Works
- Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition, 1992
- Structural Holes and Good Ideas, American Journal of Sociology, 2004
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
Structural holes and brokerage. A structural hole is a gap between people or groups who are not connected to each other. Someone whose network bridges such holes gains advantages of information access, timing, referrals, and control, because they see and can combine what the separate groups know.
Brokerage and good ideas. Because opinion and behavior are more alike within groups than between them, people connected across groups are exposed to alternative ways of thinking. In Burt's study of managers in a large electronics company, those whose networks spanned structural holes were more likely to express ideas, less likely to have them dismissed, and more likely to have them judged valuable.
What it explains
Burt explains why people who connect otherwise separate parts of an organization see opportunities first and get their ideas heard. Bridging silos openly is a source of influence available to people without formal authority.