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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (4 results)

  • Article
Working Paper Series (2013)
If categorical boundaries serve to assist audiences in lumping together like organizations and separating different ones, then does an organization’s reputation also remain similarly bounded? We conceptualize reputation as an assessment of an actor’s ability or quality, but in the circumscribed domain of an identified category. We hypothesize that reputation acts differentlydepending both on the relevance and focus (read: distance and spanning) of a marketparticipant’s past experiences. We examine an online market for freelancing services. We find that better reputations benefit those sellers who have more relevant experiences with regard to a focal category. However, for those with poor reputations, this disadvantage is ameliorated as distance from the focal category is increased. For those sellers with better reputations, spanningacts detrimentally on their reputational advantage. Yet for those with poor reputations, spanning decreases their disadvantage vis-à-vis their better reputational alters. We also employ a novelmeasure of categorical distance using a text overlap measure.
    Cover page: How reputation transfers across categorical boundaries
    • Article
    Working Paper Series (2015)
    Extant supply-side labor market theories conclude that women and men apply to different jobs but are unable to explain gender differences in how they may be have when applying to the same job. We correct this discrepancy by considering gendered approaches to the hiring process. We propose that applicants can emphasize either the relational or the transactional aspects of the job and that this affects whether they are hired. Relational job seekers focus on developing a social connection with their employer. In contrast, transactional job seekers focus on quantitative and mechanical aspects of the job. We expect women to be more relational and men to be more transactional and that this behavior will contribute to differences in hiring outcomes. Specifically, we contend that being relational suggest that one is more committed to the job at hand and therefore should increases the chances of being hired – holding constant competence. We examine behaviors in an online contract labor market for graphic designers, Elance.com where we find that women are more likely to be hired than men by about 4.1%. Quantitative linguistic analysis on the unstructured text of job proposals reveals that women (men) adopt more relational (transactional) language in their applications. These different approaches affect a job seeker’s likelihood of being hired and attenuate the gender gap we identified. Attenuation suggests that how one approaches the hiring process matters and that gender is correlated with a particular style of engagement.
      Cover page: For love or money? Gender differences in how one approaches getting a job
      • Article
      Working Paper Series (2014)
      This article challenges the widespread notion that spanning recognized categories, or generalism,is disadvantageous. In markets, buyers face the fundamental challenge of gaining insight into the underlying ability of sellers. Economic sociologists rely on theories of categorization to explain how participants navigate this assessment. Social actors who span multiple categories have beenfound to be disadvantaged. We do not believe this is always the case and seek to identify conditions under which generalism by job seekers is valued. We start with the contention that spanning is an ambiguous indicator of quality, and suggest how it is perceived is dependent on other, salient indicators. We investigate two – relevance and reputation – which are often confounded with generalism. We propose that the same spanning behavior can be advantageous or disadvantageous depending on these other indicators. We hypothesize that those who evince the necessary attributes an employer is looking for by being relevant are advantaged when they also span disparate areas because employers value broader experiences. Spanning should also be advantageous for highly reputable applicants because it is more consistent with the belief they possess superior skills. In short, we identify idiosyncrasy credits. We test and find support for these hypotheses in the context of a virtual labor market for freelancers – Elance.com.
        Cover page: An idiosyncrasy credit or a generalist discount? Conditional advantages to working broadly in a virtual labor market
        • Thesis
        • Peer Reviewed
        UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2017)

        This dissertation examines the antecedents of entrepreneurship through the empirical analysis of over 2 million resumes that constitutes a sample of the high technology start-up ecology in the United States. The first chapter characterizes the latent issues surrounding the study of entrepreneurial entry (Chapter 1). I then resolve these issues through the development of a sociological career framework of entrepreneurship in two parts. The first establishes the framework and distinguishes two types of entrepreneurial activity: high potential ventures and common self-employment (Chapter 2). I show that machine learning models applied to the identity claims of hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs can successfully classify, characterize and distinguish these types in the tech sector. The two entrepreneur types exhibit diametrically opposing human capital and career based antecedents. In doing so, I demonstrate a necessary de-conflation of entrepreneurial events; the career framework provides a crucial precision in the definition, observation and measurement of the entrepreneurial outcome variable. The second part exemplifies an application of the framework to demonstrate an efficacy in the identification and study of specific sociological mechanisms. Through the introduced apparatus and a prospective sample of the data that represents the graduates of the top 23 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) colleges in the United States, I study the effect of status gain on entrepreneurial entry and success by examining different forms of entrepreneurial activity of the alumni of companies that experience liquidity events: initial public offerings (IPOs) and large scale acquisitions (Chapter 3). I find that upon vicariously experiencing these liquidity events, the alumni are on average 23% more likely to enter into high potential entrepreneurship and 17% less likely to enter into contract self-employment. However, such forms of status gain confer no significant funding advantages to the nascent venture. I conclude by discussing future directions: this dissertation serves as but an introduction to and an advocate for a larger program of research that seeks to clarify and advance the study of entrepreneurship through sociological career theory.

          Cover page: Of Experience and Enterprise: Careers, Organizations and Entrepreneurship
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