Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction to Social Capital (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies)

I just wish the software tools were better at showing link attributes, although I note NetMiner 3 is becoming more powerful in this area.

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One of the taken for granted but important assertions Burt makes is relationships amplify diversity and individual power, however in turn many diverse links enhance the power of relationships. The central theme of this book is still around brokerage between structural holes , but this time he introduces the idea of closure.

For Burt closure is about reputation building. Unlike brokerage closure is typically not the direct result of efforts by an individual. Typically this arises because this individual employs a Tertius Iungens strategy rather than a Tertius Gaudens strategy, although Burt does not make such a clear-cut distinction.

One of the paradoxes Burt highlights is the tension between brokerage and closure. Closure results in trust and a dense or tightly knitted network, but it can also result in group-think and conformity, a problem I see in some public list-serves at the moment. On the other hand brokerage opens the network to new opportunities, but ultimately is reliant on trust networks.

From this I deduce that Tertius Gaudens strategies slowly evolve into Tertius Iungens networks, but here I could be wrong. It also seems to me that most organisations are optimised for closure. All in all this book was an excellent read, although I do believe "Structural Holes: I would recommend this book to any serious knowledge practitioner or network analyst.

I remain convinced that understanding structural holes matter. I am also convinced understanding who is employing a Tertius Gaudens or Tertius Iungens strategy matters! Ronald Burt is a leading author in the field of social capital. This paper edition of the earlier book covers most of what you will need to know to get up to speed on the literature.

Very thorough and well written. Of course, the downside to being so thorough and data intensive is that it's rather dry. Overall, a good solid book on the subject of professional networks. This book by sociologist Ronald S. Burt is important in its subject the subtitle is "an introduction to social capital" , but academic in its presentation, meaning that the book is thorough and well documented but also sometimes verbose, dense or repetitive.

Social capital SC is "the advantage created by a person's location in a structure of relationships" page 4 , and one's advantage is directly proportional to one's ability to share ideas across or link individuals from different groups. I have SC when it comes to bringing American ideas on water management to the Netherlands and vice versa , while my girlfriend has SC when it comes to connecting Romanian, Canadian and Dutch urbanists and transport experts.

By the same logic, one's SC advantage would be weaker if one only communicates the same ideas within a small group of people. Back in the s, this situation was associated with group think.

These days it's associated with echo chambers. Strong and weak SC map directly onto bridging and bonding capital, respectively, but confusingly also to weak and strong networks. Assuming these ideas make sense and that you understand their value, why read the next pages of the book? The short answer is that you may not need to I skipped some sections. The longer answer is that you should, if only to appreciate the value of SC Burt provides many examples , the difficulty of strengthening it, and the need for you to act if you're going to build it for yourself.

This book is not a self-help guide and there's no like button, so anyone interested in this topic needs to see this book as a set of ideas and goals that will only create value for people who put in effort. Speaking of ideas, here are a few that I appreciated from the book: SC is the "invisible glue" that conveys trust, norms and coordination.

Frequently bought together

Bedroom communities may have weaker SC because residents do not see each other regularly, leading to insecurity, excessive capitalization buying your own tools instead of sharing with a neighbor , and so on. Flat hierarchies will have weaker SC because they have removed middle managers, which can lead to mis-communication, poor coordination, and costly mistakes. When you move from one organization to the next, then you lose some or much SC. A senior manager may take a massive paycut for shifting to "the same job" because they need time to build relationships and understand workflows in their new job.

Even commodity traders can benefit from SC as it's not always easy to understand the quality of goods on offer and deal terms can vary by a lot. SC is essential for trade and exchange of multidimensional goods and services, which is why we don't change dentists, car mechanics or romantic partners so easily. It takes time to get used to someone and vice versa. Someone with high SC has access to a greater diversity of information, early access to that information and more control over how information diffuses. Together, these characteristics describe one's "information arbitrage" advantage.

Given these factors, we can understand the existence and role of "network entrepreneurs" or bridge builders who use their SC to create value by helping diverse people and ideas find each other. Burt later links his discussion of the network entrepreneur to the Austrian School, i. In the business world, network entrepreneurs are the brokers and power players. In the academic world, these are the interdisciplinary types who borrow basic ideas from one discipline to "revolutionize" another e.

These bridging roles are not always appreciated and may be attacked by those who prefer bonding among their peers, with all the jargon, circular-appreciation, and arcane uselessness that tribalism implies. I'm sure there's a case for bonding, but the academic world suffers from an excess that could be reduced to give more space for interdisciplinary bridging, a thought that Burt captures on page Weick makes a chilling analogy between jargon-bound academics and firefighters burned to death because they did not discard the heavy tools they were carrying. The analogy works, and generalizes to other kinds of people, because people so often identify themselves with the tools they employ in their work.

People who cannot see clearly an alternative way to do their work are unlikely to give up the tools they have, and are likely to insist that others use the same tools. Recall the Planck quote This caveat explains the difference between a iconoclast and dilettante. It also explains why we should be suspicious of any academic, manager or citizen whose knowledge is based on a single area of study, work or living.

Monocultures are simple yet limited, efficient yet fragile. Burt contrasts brokers as entrepreneurs thriving on advocacy and change with team players who thrive on security and stability. There's clearly a place for both types, but it's hard to get those types to respect each other, let alone cooperate. On page 61, Burt quotes Thoreau saying "beware of all enterprises that require new clothes" to provide an example of conservative thinking that excludes outside beliefs. In my experience, such a perspective "our situation is different" explains why water managers most of them engineers want to ignore economists with ideas of how to manage scarcity, risk and customer satisfaction.

That want, combined with monopoly power, explains how they are able to ignore new ideas and continue to pursue failing business-as-usual policies. Here's a blog post on that theme and another and another. If you want to benefit from these ideas on leveraging social capital, then follow Burt's "simple moral: One person found this helpful.

Where to start with this book? Well, let's begin with the cover. I'm not one to judge a book by its cover, but in this instance, I must go against the time honored maxim and note that the cover art tells all you need to know about the book: See all 10 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Set up a giveaway. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. The Social Structure of Competition.

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Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Brokerage and Closure by Ronald S. Almost everything that happens in a firm flows through informal networks builts by advice, coordination, cooperation, friendship, gossip, knowledge, and trust. In this book, Ron Burt builds upon his celebrated work on network analyses to explain how these informal networks functions and the role of network entrepreneurs who have amassed social capital.

Burt shows that soci Almost everything that happens in a firm flows through informal networks builts by advice, coordination, cooperation, friendship, gossip, knowledge, and trust. Burt shows that social capital 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. Informal relations have always mattered.

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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 advantage is created by brokerage and closure.

Brokerage is the activity of people who live at the intersecting of social worlds, who can see and develope good ideas. Closure is the tightening of coordination on a closed network of people. 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 and reward has come to be associated with achieving competitive advantage in a social order of continuous disequilibrium. Hardcover , pages.

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Brokerage and Closure , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about Brokerage and Closure. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jul 30, Vaughn rated it it was amazing.

An interesting book, with evidence backing up good and useful ideas about the way communication in a variety of settings tends to be structured. It would be much better and more approachable if it weren't written in thick, academic language. Jul 15, Rita Shaffer rated it really liked it.

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I read this book for class and, although dense and in some parts confusing, it really made me think about interaction with others, especially my professional interactions. Paulius rated it really liked it Aug 05, Joe rated it liked it May 18, John Hatch rated it really liked it Nov 19, Ross rated it really liked it Aug 19, John rated it really liked it Jan 14,