Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction to Social CapitalSocial Capital, the advantage created by location in social structure, is a critical element in business strategy. Who has it, how it works, and how to develop it have become key questions as markets, organizations, and careers become more and more dependent on informal, discretionary relationships. The formal organization deals with accountability; Everything else flows through the informal: advice, coordination, cooperation friendship, gossip, knowledge, trust. Informal relations have always been with us, they have always mattered. What is new is the range of activities in which they now matter, and the emerging clarity we have about how they create advantage for certain people at the expense of others. This is done by brokerage and closure. Ronald S. Burt builds upon his celebrated work in this area to explore the nature of brokerage and closure. Brokerage is the activity of people who live at the intersection of social worlds, who have a vision advantage of seeing and developing good ideas, an advantage which can be seen in their compensation, recognition, and the responsibility they're entrusted with in comparison to their peers. Closure is the tightening of coordination in a closed network of people, and people who do this do well as a complement to brokers because of the trust and alignment they create. Brokerage and Closure explores how these elements work together to define social capital, showing how in the business world reputation has come to replace authority, pursued opportunity assignment, and reward has come to be associated with achieving competitive advantage in a social order of continuous disequilibrium. |
Contents
1 | |
10 | |
2 Creativity and Learning | 58 |
3 Closure Trust and Reputation | 93 |
4 Closure Echo and Rigidity | 167 |
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Brokerage and Closure:An Introduction to Social Capital: An Introduction to ... Ronald S. Burt No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
alter American ation average bandwidth banker behavior bridge relations brokerage and closure brokers Burt business units chapter cited closed network clusters colleagues contingency function coordination correlation created creativity decay defined describe discussion partners distrust echo effects ego’s employees evaluations evidence example explained Figure firm friends gossip graph higher homophily ideas illustrated increases Jessica job rank kinked less Liberty Ship logit manager’s measure negative third-party network closure network constraint network data network effect network entrepreneurs networks bridge opinion organization parties peers performance person Podolny positive third-party predicting production promotion ratings relations embedded relationship returns to brokerage risk Robert role Section senior managers Shasta County ship shows Silicon Valley social capital Social Networks social structure sociogram Sociology span structural holes stories strong relations strong third-party stylized fact supply-chain supply-chain managers t-test tacit knowledge test statistic third tion trust versus z-score