Research.
Works in progress.
My current project examines the work of federal lobbyists in the United States. Drawing a relational research design, which includes ethnographic observations of lobbying activities and fundraising events, and 152 interviews with federal lobbyists, Congressional staffers, and political fundraisers, I argue that lobbyists are architects of political influence, and demonstrate the expertise in managing processes and building relationships on behalf of their clients. The findings from this project make important contributions to the literatures on social influence, professions and expertise, nonmarket strategy and public policy.
Peer Reviewed Publications.
Pause, Pivot, and Shift: Situational Human Capital and Responses to Sudden Job Loss.
American Behavioral Scientist, 2022 (w/ Heba Gowayed and Ashley Mears)
How, in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, do workers respond to rapid changes in the labor market? This paper mobilizes existing literature on occupational mobility and job loss to develop a theory of situational human capital in which some workers are better positioned to weather occupational transitions than others depending on the alignment between their skill sets, opportunities, and particular contexts. Previous literature looks at this in the case of “pausing,” when workers, such as women, take time off from work. Relatively less explored but equally consequential are transitions like “pivoting,” in which workers maneuver within their occupations to adjust their practices or platforms in order to keep working, and “shifting,” in which workers change their occupations altogether. Since most government unemployment benefits focus almost exclusively on workers’ pauses, they neglect to support workers as they pivot and shift during periods of labor market instability and disruption. This paper concludes by offering some policy recommendations to fill this gap.
Socio-Economic Review, 2021
Much research on disruptive innovations has focused on firms that disrupt existing industries. Yet, regulators and lawmakers are instrumental in containing or enabling market disruption, in ways that are less understood. This article examines taxi industries in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco between 2010 and 2014 to better understand the role of regulators and lawmakers in enabling Uber to disrupt these industries. Relying on 142 interviews, ethnographic observations and primary source documents, I show that regulators and lawmakers used two strategies in responding to Uber: blocking and incorporating. Blocking refers to measures that stop a firm from entering the industry. Incorporating refers to adding, subtracting or modifying regulations to align with an innovative firm’s practices. I identify three incorporating strategies: horizontal venue shifting, vertical venue shifting and reinterpreting existing regulations. Analyzing these strategies more clearly illuminates regulatory change mechanisms and lawmakers’ and regulators’ role in enabling disruptive innovations.
Stand-in Labor and the Rising Economy of Self.
Social Forces, 2020 (w/ Michel Anteby)
Ghostwriters represent a form of labor aimed at producing someone else’s self, or what we label “stand-in labor.” This article explores the experience of stand-in workers and its implication on the economy of self. Relying on 72 interviews with ghostwriters and publishing industry insiders, we show that ghostwriters face recognition estrangement because they are often asked to stay out of public view for the crafted selves to prove “authentic.” We find that they manage this tension in a unique way: they claim a professional need to disappear in order to properly put forth a subject’s “true” voice, yet emphasize their active contribution to the crafting of a subject’s public self that differs from the subject’s “true” self. In doing so, ghostwriters alter the subjects they impersonate by creating a distance between the subjects’ crafted and “actual” selves. Our study therefore uncovers a paradoxical dynamic—namely, taking professional pride in disappearing, yet reappearing in the act of altering others’ selves—that we posit might prove inherent to the performance of stand-in labor. More broadly, we suggest that many stand-in workers might alter the selves they impersonate, thus leading to a situation where calls for authenticity breed adulteration.
Investing in Independent Contract Work: The Significance of Schedule Control for Taxi Drivers.
Work and Occupations, 2017
New York City “yellow” taxi drivers work as independent contractors. Like many independent contract workers, taxi drivers engage in economically precarious work—or work that is economically uncertain, unpredictable, and risky. This article explores how taxi drivers make sense of the economic risks they face each workday. Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic data, it finds that taxi drivers made sense of their work by expressing a sense of control over their work schedule, which is significant given the self-conceptions that drivers bring with them to this particular work arrangement. As a result, this sense of schedule control serves as a mechanism for worker investment in the structure of independent contract work.
Social Networks and Macro-Historical Change.
Annual Review of Sociology, 2017 (w/ Emily Erikson)
Social networks are heavily implicated in large-scale social transformations. They are both transformed and transformative. We review the ways in which social networks act as agents of change in macrohistorical processes, stressing two distinct theoretical approaches. Formalism analyzes the structure of networks. Relationalism evaluates the linking properties of networks. Using these two approaches to organize the literature, we present the current state of knowledge on the effects of social networks for four central macrohistorical outcomes: civil uprising, state formation, global and national policy formation and diffusion, and economic development and increasing inequality. We then consider new theoretical advances in institutional emergence and methodological innovations in computational modeling and their potential for reconciling and advancing existing findings and approaches on the effects of social networks on macrosocial change.