Research On Social Capital And The Acquisition Of Professional Status

In the recent two decades, the researches on social capital have developed drastically. Scholars have done numerous empirical researches, and have put forward abundant theories that find its path into different schools, thus made the study on social capital prosperous. This paper, based on the past researches and begins with a reflection on relevant theories, carries out its study on the acquisition of professional status in China in the transformation era, which mainly expatiates the relation and inner-mechanism between the social network resources and the behavior of attaining a job.The process of attaining professional status is actually a ail-along focus in the study of social stratification and social mobility. Quite different from economists, who usually elicit those non-economical variables from their analytical framework, sociologists emphasize that economic activities are closely connected with social factors, and the behavior of finding a job is no exception. As far as the study on peoples' finding jobs through social networks, western sociologists are in favor of the weak-tie theory, and similar studies in Asia reach in different conclusion. On the other side, by concluding culture and value judgment into analytical system, new models form which can explain more reasonably the dual selection of individuals and society, as well as the motivation and results of job seeking.This paper understands social networks as the manifestation of social capital, and explains the behavior of job seeking on the base of case interviews. It regards that China is transforming from planned economy to market economy, social networks affect individuals while he/she tries to get a job. First, the scale , density and quality of the network functions respectively; On the other hand, different social institutions and culture background will also lead to different results in the process of job attainment. The conclusions reached in this paper include: social networks exert positive effect on the person who is seeking a job; meanwhile, it hinders the conformity of the labor market and breaches the impartiality of competition. As far as the result of job seeking is concerned, human capital is still the main supportive reason for professional status, and social capital functions as the supplement for human capital.Strong ties and weak ties function differently in the process of attaining different professional status, also social networks function differently in distinguished institutional and culture background. The attainment of professional status, on the other hand, refers to the mobility of profession and related professional promotion; in which social network also has critical function. A person's tenure within a firm and seniority accumulated within an organization, together with specific knowledge and social network, have a strong effect on the likelihood of promotion.