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We investigated whether individuals driven by power motives are more inclined to disseminate (mis)information within their online networks. Four studies (N = 1882) assessed or manipulated chronic and context-specific power motives, alongside other social hierarchical constructs such as actual power. Our findings revealed that both chronic and context-specific power motives were significantly associated with increased dissemination of posts and news in daily interactions and in a simulated sharing task. Power-motivated individuals were found to disproportionately spread more misinformation and demonstrated greater awareness of having disseminated misinformation in the past. Moreover, sharing (mis)information appeared to reinforce the sense of power among these individuals. Effect size magnitudes were moderate in an internal meta-analysis. Interestingly, actual power per se did not influence the spread of (mis)information. This study contributes valuable insights to the ongoing discourse on the motivations behind the spread of (mis)information on social media, highlighting the role of power motives in driving such behaviors. • Power motivated social media users overshared other people's posts and newsheadlines, including misinformation. • Power motivated social media users disproportionately spread misinformation. • They were more aware of having spread misinformation in the past than non-power motivated users. • Power motivated users had the desire to be influential online and spread posts to attain influence, acting as brokers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to connect central theoretical contributions to the study of brokerage and propose a novel conceptual and analytical approach for investigating it. On one hand, it builds on, and further substantiate the utility of, the innovation of conceptualizing brokerage activity and brokerage exclusivity separately, whilst analyzing them together. On the other hand, it also builds on the seminal notion of qualitatively different brokerage roles and introduces the conceptual innovation of brokerage role diversity to study the implications of and for actors occupying one or several roles to similar or varying degrees. These implications are further unpacked by analyzing the specific brokerage activity and exclusivity for each brokerage role separately, before reassembling the results into a rich description of the patterns of brokerage among different types of actors. This three-dimensional approach was applied to study brokerage in a network of individual actors governing flood risk mitigation in a catchment area in Southern Sweden. The results suggest that studying these three dimensions of brokerage simultaneously provides a sharper lens that picks up important nuances that available approaches may fail to reveal. The paper makes a substantive contribution to the knowledge of brokerage in collaborative governance of complex issues, as well as a methodological contribution to the study of brokerage in general. • A three-dimensional approach to brokerage in networks that picks up vital nuances. • Brokerage activity and exclusivity is more informative than weighted brokerage. • Connects novel ideas on brokerage activity and exclusivity, with brokerage roles. • Introduces brokerage role diversity, and brokerage role activity and exclusivity. • Reveals patterns of how brokerage may differ across different types of actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite longstanding discussions and consequent improvements of gender representation in academia, the number of women working in academic research, their performance and their recognition still indicate the persistence of gender inequalities. Of the various mechanisms that may drive such inequality the one that relates the structure of research collaborative networks to the rewards that these networks facilitate is intriguing. If social networks play a role in academic performances and women are under-recognized compared to men, what are the mechanisms that relate networks to gender inequalities in academia? Do men and women obtain equal returns from similar network structure, or do women have to build different networks to obtain similar returns? This article contributes to the theoretical debate that aims to disentangle the mechanisms by which social networks may affect gendered success. We do so by looking at networks of collaborations to research projects in 10 years of public funding in Italy. We use a permutation t-test analysis to see if men and women, who are equally successful in getting funded for a high number of projects, build equal or unequal collaborative networks, and if these differences vary across disciplines with more or less tenured women. Our methodological contribution proposes an innovative way of measuring brokerage and constraint in one mode projections of bipartite networks, highly clustered and valued, and measures gender homophily by taking into account the higher or lower number of women available for collaborations in different disciplinary sectors. We find that men and women build similar collaborative networks; we also find that the more women are tenured in a discipline, the more they occupy higher ranks and lead research projects. When women's presence and high-rank roles increase, we see that men's collaborative networks are significantly more heterophilous, although women do not seem to significantly increase their collaborations with other women. We then regress the individual measures of network structure and composition against the average amount of money scholars receive per project and we interact each measure with gender, to observe if women obtain similar returns to men by building equal collaborative networks. Our results show that despite the similarities in network configurations in nearly all disciplines women still receive less funding than men. This suggests that an increased representation of women in academic fields is not enough to reduce inequalities. Our results are not directly generalizable to other international contexts, but the mechanisms that favor academic returns and exacerbate inequalities, and our methodological approach, are portable to other scientific and organizational contexts where collaborations are key to produce success. • We look at networks of collaborations to research projects in 10 years of academic funding in Italy. • We propose new brokerage and constraint measures for projections of bipartite networks. • Men and women build similar networks, and when women's numbers increase men work more with women. • Despite the similarities in network configurations women still receive less funding than men. • Gender inequalities seem to be related to the lack of women in leadership positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many empirical applications of structural holes theory rest on the assumption that there is a close relationship between network position, or 'structural diversity,' and access to complementary information, or 'information diversity.' Constraint, and to a lesser extent efficiency, are two measures that are typically used as measures of structural diversity, which is in turn used as a proxy for information diversity. In this article, we question the assumed relationship between structural and information diversity at the core of brokerage theory. We collected metadata for 864,450 journal articles from the Web of Science database, identified 1,192,488 authors, and constructed 13 different measures of information diversity that are based on the text data and co-authorship network structure. We correlated each of these measures with Burt's constraint and efficiency as measures of structural diversity, finding only weak correlations and low R2 values. Efficiency performs slightly better than constraint, however the strongest correlation was 0.56, corresponding to an R2 of 0.3163. Furthermore, the variance in this relationship is non-uniform and indicates that, aside from the poor correlation, other factors are likely important mediators to the relationship between efficiency and information diversity. We argue that this shows that, even in the best cases, neither constraint nor efficiency should be used as proxies for information diversity and make suggestions for more diligent treatment of information in structural holes and brokerage research. • Evaluates the assumption in structural holes theory that structural diversity is a good proxy for information diversity. • Uses data on collaborations among more than 1 million scientists from 25 research fields. • Constructs 13 network-based measures of information diversity. • Finds that structural diversity is not a good proxy for information diversity. • Researchers should use context-appropriate measures of information diversity rather than structural diversity as a proxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into digital orientation has demonstrated that digital oriented firms are better able to dynamically evolve competitive advantages and exhibit better performance. However, the understanding on the antecedents of developing such prominent strategic orientation is little. By taking the network perspective, this study explores the roles of different network structures in driving organizations' digital orientation. We argue that while different types of network structures facilitate firms' proactivity and commitment to adopt digital technologies, the extent to which firms are actually supported from different network positions depends on the munificence of the industries in which they operate. By empirically examining the model using the secondary data of 2131 U.S. manufacturing firms covering the period from 2000 to 2020, our results suggest that centrality and brokerage positively affect the digital orientation of firms, but that these impacts differ when firms are operating in a highly munificent industry. Collectively, the findings provide insights into how network structures and the industry environment interact to support firms' strategic digital orientation decisions. • Explore the antecedents of digital orientation by examining firms' alliance network structures. • Both centrality and brokerage positively facilitate the digital orientation development of a firm. • Environmental munificence has a moderating effect on the network-digital orientation relationship. • Organizations should consider environmental alignments when deciding networking strategies for digital orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Access to structural holes can have causal effect on perception of leadership. • Random assignment to network does not guarantee exogenous effect. • Classic Leavitt team experiment is replicated in contemporary online setting. We renovate a classic experiment to define a research platform that provides data on network behavior and the causal effect of access to structural holes. Our hypothesis is that people are perceived to be leaders when they behave as network brokers, which is to say, when they coordinate information across structural holes. We focus on the perception of leadership to connect with the many field studies in which access to structural holes predicts success measures keyed to leadership. Our hypothesis is clearly supported. The broker-leader association we report is very similar in strength and form to broker-success associations reported in previous research. At the same time, it is also clear that people adapt to their randomly assigned network, re-shaping it to suit preferences that in some part emerge in team deliberations or outside the experiment. A modification to our hypothesis — at least for these small laboratory teams — is that monopoly brokerage is key to being cited as team leader. Leadership is ambiguous when multiple people are positioned to be brokers unless one person emerges by his or her network behavior as a monopoly broker. Our summary conclusion is that access to structural holes can be causal to the perception of leadership, a characteristic implicit in many success measures used to document the broker-success association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Two-thirds of educators cannot reach a researcher through their social networks. • Educators using itinerant brokerage were 5 times less likely to reach a researcher. • Educators using liaison brokerage were 3.4 times more likely to reach a researcher. • Interventions to narrow the research-practice gap should leverage liaison brokers. The presence of a research-practice gap is recognized across multiple fields including education, psychology, and public health. In this paper, we examine which of five structural types of brokerage are most and least effective in bridging this research-practice gap in the context of education. Using a small world survey design, we tracked how a statewide random sample of 247 K-12 principals and superintendents in Michigan seek information about social skills programs from brokering individuals and organizations. We find that some triadic brokerage structures are more effective than others in closing the communication gap between practitioners and researchers. Specifically, educators relying on itinerant brokerage, which circulates information between members of the same community, were five times less likely to obtain information from a researcher. In contrast, educators relying on representative or liaison brokerage, which facilitate information transfer between members of different communities, were more than twice as likely to obtain information from a researcher. We conclude by discussing implications for the development of interventions designed to facilitate information sharing between practitioners and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Shadow admission" refers to the practice where Chinese public schools recruit students through private tutoring businesses. This phenomenon persists widely despite the Chinese government's strong regulations. Through the lens of network brokerage, this article illustrates how shadow admissions operate in Mainland China. Drawing on a 16-month qualitative study in Chongqing, China, it reveals how the private tutoring businesses broker between parents and public schools. Our study also explores the impact of these brokerage activities on educational corruption, involution, and equality, which could provide insights for potential governmental regulation of shadow admissions. While this article is based in one of Mainland China's provinces, it sheds light on a phenomenon that extends beyond China and documents educational corruption that is also known to other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Highlights • Cooperatives can be effective agents to facilitate regional manure recycling. • In Qionglai, manure can cover a considerable share of organic fertilizer demand. • Incentives for cooperatives must motivate effective manure application. • A framework based on 'brokerage' is a useful analytical tool for manure recycling. • The framework can aid the analysis of other initiatives of the circular economy. Abstract With increases in living standards and dietary changes, the livestock sector has grown rapidly worldwide, which has led to considerable environmental pollution through livestock manure. Particularly in East Asia, meat production has increased fast. While part of the problem can be resolved by further processing manure into commercial organic fertilizer, technological solutions do face their limits in dealing with high pollution loads at farms. There is hence urgent need for policy instruments that could help mitigate environmental pollution. However, not much is known about related policy initiatives. This paper introduces a cooperative in Sichuan Province, China, which connects livestock farms to crop farms that are willing to use livestock breeders' manure on their land. As no frameworks exist which could aid the analysis of such a cooperative, we develop a framework based on the concept of "brokerage". Our analysis shows that for the case of Qionglai, structural conditions are favourable to the cooperative closing the nutrient cycle by means of brokerage. However, as our analysis shows, constraints to the cooperative's effectiveness foremost come from its daily operations. Within the given institutional structure, further qualitative improvements should be undertaken in terms of manure processing and manure management. The application of the framework to manure recycling shows that the framework and brokerage in general are useful analytical concepts for the circular economy. We conclude that the framework could also be applied to other fields of the circular economy, like food waste or bioenergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into polarisation on the internet has so far primarily focused on contentious issues and yielded contradictory results. Shifting the focus to a non-contentious setting, this article combines community detection with brokerage analysis and exponential random graph models to assess the degree of polarisation at different levels of a German hyperlink network on climate change. Although homophily accounts for a moderate degree of polarisation at the top level of the network, the communities reveal that other factors prove more decisive in shaping its structure and the article thus contributes to a more refined understanding of the nature of online polarisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many contexts there are a range of individuals and organisations offering healthcare services that differ widely in cost, quality and outcomes. This complexity is exacerbated by processes of healthcare commercialisation. Yet reliable information on healthcare provision is often limited, and progress to and through the healthcare system may depend on knowledge drawn from prior experiences, social networks and the providers themselves. It is in these contexts that healthcare brokerage emerges and third-party actors facilitate access to healthcare. This article presents a novel framework for studying brokerage of access to healthcare, and empirical evidence on healthcare brokerage in urban slums in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The framework comprises six areas of interest that have been derived from sociological and political science literature on brokerage. A framework approach was used to group observational and interview data into six framework charts (one for each area of interest) to facilitate close thematic analysis. A cadre of women in Lucknow's urban slums performed healthcare brokerage by encouraging use of particular healthcare services, organising travel, and mediating communications and fee negotiations with providers. The women emphasised their personal role in facilitating access to care and encouraged dependency on their services by withholding information from users. They received commission payments from healthcare programmes, and sometimes from users and hospitals as well, but were blamed for issues beyond their control. Disruption to their ability to facilitate low-cost healthcare meant some women lost their positions as brokers, while others adapted by leveraging old and new relationships with hospital managers. Brokerage analysis reveals how people capitalise on the complexity of healthcare systems by positioning themselves as intermediaries. Commercialised healthcare systems offer a fertile environment for such behaviours, which can undermine attainment of healthcare entitlements and exacerbate inequities in healthcare access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigates informal social structure among prison inmates. Data come from the Prison Inmate Network Study (PINS), a project focused on a unit of a Pennsylvania medium security men’s prison. We focus on 205 inmates and their “get along with” network – an approximation of friendship in other settings. We find a weak subgroup structure dominated by two groups of “old heads” and characterized by moderate (non gang-based) race/ethnic clustering. Structurally, the network resembles adolescents in schools, suggesting that prison inmates are capable of successfully building peer associations. We conclude that under the right conditions self-organizing inmate society can foster social integration reminiscent of other social settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminal networks are thought to be biased toward decentralization and security rather than integration and efficiency. This article examines this tradeoff in a large-scale national criminal network spanning more than 700 members of 24 distinct American mafia families operating in the mid-20th century. Producing a novel network image of the American mafia as a set of highly differentiated yet intertwined islands of criminal activity, the analysis uncovers a small-world structure that allowed both for strong intragroup closure and high intergroup connectivity. This balance reflected a division of network labor in which integrative bridging connections were disproportionately concentrated among a small number of criminals. Furthermore, the criminals who held such bridging ties tended to be either low- or high-status—but not of middling status—within their respective organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban governance research posits a trend towards more cooperation between state and non-state actors. We also know that civil society organizations working on common issues often reinforce each other to secure a stronger voice. However, little research so far brings together urban governance and civil society coordination. This is particularly interesting for the action and policy field of diversity and inclusion, given its constant flux, multi-dimensionality, and political salience, as well as the many competing actors and agendas. Based on an in-depth case study of the city of Rotterdam, this article investigates the relations among organizations that focus on the interests of migrants and other marginalized residents and between these organizations and the municipality. We use qualitative and quantitative Social Network Analysis and draw on 27 semi-structured qualitative interviews as well as 25 network maps carried out with and drawn by representatives of civil society organizations. Our findings show a stratified governance network of actors working on diversity and inclusion in Rotterdam, where only a few large organizations serve as brokers, facilitating exchange but sometimes also reinforcing existing power relations. These findings underscore the importance of critically reviewing the collaborative character of urban governance in practice. • Local governance involves power relations. • Civil society organizations that act as brokers can facilitate exchange, but also can reinforce hierarchy. • Social Network Analysis allows to capture networks of urban actors working on diversity and inclusion. • Rotterdam's model of governing has led to instability for civil society organizations working on inclusion and diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networks are becoming vulnerable to a number of fraudulent attacks and mischievous activities due to their widespread use and increasing popularity. So, detection of anomalous activities, especially in social networks, is essentially required as it helps to identify important and significant information regarding the behavior of anomalous users. In order to detect anomalies in social networks, researchers have mainly relied on the use of behavior and structure based approaches. Working in the similar direction, we extend the graph structure based approach by introducing and analyzing important graph metrics to detect anomalous activities. The comparison and effectiveness of measures have been presented on the basis of statistical measures like precision, recall and F-score, as well as on the basis of calculated anomalous scores. Theoretical and empirical evaluation reveals that the relationship between brokerage and number of edges helps to detect and correctly rank maximum number of anomalies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important roles for public relations professionals is building relationships. The fundamental assumption behind the normative relationship-building role of public relations is that relationships among organizations and publics are mutually beneficial. However, some network theories (e.g., structural holes theory) prescribe that maintaining many organizational relationships is inefficient, instead suggesting that organizations should occupy a powerful network position by separating and controlling the flow of information between others. Under such theories, power comes in the form of tertius gaudens (the third who benefits at the expense of others). In this article we argue that such an approach to power in public relations is manipulative and unethical, and offer an alternative approach via the concept of tertius iungens (the third who joins others), which endorses connecting organizations and emphasizes the collective good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of literature positively linking dimensions of social capital to economic benefits. Yet recent research also points to a potential “dark side” of social capital, where over-embeddedness in networks and the pressures associated with brokerage are hypothesized to constrain actors, having a negative effect on economic outcomes. This dichotomy suggests that context is important, yet the overwhelming majority of existing empirical evidence stems from socially homogenous populations in corporate and organizational settings, limiting a broader understanding of when and how context matters. We advance this discourse to a socially fragmented, ethnically diverse common-pool resource system where information is highly valuable and competition is fierce. Merging several unique datasets from Hawaii's pelagic tuna fishery, we find that network prominence, i.e., being well connected locally, has a significant, positive effect on economic productivity. In contrast, we find that brokerage, defined here as ties that bridge either structurally distinct or ethnically distinct groups, has a significant, negative effect. Taken together, our results provide empirical support to widespread claims of the value of information access in common-pool resource systems, yet suggest that in ethnically diverse, competitive environments, brokers may be penalized for sharing information across social divides. Our results thus contribute to an emerging theory on the fragile nature of brokerage that recognizes its potential perils and the importance of context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay is an empirical case study of famed British scientist Francis Crick. Viewing him as a ‘cross-worlds influencer’ who was moreover dedicated to a cause, I have tried to understand how these two characteristics influenced the trajectory of his long career and how they shaped his contributions to the diverse research fields in which he was active, and concluded that these characteristics reconfigure Crick's career into a coherent whole. First, I identify a major thread running through Crick's career: helping organise ‘un-disciplined’ new research fields, and show that his successive choices were not serendipitous but motivated by what he construed as a crusade against ‘vitalism’: anti-vitalism was a defining driver of his career. I then examine how Crick put his skills as a crossworlds influencer to the service of his cause, by helping organise his chosen fields of intervention. I argue that his activities as a cross-worlds influencer were an integral part of his way of ‘doing science’ and that his contributions to science, neuroscience in particular, should be re-evaluated in this light. This leads me to advance a possible strategy for historians to investigate big bioscience fields. Following Abir-Am, I propose to trace their genealogies back to the fluctuating semi-institutional gatherings and the institutional structures that sustained them. My research on Crick supports the view that such studies can bring insights into the question of why the contours of contemporary big bioscience endeavours have come to be shaped the way they are. Further, the essay provides a heuristic device for approaching these enquiries: ‘follow the cross-worlds influencers’ who worked to build and organise these semi-institutional gatherings and institutional structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Valente and Fujimoto (2010) proposed a measure of brokerage in networks based on Granovetter's classic work on the strength of weak ties. Their paper identified the need for finding node-based measures of brokerage that consider the entire network structure, not just a node's local environment. The measures they propose, aggregating the average change in cohesion for a node's links, has several limitations. In this paper we review their method and show how the idea can be modified by using betweenness centrality as an underpinning concept. We explore the properties of the new method and provide point, normalized, and network level variations. This new approach has two advantages, first it provides a more robust means to normalize the measure to control for network size, and second, the modified measure is computationally less demanding making it applicable to larger networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the communication network that emerged in social media around an international protest campaign launched in May 2012. Applying insights from network science and the theory of brokerage, we examine the cohesion of the network with community detection methods, and identify the users that spanned structural holes, creating bridges for potential information diffusion. We also analyze actual message exchange to assess how the network was used to facilitate the transmission of information. Our findings provide evidence of fragmentation in online communication dynamics, and of a distribution of brokerage opportunities that was both uneven and underexploited. We use these findings to assess recent theoretical claims about political protests in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the importance of co-authorship ego-networks to scientific performance. In particular, the focus is on Polish researchers in economics, who need ‘catch-up strategies’ to aid them in publishing papers in international journals. Brokerage is identified as one of the most important correlatives of publishing success. However, in many cases, the best performers are smart collaborators who take advantage of the benefits of both bridging and bonding social capital. In general, co-authorship itself does not provide an advantage. Instead, a proper collaboration strategy appears to be more important. Additionally, embeddedness of authors within their affiliations should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multi-optimal nodes data storage scheme (MODS) is firstly presented in this paper, where multiple optimal nodes are chosen as the storage nodes and both factors mentioned above are considered in the choice of optical sensor nodes. Information brokerage in optical sensor networks (OSNs) involves that producers send the acquired data to some storage nodes, which serve as data caches. Consumers get required data by sending queries to these storage nodes. The storage and process of sensing data, called as data-centric networks, have been becoming one of import research issues of OSNs. As for traditional method, two factors were not considered for the choice of storage nodes: the rate of generating data of producers and the frequency of sending request of consumers. Analysis results show that MODS can not only prolong the life time but also balance the cost of the sensor nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Based on a study of how rural land brokers mediate the arrival of a Special Economic Zone in rural Rajasthan, this paper argues that theories of collective social capital cannot explain how networks, norms, and trust interact in a process of economic change. It then reconstructs Bourdieu’s distinct theory of individual social capital by showing how better-connected farmers are able to broker land and capture profits at the expense of fellow villagers, undermining trust, norms, and collective action. It argues that social capital is most plausibly seen as an aspect of social inequality that hinders inclusive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign employment has become a global phenomenon. With the increasing commercialisation and formalisation of transnational labour migration, recruitment agencies and agents have gained importance. The paper aims to contribute to a more differentiated understanding of the role and the practices of the main actors in the middle space of migration, the brokers in the recruitment process for transnational migration. Based on empirical material from Nepal, it argues that the detected negative reputation of labour brokers is only partially justified. Besides common bad practices and fraud cases, recruiters perform important roles for the facilitation of transnational mobility and present the necessary infrastructure for labour migration. They connect people and places, establish networks and can play an important role in making migration safer. Brokers are important facilitators in supporting alternative income strategies and new livelihood options of people. At the same time they are entrepreneurs in a competitive and risky economic field, confronted with multifaceted constraints. As long as the gap between the dreams of potential migrants and the reality of marginality in Nepal remains wide, labour brokers might persist as important middlemen for global work. Thus, migration brokerage is likely to remain big business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gould and Fernandez (1989) developed a widely used operationalization of brokerage for one-mode networks. The basic idea of brokerage is that the central actor or ‘broker’ benefits from spanning the gap (or structural hole) between two disconnected parties. However, it is not always advantageous to limit the systems studied to only one mode. We develop an operationalization of two-mode brokerage in which we can classify the structures according to the heterogeneity of the types of actors involved. We apply this conception to water policy networks in the San Joaquin–Sacramento River Delta in California where two-mode networks represent organizations participating in multiple policy institutions. The potential benefits of brokerage are high in these types of fragmented systems where multiple institutions and organizations are involved with policy decisions. Of particular interest is the role of collaborative partnership institutions, which are hypothesized to broker the most heterogeneous structures. We use our two-mode version of brokerage to construct a scale of brokerage from most homogeneous to most heterogeneous. This scale lets us categorize both the role of these collaborative partnerships as well as the nature of brokerage in the system overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines brokerage dynamics in technology transfer networks (TTNs), i.e., hybrid networks of different actors operating in the transitional area between knowledge and business ecosystems (i.e., innovation ecotones), with research organizations as anchor tenants. This particular type of network is gaining increasing attention. However, despite evidence of the importance of brokerage dynamics for knowledge mobility anchored in science and technology research, three main questions remain open: Who acts as network broker in TTNs? What are their specific functions? What mechanisms do they adopt to support these functions? To answer these questions, we conducted an in-depth multi-case study focusing on three European centers of excellence in scientific research, namely the University of Cambridge (UK), the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), and the Italian Institute of Technology (Italy). We find that institutional actors as well as individuals act as network brokers in TTNs, and that brokerage manifests with varying degrees of formalization related to the TTN's level of maturity. We also identify six network brokerage functions, namely conflict resolution, spreading knowledge, linking idea fragments, connecting problems to solutions, expanding the network, and strengthening the network, and five mechanisms, namely endorsement, mediation, events, antennas, and digital support systems, that support these functions. • The notion of technology transfer network (TTN) is introduced and conceptualized. • Brokerage dynamics in TTNs are investigated through an in-depth multi-case study. • Institutional actors as well as individuals act as network brokers in TTNs. • TTNs with a higher level of maturity manifest less formalized brokerage dynamics. • Six key brokerage functions, supported by five mechanisms, are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Constructive and collaborative planning theory has exposed the perceived limitations of public participation in impact assessment. At strategic levels of assessment the established norm can be misleading and practice is illusive. For example, debates on SEA effectiveness recognize insufficiencies, but are often based on questionable premises. The authors of this paper argue that public participation in strategic assessment requires new forms of information and engagement, consistent with the complexity of the issues at these levels and that strategic assessments can act as knowledge brokerage instruments with the potential to generate more participative environments and attitudes. The paper explores barriers and limitations, as well as the role of knowledge brokerage in stimulating the engagement of the public, through learning-oriented processes and responsibility sharing in more participative models of governance. The paper concludes with a discussion on building and inter-change of knowledge, towards creative solutions to identified problems, stimulating learning processes, largely beyond simple information transfer mechanisms through consultative processes. The paper argues fundamentally for the need to conceive strategic assessments as learning platforms and design knowledge brokerage opportunities explicitly as a means to enhance learning processes and power sharing in IA. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper we revisit the concept of brokerage in social networks. We elaborate on the concept of brokerage as a process, identifying three distinct classes of brokerage behavior. Based on this process model, we develop a framework for measuring brokerage opportunities in dynamic relational data. Using data on emergent inter-organizational collaborations, we employ the dynamic brokerage framework to examine the relationship between organizational attributes and coordination in the evolving network. Comparing the findings of our process-based definition with traditional, static approaches, we identify important dimensions of organizational action that would be missed by the latter approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the systems perspective on innovation, co-operation between several different types of actors is seen as key to successful innovation. Due to the existence of several gaps that hinder such effective co-operation, the scientific and policy literature persistently points at the need for intermediary organizations to fulfill bridging and brokerage roles. This paper aims to provide an overview of the insights from the literature on such ‘innovation brokers’, and to contribute to the literature by distilling lines of enquiry and providing insights on one of the lines identified. Taking as an empirical basis experiences with different types of innovation brokers that have emerged in the Dutch agricultural sector, it identifies a number of tensions with regard to the establishment and embedding of such organizations. The paper indicates that, despite being perceived to have a catalyzing effect on innovation, innovation brokers have difficulty in becoming embedded as their clients and/or financiers find it difficult to grasp the nature and value of their activities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we examine how patterns of scientific collaboration contribute to knowledge creation and diffusion. Recent studies have shown that scientists can benefit from their position within collaborative networks by being able to receive more information of better quality in a timely fashion, and by presiding over communication between collaborators. Here we focus on the tendency of scientists to cluster into tightly knit communities, and discuss the implications of this tendency for scientific production. We begin by reviewing a new method for finding communities, and we then assess its benefits in terms of computation time and accuracy. While communities often serve as a taxonomic scheme to map knowledge domains, they also affect the way scientists engage in the creation of new knowledge. By drawing on the longstanding debate on the relative benefits of social cohesion and brokerage, we discuss the conditions that facilitate collaborations among scientists within or across communities. We show that highly cited scientific production occurs within communities, when scientists have cohesive collaborations with others from the same knowledge domain, and across communities, when scientists intermediate among otherwise disconnected collaborators from different knowledge domains. We also discuss the implications of communities for information diffusion, and show how traditional epidemiological approaches need to be refined to take knowledge heterogeneity into account and preserve the system’s ability to promote creative processes of novel recombinations of ideas. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Uses administrative data from the UK companies house to construct a network of companies and directors derived from arts council England's national portfolio. • First application of software for constructing networks of companies and directors, including extension through snowball sampling. • Demonstrates the high density of financial institutions sharing board members with arts organisations in England. • Demonstrates the centrality of organisations with beneficial tax status to the network of arts organisations in England. Recent research on cultural production has drawn attention to significant inequalities. This paper aims to unpack one possible explanation for these inequalities by focusing on the people with ultimate responsibility for arts institutions: the boards of directors. Using data from the UK's Companies House, it analyses the boards of Arts Council England's National Portfolio Organisations. It then "hops" to the other organisations with whom arts organisations also share board members, and their directors. While the network of NPOs is relatively sparse, with most organisations not sharing board members with any others, in the one-hop network the majority of these organisations are indirectly connected to one another. In addition to a large number of arts and cultural organisations, this network also contains a large proportion of film funding companies and financial services companies. The most central company in the network, measured by betweenness, is the Royal Opera House, followed by companies associated with significant tax advantages for their directors. Our results raise questions for the governance of culture, drawing further attention to its ties with financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Bridges that span structural holes are often explained in terms of the entrepreneurial personalities or rational motivations of brokers, or structural processes that lead to the intersection of social foci. I argue that the existence and use of bridges in interpersonal networks also depends on individuals’ health. Poor health may make it more difficult to withstand the pressures and to execute some of the common tasks associated with bridging (e.g., brokerage). I examine this possibility using egocentric network data on over 2500 older adults drawn from the recent National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP). Multivariate regression analyses show that both cognitive and functional health are significantly positively associated with bridging, net of sociodemographic and life-course controls. The relationship between functional (kinesthetic) health and bridging appears to be partially mediated by network composition, as older adults who have poorer functional health also tend to have networks that are richer in strong ties. Several potential mediation mechanisms are discussed. Cognitive function remains significantly associated with bridging net of network composition, suggesting that the inherent challenges of maintaining bridging positions may be more difficult to cope with for those who have cognitive impairments than for those who have functional impairments such as limited mobility. An alternative explanation is that cognitively impaired individuals have more difficulty recognizing (and thus strategically using) bridges in their networks. Theoretical implications and possibilities for future research are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents the design of an Architecture for Electronic Brokerage Systems (AEBS). This architecture is based on the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) model. It specifies a brokerage system from five RM-ODP viewpoints. AEBS include a generic model of electronic brokerage. It defines protocols and interfaces between actors. It enables communication between actors via an advanced object-oriented interface (defined in terms of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) technology) as well as using traditional trading protocols. These interfaces allow a broker to operate in both the rapidly developing object-oriented CORBA environment and the electronic markets based on customary protocols. CORBA was also used for the design of the internal object model and internal interfaces of a brokerage system. This paper focuses primarily on the specification of the AEBS architecture from the enterprise and computational viewpoints of the RM-ODP model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A dealer needs access to order flow and information to make a market profitably in a Nasdaq stock. Several variables that proxy for the stocks that an individual market maker''s brokerage customers trade, including volume, location, underwriting participation and analyst coverage, are significant determinants of market making activity. Informational advantages may also factor in the market making decision as evidenced by dealers specializing in industries. These findings suggest that individual dealers have competitive advantages in making markets in specific stocks, and that potential market making competition comes from the dealers who share those advantages rather than all Nasdaq market makers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this study, we analyse the professional role of a group of 28 travel agents in the Russian tourism market. By breaking down the role into basic activities and evaluating the exchanges with personal contacts regarding the performance of each of these activities, we show the centrality of these agents in the tourism supply chain, as well as their mediating role between suppliers and customers. Agents perform tasks in the management of the trip and assistance to the tourist, by participating in contexts of interaction in which processes of interdependence and coordination of activities are generated. The results also serve to illustrate the combination of qualitative analysis and personal network analysis in a context of formal and informal relationships that reveal the exchange that occurs among tourism service provision professionals. • Interdependence and coordination of tasks are key processes of the social context for the performance of organisational roles in tourism. • The professional role of travel agents has a clear orientation towards the creation e of relationships that facilitate the coordination of activities for professional practice. • Travel agents acts as brokers between services and customers, in addition to connecting different professionals for providing assistance and support to tourists. • Personal network analysis allowed us to explore this complex process of coordination of activities and roles in the provision of the service by travel agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adopts social network analysis (SNA) to identity the spatial role of nodes in a tourism region. The trajectory of multi-destination tourists will provide great information for tourism management, but tracking tourists' movements is a big challenge. Thanks to the popularity of mobile communication devices (mobile phones) nowadays, these can passively or actively provide information on owners' movement. This study uses call detail records (CDR), which are mobile phone positioning data, to construct a trajectory network of tourists in Hualien, Taiwan. Three types of centralities, as well as brokerage analysis and role analysis, are used to measure the relations in a complicated network. Degree centrality (DC) reveals popular nodes that have good relationships with others directly. Reach closeness centrality (RCC) shows indirect relationships with others. Betweenness centrality (BC) indicates the most important mediator nodes that help others to connect. BC and brokerage analysis are used to classify destinations into five brokers: the coordinator, consultant, gatekeeper, representative, and liaison. We also identify social positions of each destination by role analysis. This study identifies a total of 78 nodes (origins and destinations) and their functions in the tourism network. We find some nodes have more than one mission, while some only have one. The functions of nodes can be different on weekdays and weekends. We distinguish the tourism region into different size of districts. The results of this study can help managers consolidate strategies for tourism marketing. • Tourists base on role relations and centrality nodes to complete their trips. • Betweenness destinations can be distinguished into the different type of bridges. • The functions of a tourism destination change with time. • Mobile-phone positioning technology is available to use in tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]