Information and structural holes: comment on Reagans and Zuckerman
Author:
- Ronald S. BurtRBRonald S. Burt
- 7 August 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Industrial and Corporate Change
- Vol. 17 (5) , 953-969
Abstract
Reagans and Zuckerman (hereafter RZ) go behind the performance link with network brokerage to speculate on how information flow is responsible. The intuition is a perceived tension between brokers and contacts: if nonredundant sources of information provide the broker's competitive advantage, as is assumed in empirical research on the returns to brokerage, then the broker's contacts have a countervailing advantage as monopoly sources. Advantage versus countervailing advantage is the tension to be resolved.Keywords
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