TY  - CHAP
AB  - Knowledge sharing is a fundamental source of competitive advantage. Social networks are thought to play an important role in knowledge sharing, but are presumed to create a trade-off such that a network can be optimized to promote either knowledge seeking or knowledge transfer, but not both. The trade-off, however, is premised on, and representative of a broader tendency to treat, brokerage and closure as contradictory network forms. We challenge this assertion and propose a theory of knowledge sharing with brokerage and closure as compatible and complementary. Evidence from a contract research and development firm broadly supports our theory. We also report the results of a simulation analysis, which illustrate that only in the extremely rare case when a network is characterized by nearly complete balance do brokerage and closure begin to create a trade-off.
VL  - 25
SN  - 978-0-7623-1442-3, 978-1-84950-531-4/0742-3322
DO  - 10.1016/S0742-3322(08)25008-4
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-3322(08)25008-4
AU  - Reagans Ray
AU  - McEvily Bill
ED  - Joel A.C. Baum
ED  - Timothy J. Rowley
PY  - 2008
Y1  - 2008/01/01
TI  - Contradictory or compatible? reconsidering the “trade-off” between brokerage and closure on knowledge sharing
T2  - Network Strategy
T3  - Advances in Strategic Management
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 275
EP  - 313
Y2  - 2024/04/19
ER  -