For those who have online access, the Internet significantly reduces the cost and time of transferring information over distance. This paper explores the potential of the Internet to improve people's employment opportunities by increasing their access to job information beyond that provided via their grounded social networks. Information circulating through grounded social networks is biased socially and geographically toward the life experiences of network members. The tendency for those members to have similar life experiences dampens the variability in the information exchanged in such networks. What is the potential for the Internet to expand people's access to information about jobs and employers' information about workers? We report on a pilot study undertaken in Worcester, Massachusetts, that examined employers' use of Internet recruiting for employees. The results of this qualitative study indicate that these employers use the Internet strategically to enhance the volume of applications when the labor market is tight and to segment the applicant pool when the market loosens and the number of resumes is overwhelming. As a result, we conclude that many grounded social relations that have been integral to the hiring process are resilient to the Internet; pre-Internet geographies shape Internet geographies, and grounded social relations continue to define access to information about job opportunities even online.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AoyamaY, 2001, “Structural foundations for e-commerce adoption: a comparative organization of retail trade between Japan and the United States”Urban Geography22130–153
2.
BarronJBishopJDunkelbergW, 1985, “Employer search: the interviewing and hiring of new employees”The Review of Economics and Statistics6743–52
3.
BiksonT KPanisC W, 1997, “Computers and connectivity: current trends”, in Culture of the Internet Ed. KieslerS (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ) pp 407–430
4.
BoltDCrawfordR, 2000Digital Divide: Computers and our Children's Future (TV Books, New York)
5.
BrownJ SDuguidP, 2000The Social Life of Information (Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA)
6.
CairncrossF, 1997The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution will Change our Lives (Orion, London)
7.
CaruthD LNoeR MMondyR W, 1988Staffing the Contemporary Organization: A Guide to Planning, Recruiting, and Selecting for Human Resource Professionals (Quorom Books, Westport, CT)
8.
CastellsM, 1996The Rise of the Network Society (Blackwell, Oxford)
9.
ClarkG LWhitemanJ, 1983, “Why poor people do not move: job search behavior and disequilibrium amongst local labor markets”Environment and Planning A1585–104
10.
CorcoranMDatcherLDuncanG, 1980, “Information and influence networks in labour markets”, in Five Thousand American Families: Patterns of Economic Progress, volume 8 Eds DuncanGMorganJ N (Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI) pp 1–38
11.
CurranM M, 1988, “Gender and recruitment: people and places in the labour market”Work, Employment and Society2335–351
12.
DodgeMKitchinR M, 2001Atlas of Cyberspace (Addison-Wesley, Harlow, Essex)
13.
FarkasG PEnglandPBartonM, 1988, “Structural effects on wages: sociological and economic views”, in Industries, Firms and Jobs Eds FarkasGEnglandP (Plenum Press, New York) pp 93–112
14.
Federal Highway Administration, 1993Journey to Work Trends in the US and its Metropolitan Areas, 1960–1990US Department of Transportation, Washington, DC
15.
FernandezR MCastillaE JMooreP, 2000, “Social capital at work: networks and employment at a phone center”American Journal of Sociology1051288–1356
16.
GrahamSMarvinS, 1996Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (Routledge, London)
17.
GranovetterM, 1974Getting a Job: A Study of Contracts and Careers (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
18.
GranovetterMTillyC, 1988, “Inequality and the labour market”, in Handbook of Sociology Ed. SmelserN (Sage, Beverley Hills, CA) pp 175–221
19.
HansonSJohnstonI, 1985, “Gender differences in work trip length: explanations and implications”Urban Geography6193–219
20.
HansonSPrattG, 1991, “Job search and the occupational segregation of women”Annals of the Association of American Geographers81229–253
21.
HansonSPrattG, 1992, “Dynamic dependencies: a geographic investigation of local labour markets”Economic Geography68373–405
22.
HansonSPrattG, 1995Gender, Work and Space (Routledge, New York)
23.
HolzerH J, 1996What Employers Want: Job Prospects for Less-educated Workers (Russell Sage Foundation, New York)
24.
JanelleD, 1995, “Metropolitan expansion, telecommuting, and transportation”, in The Geography of Urban Transportation Ed. HansonS (Guilford Press, New York) pp 407–434
25.
KasinitzPRosenbergJ, 1996, “Missing the connection: social isolation and employment on the waterfront”Social Problems43180–196
26.
KeislerSKrautRMukhopadhyayTScherlisW, 1997HomeNet Overview: Recent Results from a Field Trial of Residential Internet Use (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA)
27.
KibirigeH MDePaloL, 2000, “The Internet as a source of academic research information: findings of two pilot studies”Information Technology and Libraries1911–17
KrautRScherlisWMukhopadhyayTManningJKieslerS, 1996, “The HomeNet field trial of residential Internet services”Communications of the ACM3955–64
30.
KwanM-P, 2000, “Cyberspatial cognition and individual access to information: the behavioral foundation of cybergeography”Environment and Planning B: Planing and Design2821–37
31.
McConnaugheyJ WLaderW, 1998Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital DivideNational Telecommunications and Information Administration, Washington, DC, http://www.ntia.doc.gov
32.
McLaffertySPrestonV, 1991, “Gender, race, and commuting among service sector workers”The Professional Geographer431–14
33.
MierRGilothR, 1985, “Hispanic employment opportunities: a case of internal labour markets and weak-tied social networks”Social Science Quarterly66296–307
34.
MitchellW J, 1995City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA)
35.
MontgomeryJ, 1991, “Social networks and labour market information: toward an economic analysis”American Economic Review811408–1418
36.
MossM LMitraS, 1998, “New equity: a report on income and Internet access”Journal of Urban Technology523–32
37.
MossM LTownsendA M, 2000, “The role of the real city in cyberspace: understanding regional variations in Internet accessibility”, in Information, Place, and Cyberspace Eds JanelleD GHodgeD C (Springer, Berlin) pp 171–186
38.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Washington, DC, http://www.ntia.doc.gov
39.
1995Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the “Have Nots” in Rural and Urban America
40.
1998Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide
41.
1999Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide
42.
2000Falling Through the Net: Towards Digital Inclusion
43.
NilesSHansonS, in press, “A new kind of accessibility?”URISA Journal
44.
PennbridgeJMoyaRRodriguesL, 1999, “Questionnaire survey of California consumers' use and rating of sources of health care information including the Internet”The Western Journal of Medicine November, 302–304
45.
ReesASchultzG P, 1970Workers and Wages in an Urban Labor Market (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL)
46.
RobinsKWebsterF, 1999Times of the Technoculture (Routledge, New York)
47.
SchultzW, 1992, “Women before the law: judicial stories about women, work and sex segregation on the job”, in Feminists Theorize the Political Eds ButlerJScottJ W (Routledge, New York) pp 297–338
48.
SimpsonW, 1992Urban Structure and the Labour Market (Clarendon Press, Oxford)
49.
TofflerATofflerH, 1988, “The discontinuous future”Foreign Affairs77134–140
50.
WalshJ P, 1997, “Computer networks and scientific work”, in Culture of the Internet Ed. KieslerS (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ) pp 385–406
51.
WellmanBQuan-HaaseAWitteJHamptonK, 2001, “Does the Internet increase, decrease or supplement social capital? Social networks, participation and community commitment”American Behavioral Scientist45436–455
52.
WheelerJ O, 1969, “Some effect of occupational status on work trips”Journal of Regional Science1941–52
53.
WialH, 1991, “Getting a good job: mobility in a segmented labour market”Industrial Relations30396–416
54.
WimmerB STownsendA MChezumB E, 2000, “Information technologies and the middleman: the changing role of information intermediaries in an information-rich economy”Journal of Labour Research21407–419
