Structural holes capstone, cautions, and enthusiasms

Adjunct to the preceding excerpt from Structural Holes, this chapter’s goal is to provide a capstone summarizing where we are on Structural Holes’ subject of network brokerage, and my cautions and enthusiasms concerning directions in which things are going. I focus on core ideas and results rather than on literature.1 In the capstone, I discuss the information breadth, timing, and arbitrage advantages of network brokers, and returns to those advantages contingent on a broker’s social standing. Research linking network structure with success has been a first generation of work. That work is well advanced, but far from complete. I discuss the current position becoming stronger and broader with replication, attention to negative results, and attention to dynamics. Shifting to an exciting second generation of ongoing work, research has emerged focused on the behavior by which broker advantage is linked with success. I discuss framing and frame shifts, the importance of personal engagement, the uncertain moderating effects of culture and personality, and a few behavioral variations in brokerage. I discuss the context dependence of tertius gaudens tactics iungens versus separans, and the distinction between brokers who consume versus produce emotional energy in their colleagues.