Stinchcombe began his teaching career at Johns Hopkins University before returning to Berkeley from 1967 to 1975.
Stinchcombe joined the Northwestern University faculty in 1983 and was named John Evans Professor of Sociology in 1990.
The work proposes that “social structure” be understood as "any variables which are stable characteristics of the society outside the organization".
It suggests that “organization” be understood as "a set of stable social relations deliberately created, with the explicit intention of continuously accomplishing some specific goals or purposes".
Stinchcombe elaborated the idea of historical causes (such as critical junctures) as a distinct kind of cause that generates a "self-replicating causal loop."