Introduction

Abstract

As the adage goes, it is not what you know but who you know that counts in finding employment. Far from being folk wisdom, the relationship between who you know and employment has been validated in numerous studies that have been conducted in diverse settings and have employed a variety of research methods (Granovetter 1995). For such reasons, networking is now advanced by government agencies, career advisors, and many other groups and individuals as an important strategy for finding employment. The importance of networking during processes of allocating labor power has been aided by developments in information technology that enable workers to connect to diverse and widespread networks (Castells 1998). It is also widely agreed that networks have an important role to play in the creation and dissemination of new knowledge throughout the economy. Thus, most conceptions of the knowledge economy emphasize the emergence of networks, which facilitate labor mobility, knowledge creation, and knowledge transfer.