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

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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.

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, Kristine rated it it was ok Jan 21, Shalini Verma rated it liked it Apr 07, Rob Kol rated it liked it Jun 07, Oscarcs rated it really liked it Nov 23, Mairead rated it liked it Apr 02, Christine Yang rated it really liked it Nov 12, Cesar Hidalgo rated it liked it Aug 12, Rebecca Weiner rated it really liked it Aug 17, 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.

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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.

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Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within days. Social 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: 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.

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This is done by brokerage and closure. 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.