Occupational Contact Networks

S OCIAL scientists have devoted considerable attention to the so-called "informal" activities found in industrial concerns. The impetus was provided by the Hawthorne studies of Elton Mayo and his colleagues. These studies demonstrated that workers tend to form informal groups whose norms become binding to the group members. The kind of group found in the bankwiring room of the Hawthorne works has become a theme of industrial research of the past twentyfive years. Informal groups are seen as existing in every factory, indeed, in every social organization having a degree of permanence. Their characteristics may be summarized thus: they provide individuals with norms, which are sometimes at variance with those held by management; they are a form of social control (members are disciplined by the group); and, finally, the groups provide satisfactions for members (the satisfactions of "belongingness," of being with persons who share one's attitudes and aspirations). When there are no informal or primary-type groups, as during periods of heavy labor turnover, it is held that "morale is bound to be low and social life negligible."' Individuals are believed to find the main outlet for their "personal bonds" in such primary groups.2 Whatever the validity of these findings, it cannot be denied that the informal activities of nonlaborers in industry-of professionals and managers-have been largely omitted from consideration.3 Equally neglected are the long range effects of informal relationships between persons in a work situation: Is contact maintained between the informal group members after they have left? And, if so, what is the nature of these contacts and what functions are served? This paper addresses itself to this neglected area, especially in regard to professionals. Its focus is a phenomenon which is well known, but which has not been systematically studied. The phenomenon is the practice, largely on the part of professionals, of keeping in touch with colleagues with whom they worked at one time or another. The contact which is maintained may be quite sporadic-an annual Christmas card or a chance meeting at a professional convention may be the extent of it. Apparently the persons thus keeping in contact are not necessarily close friends; they may not have had intimate working relationships when they were employed in the same company. But they did have "informal contact" and this is being maintained. It is suggested that in some professions-such as engineering and academic teaching-individuals thus establish themselves in nationwide "networks of contacts." One utilization of these contacts occurs when the individual seeks a new job. If engineer "A" has his eye on working for company "x" located a thousand miles away, he will not ordinarily begin by making the thousand-mile trip to the company and presenting himself to the personnel manager. He will not, even, begin by writing to the personnel manager of company "x." Instead, he will first contact his former colleague who works at "x." From him he may find out a great deal more about the company than the personnel manager might have been willing or able to tell him. He may learn what kind of man his would-be boss is; how the company "treats" a man in his specialty, and in which department a vacancy exists. Indeed, his former colleague may have contacted him in the first place to tell him about a particular vacancy. Another use of the contact network is for the individual to feed into it the fact that he is "not too happy" in his present position. If the individual has some prominence in his profession he will soon find job offers coming his way. He can use these for getting a different position. But he can-and sometimes does-use them as bargaining devices to improve his lot in his present company. * Read before the twenty-first annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Asheville, North Carolina, April 11, 1958. I am indebted for valuable suggestions to Professor E. W. Noland, Miss A. C. Maney, and Messrs. G. Tracy, B3erton Kaplan, and Alvin Katz. I am indebted, also, to Dr. H. L. Smith for providing numerous insights into the study of professionals. I J. A. C. Brown, The Social Psychology of Industry (New York: Penguin B3ooks, 1954), p. 133. 2 See, for example, Robert Dubin, Human Relations in Administration (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1951), pp. 57-68. 3 P. M. Blau's The Dynamics of Bureaucracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955) is a notable exception.