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Date Submitted: 06/09/2016 10:59 PM
201
Chapter 7
The Social Capital of Structural Holes
INTRODUCTION
This chapter — drawn in large part from lengthy review elsewhere of argument and
evidence on social capital (Burt, 2000) — is about current work on the social capital
of structural holes. I begin broadly with social capital in metaphor, get more specific
with four network mechanisms that define social capital in theory (contagion,
prominence, closure, and brokerage across structural holes), then focus on three
categories of empirical evidence on the fourth mechanism: evidence of rewards and
achievement associated with brokerage, evidence of creativity and learning
associated with brokerage, and evidence on the process of bridging structural holes.
SOCIAL CAPITAL METAPHOR
Figure 1 is an overview of social capital in metaphor and network structure. The
diagram is a road map through the next few pages, and a reminder that beneath
general agreement about social capital as a metaphor lie a variety of network
mechanisms that can make contradictory predictions about social capital.
Cast in diverse styles of argument (e.g., Coleman 1990; Bourdieu and
Wacquant 1992; Burt 1992; Putnam 1993), social capital is a metaphor about
advantage. Society can be viewed as a market in which people exchange all variety
of goods and ideas in pursuit of their interests. Certain people, or certain groups of
people, do better in the sense of receiving higher returns to their efforts. Some
people enjoy higher incomes. Some more quickly become prominent. Some lead
more important projects. The interests of some are better served than the interests
of others. The human capital explanation of the inequality is that the people who do
better are more able individuals; they are more intelligent, more attractive, more
articulate, more skilled.
Social capital is the contextual complement to human capital. The social
capital metaphor is that the people who do better are somehow better connected.
Certain...