Teaching

Peter V. Marsden

Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of Sociology
and Harvard College Professor

Biographical Note

PETER V. MARSDEN, Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of Sociology and Harvard College Professor, received his undergraduate degree (Sociology and History) at Dartmouth College (1973) and his graduate degrees (Sociology, MA [1975] and Ph.D. [1979]) at the University of Chicago. He came to Harvard in 1987 after teaching for ten years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also held administrative assignments as Associate Chair and Special Assistant to the Dean. At Harvard, he served as Chair of the Sociology Department between 1992 and 1998 and in 2002-03. He is Chair of the Program and Admissions Committee for the Ph.D. Program in Organizational Behavior, a position he also held between 2000 and 2003.

Marsden's research interests are centered on social organization, especially formal organizations and social networks. He has ongoing interests in social science methodology and in the sociology of medicine. He has worked recently on organizational factors linked to the presence of various human resource practices- recruitment and staffing practices, "high performance" practices, and the use of "contingent" workers- in U.S. workplaces, using data from establishment surveys. He has studied survey measurement of social networks and research methods for establishment surveys. Marsden is involved in the ongoing data collection efforts of the General Social Survey, has been a lead investigator of three National Organizations Studies conducted between 1991 and 2003, and was a co-investigator on a project examining organizational approaches to the improvement of HIV care.

At Harvard, Marsden has offered courses on organizational analysis, social networks, mathematical sociology, quantitative methods, research methods, and integrating micro- and macro-sociology. He has served on the Sociology review panel for the National Science Foundation, and currently serves on several editorial boards. Between 1991 and 1995 he edited Sociological Methodology, the annual methodology volume sponsored by the American Sociological Association. He serves as Chair of Harvard's University Benefits Committee and of its Health Plans Subcommittee.

Recent Publications Include:

(With A. James O'Malley) "The Analysis of Social Networks" Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology 8 (4;December, 2008): 222-269.

(With Nancy L. Keating, John Z. Ayanian, and Paul D. Cleary) “Factors Affecting Influential Discussions Among Physicians: A Social Network Analysis of a Primary Care Practice.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 22 (6; June, 2007): 794-798.

(With Arne L. Kalleberg, Jeremy Reynolds, and David Knoke) “Beyond Profit: Sectoral Differences in High Performance Work Practices.” Work and Occupations 33 (3; August, 2006) 271-302.

Review essay on Generalized Blockmodeling, by Patrick Doreian, Vladimir Batagelj, and Anuska Ferligoj. Social Networks 28 (July, 2006): 275-282.

(With Bruce E. Landon, Ira B. Wilson, Keith McInnes, Lisa R. Hirschhorn, Lin Ding, and Paul D. Cleary) “The Reliability of Survey Assessments of Characteristics of Medical Clinics.” Health Services Research 41 (February, 2006): 265-283.

“Network Methods in Social Epidemiology.” Pp. 267-286 in J. Michael Oakes and Jay S. Kaufman (eds.) Methods in Social Epidemiology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publications, 2006.

(With Arne L. Kalleberg) “Externalizing Organizational Activities: Where and How U.S. Establishments Use Employment Intermediaries.” Socio-Economic Review 3 (September, 2005): 389-416.

“The Sociology of James S. Coleman.” Annual Review of Sociology 31 (2005): 1-24.

"Recent Developments in Network Measurement." Pp. 8-30 in Peter J. Carrington, John Scott, and Stanley Wasserman (eds.) Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

“Network Analysis.” Pp. 819-825 in Kimberly Kempf-Leonard (ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Measurement. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2004.

(With Bruce E. Landon, Ira B. Wilson, Keith McInnes, Mary Beth Landrum, Lisa Hirschhorn, David Gustafson, and Paul D. Cleary) “Effects of a Quality Improvement Collaborative on the Outcome of Care of Patients with HIV Infection: The EQHIV Study.” Annals of Internal Medicine 140 (June, 2004): 887-896.

(With Arne L. Kalleberg and Jeremy Reynolds) "Externalizing Employment: Flexible Staffing Arrangements in U.S. Organizations." Social Science Research 32 (December, 2003): 525-552.

"Interviewer Effects in Measuring Network Size Using a Single Name Generator." Social Networks 25 (February, 2003): 1-16.

"Egocentric and Sociocentric Measures of Network Centrality." Social Networks 24 (November, 2002): 407-422.

(with Elizabeth H. Gorman) "Social Networks, Job Changes, and Recruitment." Pp. 467-502 in Ivar Berg and Arne L. Kalleberg (eds.) Sourcebook on Labor Markets: Evolving Structures and Processes. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2001.

09/28/2009

Courses Offered This Academic Year

A Sampling of Courses Offered in Other Years

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Contact

617-495-3823 (Phone)
617-496-5794 (FAX)

630 William James Hall
33 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Office Hours

Wed., 3-5 p.m.

Staff Contact

Lauren Dye