Network brokerage:An integrative review and future research agenda

Network brokerage research has grown rapidly in recent decades, spanning the boundaries of multiple social science disciplines as well as diverse research areas within management. Accordingly, we take stock of the literature on network brokerage and provide guidance on ways to move this burgeoning research area forward. We provide a comprehensive review of this literature, including crucial dimensions of the concept itself in terms of brokerage structure and behavior, a set of key categories of factors surrounding the brokerage concept (antecedents, outcomes, and moderators), and an overview of brokerage dynamics over time. We use these dimensions and categories to depict network brokerage’s theoretical and empirical underpinnings as well as evaluate prior research efforts. In so doing, we offer a means to summarize and synthesize this large, interdisciplinary literature, identify important research gaps, and offer promising directions for future research

The Strain of Spanning Structural Holes: How Brokering Leads to Burnout and Abusive Behavior

Connecting otherwise disconnected individuals and groups—spanning structural holes—can earn social network brokers faster promotions, higher remuneration, and enhanced creativity. Organizations also benefit through improved communication and coordination from these connections between knowledge silos. Neglected in prior research, however, has been theory and evidence concerning the psychological costs to individuals of engaging in brokering activities. We build new theory concerning the extent to which keeping people separated (i.e., tertius separans brokering) relative to bringing people together (i.e., tertius iungens brokering) results in burnout and in abusive behavior toward coworkers. Engagement in tertius separans brokering, relative to tertius iungens brokering, we suggest, burdens people with onerous demands while limiting access to resources necessary to recover. Across three studies, we find that tertius separans leads to abusive behavior of others, mediated by an increased experience of burnout on the part of the broker. First, we conducted a five-month field study of burnout and abusive behavior, with brokering assessed via email exchanges among 1,536 university employees in South America. Second, we examined time-separated data on self-reported brokering behaviors, burnout, and coworker abuse among 242 employees of U.S. organizations. Third, we experimentally investigated the effects of the two types of brokering behaviors on burnout and abusive behavior for 273 employed adults. The results across three studies showed that tertius separans brokering puts the broker at an increased risk of burnout and subsequent abusive behavior toward others in the workplace

Dynamic brokerage across socio-cognitive boundaries : external boundary spanners in South African agribusiness

Extant brokerage literature is teeming with explanations of brokerage across structural holes (open networks), but lean on the accounting for brokerage opportunities in closed networks. Predominantly, brokerage is presented as a structural construct and brokerage opportunities that exhibit temporal dependencies are not easy to explain using extant literature. The explanation of the dynamic properties of brokerage, such as the ability of brokers to adjust their roles as the network context changes, is eschewed. This study introduces the concept of boundary spanner brokerage and defines a dynamic construct, that is able explicate temporal adjustments to brokerage roles as a consequence of cognition in the social environment. The South African agribusiness sector presents an ideal opportunity for the exploration of this phenomenon. The network environment is characterised by small-world networks that impose cognitive boundaries between established white agribusiness and emerging black farmers. Building relationships across these socio-cognitive boundaries is a challenge for emerging agribusiness. Traditional brokerage methods have failed, but cases of successful boundary spanner brokerage have been reported. The expectation that such brokerage could be a silver bullet, for the sustainable connection of emerging agribusiness to industry value networks is, a motivation for this study. Applying a contextualist perspective, the research design considers change dynamics at network, process and actor levels. Social network scholarship posits that any study of network change should consider the interconnectedness of context, action and change, hence the study of microfoundations of network change and in particular, how agency secures on-going brokerage returns. The longitudinal study combines historical and real-time data, spanning the period 2008 to 2018. It relies on 18 semi-structured interviews with business managers, board members and senior members of partner organisations, as well as news media reports and previous academic studies. A necessary complement to the research design is that of ethnographic observation. It allows the phenomenon of boundary spanner brokerage to be studied in its environmental contextThesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019.Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)PhDUnrestricte

Network Agency

The question of agency has been neglected in social network research, in part because the structural approach to social relations removes consideration of individual volition and action. But recent emphasis on purposive individuals has reignited interest in agency across a range of social network research topics. Our paper provides a brief history of social network agency and an emergent framework based on a thorough review of research published since 2004. This organizing framework distinguishes between an ontology of dualism (actors and social relations as separate domains) and an ontology of duality (actors and social relations as a mutually constituted) at both the individual level and at the social network level. The resulting four perspectives on network agency comprise individual advantage, embeddedness, micro-foundations, and structuration. In conclusion, we address current debates and future directions relating to sources of action and the locus of identity

"Title does not dictate behavior": associations of formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage with school staff members' professional well-being

Individuals in brokerage positions are vital when further developing complex organizations with multiple subgroups only loosely coupled to each other. Network theorists have conceptualized an individual’s brokerage as the degree to which a person occupies a bridging position between disconnected others. Research outside the school context has indicated for quite some time that an individual’s social capital in the form of brokerage is positively associated with professional development—not only on a collective but also on an individual level. Schools are without any doubt complex organizations with multiple loosely connected stakeholders involved when further developing their educational practice. Thus, it is not surprising that in recent years, the concept of brokerage has gained interest in research on school improvement as well. Up to now, in school improvement research brokerage has been operationalized in different ways: as individuals’ formal entitlement to act as intermediaries (formal brokerage), their position within a social network (structural brokerage), or their behavior when linking disconnected groups of staff members (behavioral brokerage). As these perspectives have often been examined separately, this study, as a first step, aimed to simultaneously assess school staff members’ formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage, and examine their degree of interrelatedness. In a second step, associations of brokerage with professional well-being were analyzed. Even though there is evidence for the positive impact of brokerage on professional development, only little is known about its associations with professional well-being. In a third step, interaction effects were examined when formal brokerage is congruent or incongruent with other facets of brokerage. Based on a sample of 1,316 school staff members at 51 primary schools in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, we conducted both bivariate correlational and multiple-group structural equation modeling analyses. The findings revealed that formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage are interrelated facets. However, formal entitlement did not determine either structural position or behavior. Moreover, brokerage within schools was only partially related to professional well-being. In the discussion section, the study’s key contributions and practical implications are presented in detail

How do brokers broker? Exploring brokering through a process perspective

This PhD thesis explores the way in which brokers broker and aims to increase the understanding of how and why individuals perform brokering and thus facilitate interactions among other actors towards the achievement of innovative outcomes. It contains a collection of three papers, two empirical and one theoretical, taking a process perspective to address this issue and considering brokering as a behavioral process. Focusing on how brokering unfolds and on its underlying dynamics it provides empirical and theoretical contribution to the literature on networks, brokers, creativity and innovation

A Connected World: Social Networks and Organizations

This Element synthesizes the current state of research on organizational social networks from its early foundations to contemporary debates. It highlights the characteristics that make the social network perspective distinctive in the organizational research landscape, including its emphasis on structure and outcomes. It covers the main theoretical developments and summarizes the research design questions that organizational researchers face when collecting and analyzing network data. Then, it discusses current debates ranging from agency and structure to network volatility and personality. Finally, the Element envisages future research directions on the role of brokerage for individuals and communities, network cognition, and the importance of past ties. Overall, the Element provides an innovative angle for understanding organizational social networks, engaging in empirical network research, and nurturing further theoretical development on the role of social interactions and connectedness in modern organizations

Knowledge brokering: an insider action research study in the not-for-profit sector

This study contributes an original, practice-based analysis of knowledge brokering in inter-organisational communities of practice in the not-for-profit sector. Defining characteristics of the not-for-profit sector include its social values, principles and practices. Existing literature understates or overlooks the significance of values and principles that are manifested in and enlivened through every day social practices and practitioner encounters. The study contributes by presenting knowledge brokering as a knowledge sharing intervention which integrates people, processes, values and principles into practice. Knowledge brokering and other practice interventions in the not-for-profit sector have to align with its social mission, if they are to be compatible and effective. This is especially so in multi-agency partnerships and inter-organisational communities of practice where collaboration and co-existence rather than assimilation are the primary objectives. This study finds that values-compatible knowledge brokering interventions, boundary bridging, co-creation, common artefacts and knowledge sharing, enable inter-organisational communities of practice to evolve without sacrificing individual autonomy. Foundational knowledge brokering literature emphasises the structural position of the knowledge broker, their knowledge superiority and the benefits they accrue by operating on the periphery of a social network. The study contributes by arguing that knowledge brokering processes and roles can be examined through an alternative practice lens with the knowledge broker as an internal co-practitioner located within a network. The study was carried out in a new, time-limited multi-agency partnership project in the not-for-profit sector. The partnership constituted an inter-organisational community of practice comprising advice, information and support agencies that had agreed to work collaboratively to improve local services. The author was employed as the project s Knowledge Management Officer and carried out the study over a two year period using an insider action research approach. As an insider practitioner-researcher, the author contributed to the project s objectives, worked collaboratively with practitioners and gathered rich data. Action and research occurred simultaneously and the iterative processes enabled the cumulative learning to inform, develop and analyse the practice. The combination of using insider action research approach, an examination of knowledge brokering as a practice intervention and a multi-agency, not-for-profit setting, makes this a unique practice-based study untapping knowledge management lessons from the not-for-profit sector