Structural Holes and Good Ideas

TLDR

Structural holes create gaps between groups where brokerage can bridge diverse perspectives, and organizations often exhibit such gaps with associated brokerage benefits. The article investigates how brokerage across structural holes generates social capital and its implications for creativity and organizational change. Brokerage across structural holes offers a vision of otherwise unseen options, and the study reviews evidence and analyzes manager networks in a large electronics firm to illustrate this mechanism. Individuals bridging structural holes receive higher compensation, better evaluations, promotions, and are more likely to generate and have their ideas valued.

Abstract

This article outlines the mechanism by which brokerage provides social capital. Opinion and behavior are more homogeneous within than between groups, so people connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Brokerage across the structural holes between groups provides a vision of options otherwise unseen, which is the mechanism by which brokerage becomes social capital. I review evidence consistent with the hypothesis, then look at the networks around managers in a large American electronics company. The organization is rife with structural holes, and brokerage has its expected correlates. Compensation, positive performance evaluations, promotions, and good ideas are disproportionately in the hands of people whose networks span structural holes. The between‐group brokers are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable. I close with implications for creativity and structural change.