the prediction of Job Search Behaviour directly. Inconsistent with the theory was the contribution of Job Search Attitude to Job Search Behaviour directly. Emotional Intelligence did not contribute to the prediction of Job Search Behaviour directly or indirectly through Intentions. There were very small and mixed gender and cross-national effects in Job Search Behaviour. There were minimal and mixed gender and cross-national effects in EI. Implications for counsellors and educators and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Jill Quadagno, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, Dept. of Sociology. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 24, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.