Lauren A. Rivera

Graduate Student in Sociology

Biographical Note

Lauren Rivera is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology. Her primary research interest is understanding processes of status signaling and evaluation - specifically, how people evaluate the social standing of individuals and organizations, and how actors use self-presentation techniques to alter perceptions of their own status. Her dissertation explores such issues through a multi-method study of recruitment and hiring in elite professional service firms. Lauren will join the faculty of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Fall 2009.

Previous Education:

A.M., Harvard University, Sociology (2006)
B.A., Yale University, Sociology and Psychology (2000)

Dissertation Summary:

Hiring is a powerful yet understudied way in which employers shape labor market inequalities. Although a number of recent studies have demonstrated that hiring practices systematically disadvantage certain groups of applicants, such as women, ethnic minorities, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, existing research does not adequately explore why such outcomes occur. My dissertation seeks to remedy this gap by opening up the “black box” of employer hiring decisions. Specifically, the study examines how employers in three economically elite professions – investment banking, management consulting, and law – recruit and select new hires. Drawing upon 120 interviews with employers and ethnographic observation of one hiring committee, the dissertation explores the criteria of evaluation employers use to assess the merit of job applicants as well as how processes of evaluation vary by profession. The dissertation brings together developments in economics, economic sociology, and organizational studies with the literature in cultural sociology to illuminate how micro-level processes of interpersonal evaluation contribute to macro-level labor market inequalities.

Publications:

Rivera, Lauren A. 2008. "Managing 'Spoiled' National Identity: War, Tourism, and Memory in Croatia." American Sociological Review, 73: 613-634.

Rivera, Lauren A. 2008. “Distinctions: Cultural and Social.” Pp. 412-414 in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2nd edition), edited by William Darity. Farmington Hills, MI: MacMillan/Thompson Gale.

In progress:

Rivera, Lauren A. "Cultural Reproduction in the Labor Market: Homophily in Job Interviews."

Rivera, Lauren A. "Go With Your Gut: Emotion and Emotional Energy in Hiring."

Rivera, Lauren A. "A Cultural Model of Labor Market Signaling."

Rivera, Lauren A. "Capital in Interaction: The Case of Nightclub Doormen." [Revise and Resubmit].

Fellowships, Grants, and Awards:

Ford Foundation Diversity Dissertation Fellowship
Rose Laub Coser Dissertation Award (Eastern Sociological Society)
NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant (with Michele Lamont)
Real Estate Academic Initiative Research Grant (with Michele Lamont)
Harvard Merit Fellowship
Graduate Fellow, Center for the Legal Profession, Harvard Law School
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies Summer Research Fellowship
Davis Center for Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies Research Grant

03/30/2009

Research Interests

Culture, organizations, inequality, social class, gender, qualitative/mixed methods, contemporary theory, micro-macro links

Suggested Links

Contact

617-496-3476 (Phone)
617-496-5794 (FAX)

541 William James Hall
33 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138