MORSe seminar: How do brokers broker? An investigation on the temporality of structural holes.
Institute of Management and Organisation
Start date: 29 March 2012
End date: 30 March 2012
by Eric Quintane (USI/IMA)
Thursday, March 29
12.30am
Room 351, Lugano Campus
Abstract:
In the social network literature, brokers are commonly portrayed as individuals who extract a rent from their network position by keeping their unconnected contacts apart. Yet, this argument is at odds with evidence showing that structural holes are inherently short-lived – bridges decay faster than embedded ties and brokered individuals tend toconnect directly. We suggest that this empirical puzzle is explained by the fact that existing network theory and models focus exclusively on stable (i.e., long-term) network ties, thereby hiding the temporary (i.e., sort-term) social interactions through which such stable ties develop. In this paper, we argue that contrary to received wisdom brokers do not keep their structural holes open in the long run. Rather, they occupy a structural hole for the brief period in which it remains open and then swiftly move across ever new structural holes. We use a relational event model in order to concurrently examine temporary and stable ties and therefore identify the exact time frames in which structural holes are brokered. We find support for our arguments in an empirical analysis of e-mail communications between employees in a medium sized organization. We discuss how our findings change our understanding of brokers, structural holes, and social networksin organizations.
