Brokerage, Boundary Spanning, and Leadership in Open Innovation Communities

Abstract

W hat types of human and social capital identify the emergence of leaders of open innovation communities? Consistent with the norms of an engineering culture, we find that future leaders must first make strong technical contributions. Beyond technical contributions, they must then integrate their communities in order to mobilize volunteers and avoid the ever-present danger of forking and balkanization. This is enabled by two correlated but distinct social positions: social brokerage and boundary spanning between technological areas. An inherent lack of trust associated with brokerage positions can be overcome through physical interaction. Boundary spanners do not suffer this handicap and are much more likely than brokers to advance to leadership. The research separates the influence of human and social capital on promotion, and highlights previously unexamined differences between brokerage-and boundary-spanning positions. Longitudinal analyses of careers within the Internet Engineering Task Force community from 1986-2002 support the arguments.

User-Generated Open Source Products: Founder's Social Capital and Time to Product Release

“…findings related to betweenness centrality are consistent with other studies that show varying results concerning the strength and direction of relationships involving betweenness centrality (Ronchetto et al 1989, Fleming andWaguespack 2007). Because betweenness centrality measures a founder's location on the shortest pathways in the network, it is possible that information overflow along the shortest pathways may lead to information overload (Rosa et al 1999).…”

“…Collaboration in goal-oriented groups occurs either through direct, natural collaboration between individual actors who interact (Coleman 1988, Granovetter 1985 or through brokerage (Burt 2005, Fleming andWaguespack 2007). In either case, collaboration INFORMS holds copyright to this article and distributed this copy as a courtesy to the author(s).…”

“…For example, in Figure 2, user 4 works on two projects, and user 3 works on three, so user 3 is more embedded than user 4. Brokerage instead increases with actors' ability to connect disconnected parts of the network (Burt 2005, Fleming andWaguespack 2007). User 4 brokers the relationship between two groups (left and right of user 4), (1) User 1 shares a project with users 2 and 3; user 2 shares a project with users 1 and 3; user 3 shares a project with users 1, 2, and 4; user 4 shares a projects with users 3 and 5; user 5 shares a project with users 4, 6, and 7; user 6 shares a project with users 5 and 7; and user 7 shares a project with users 5 and 6.…”

“…To measure brokerage, we follow prior research (Ahuja 2000, Fleming andWaguespack 2007) and apply a version of what Burt (1992) calls "constraint," or the degree to which a network member depends on directly connected neighbors to connect to others in the network. Therefore, brokerage measures INFORMS holds copyright to this article and distributed this copy as a courtesy to the author(s).…”

Transcultural Brokerage: The Role of Cosmopolitans in Bridging Structural and Cultural Holes

“…6 Union strategy is often contrasted with "disunion strategy" (also called tertius gaudens, a "third rejoicing" from the Latin verb gaudere, to be glad or to rejoice) whereby a broker manufactures, maintains, or exploits a disconnect, conflict, or competition between two parties with the intention of extracting personal benefits (i.e., information advantage, profit, control, power, dependency) (Simmel, 1950;see Burt, 1992: 30-32, for review). 7 The relative benefits of simultaneously occupying positions of closure and brokerage versus brokerage only has been a major focus in recent research (See Fleming et al, 2007;Fleming & Waguespack, 2007;Reagans & McEvily, 2008). 8 The distinction between structural and cultural holes is akin to the one made in the knowledge and innovation literature between the social network of collaborations between researchers and the knowledge network composed of linkages between knowledge elements.…”