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The global spread of online work opportunities has inspired a new generation of market-based aid that connects forcibly displaced people to a transnational internet economy. Because refugees face barriers to making a livelihood online, aid organisations and private enterprises support them by building bridges across digital divides, connectivity problems or skill gaps. They thereby become intermediaries and brokers that facilitate connections between refugees and online income opportunities, which often lack decent working conditions and adequate protections. Because digital livelihood initiatives lack the power to reshape these conditions and the value of work in the internet economy, they fail to become mediators with a transformative impact. The result is that the internet economy reshapes livelihoods provision far more than aid can reshape its disempowering effects, despite successes in driving forward refugees’ digital inclusion. Based on more than three years of research including interviews, field visits and surveys, this article foregrounds the current risks that result from the inclusion of refugees into precarious forms of online gig work. To ensure a decent future of work for refugees in the internet economy, the current push for digital livelihoods will require an equally strong push for stronger protections, inclusive regulations and rights.

This paper provides experimental evidence on the economic determinants of intermediation networks by considering two pricing rules and three group sizes of subjects – 10, 50 and 100 subjects. When brokerage benefits accrue only to traders who lie on all paths of intermediation, stable networks involve interconnected cycles, and trading path lengths grow while linking and payoff inequality remain modest as the number of traders grows. When brokerage benefits are equally distributed among the traders located on the shortest paths, stable networks contain a few hubs that provide the vast majority of links, and trading path lengths remain unchanged while linking and payoff inequality explode as the number of traders grows.

The expansion of iBuyer’s use of PropTech to major housing markets raises a series of questions for both buyers and sellers when making instant, all-cash offers. This study uses a sequence of experiments to identify the proper implementation of existing behavioral real estate concepts to improve the iBuying process, a burgeoning area of residential real estate. We find strong evidence of anchoring for all-cash offers in that sellers are nearly twice as likely to transact when they are first presented with the net proceeds offer price (market value minus costs) rather than starting with the higher gross market value offer price. After the sale, seller regret aversion becomes strong when the seller’s house is subsequently sold for 10% or more than the all-cash buyer paid, but regret aversion is mitigated with communication of the improvements made to enhance the selling price. We further find that sellers do not know which all-cash buyer’s Automated Valuation Model (AVM) is the most accurate and are therefore much more influenced by brand awareness than model sophistication. Finally, while the extant literature has examined offer price strategies for home sellers, this is the first investigation of buyer offer price strategies. In stark contrast to selling strategies, pricing strategies do not matter when making an offer to buy.

This dataset contains the reports of a series of 11online brokerage and matchmaking events organised in the focal countries (Beacon Regions) of theagroBRIDGESH2020 project (Task 4.3). The objective of the online brokerage event (titled "Let's build our SFSC") is to promote business-to-business collaboration among agri-food producers and farmers, with other businesses in the supply chain (distributors, packagers, hospitality) and develop new opportunities for Short Food Supply Chains. The events were organised using an online matchmaking platform that was selected following market research that was conducted previously in the project. The platform supports the booking of one-to-one meetings among participants to meet, discuss and negotiate business opportunities. The first version contains the reports of 9events organised in an equal number of regions, involving more than 150 participants in total, as summarised in the table below. The 2nd version includes the reports of 2additional online events in Denmark andTurkey that were organised in May 2023, engaging 60 additional stakeholders. Date Beacon Region Organiser (BRL) 24/02/2023 Bretagne & Pays de La Loire, France Vegepolys Valley (VGP) 02/03/2023 Central Macedonia, Greece Q-PLAN INTERNATIONAL (Q-PLAN) 09/03/2023 Lazio & Piemonte, Italy Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) 14/03/2023 Ireland Munster Technological University (MTU) supported by Teagasc (TGC) 15/03/2023 Finland VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) 27/03/2023 Lithuania UNIMOS Alliance (UNMF) 29/03/2023 Andalusia, Spain Technological Corporation of Andalusia (CTA) 30/03/2023 Latvia UNIMOS Alliance (UNMF) 31/03/2023 Poland UNIMOS Alliance (UNMF) 24/05/2023 Denmark Food and BioCluster Denmark (FBCD) 31/05/2023 Turkey Sabri Ulker Foundation (SUF)

Using a global dataset of over 840,000 equity, bond and syndicated loan investment banking deals, we build the fossil fuel investment brokerage profile of financial centres worldwide between 2000 and 2018. We also study whether city-level fossil fuel divestment commitments and country-level green banking policies impact the profile of fossil fuel financial centres over our study timeframe. We find that several financial centres shift their fossil fuel investment brokerage profiles substantially, including the asset classes in which they are active. However, we do not find any evidence that this is driven by city-level divestment commitments. In contrast, we find that fossil fuel investment banking brokers situated in financial centres exposed to voluntary green banking policies reduce their fossil fuel financing. This is driven by foreign brokers whose behaviour appears to signal an anticipation of forthcoming mandatory green finance policies.

Internet of Things (IoT) systems are expected to generate a massive amount of data that needs to be processed. Given the large scale and geo-distributed nature of such systems, fog computing along with publish/subscribe (pub/sub) messaging has been proposed as possible solutions for coping with processing at scale. However, it is still unclear how practitioners can leverage the benefits of fog computing, e.g., how to optimally place data processing operators and pub/sub brokers. Moreover, current IoT systems typically rely on pub/sub brokers at the cloud, which might diminish the benefits offered by edge or fog processing as the communication between IoT operators has to be mediated by the brokers located in the cloud. To address this shortcoming, we propose to place the IoT application operators and the pub/sub brokers jointly on a network of nodes spanning from edge to the cloud considering various factors such as network topology or the locations of the IoT sensors and the consumers of the IoT applications. Different than the prior works, we specifically consider pub/sub brokers and their unique characteristics in the placement decision. First, we formulate the placement of operators and brokers jointly across edge, fog, and the cloud as a cost minimization problem. Next, we design two low-complexity heuristics. Our simulation results corroborate the argument that a placement in the cloud is usually a good option for IoT use cases, but also reveal the gap to the optimal solution in scenarios with heavier clustering of producers and consumers of sensor data. Studying the optimality gap shows that in such a setting heuristic solutions usually stay under a stretch factor of 2, with a worst case factor of 2.5 for a tabu-based solution and 2.85 for a greedy and a fixed placement in the cloud.

Resumo Estudamos como uma comunidade brasileira respondeu a um desastre com várias inovações sociais (IS) propiciadas por bricolagem social e intermediação com stakeholders. O artigo busca explicar tais processos e sua inter-relação. A abordagem metodológica foi majoritariamente indutiva, utilizando entrevistas abertas e semiestruturadas e análise documental, além da experiência do autor principal, que residiu na localidade antes, durante e após o desastre. Nossos resultados sugerem que este abalou o equilíbrio social da comunidade de diversas maneiras e desencadeou ondas subsequentes de IS ligadas a bricolagem social e intermediação, as quais se amenizaram parcialmente ao longo do tempo. A originalidade e o valor do artigo derivam do contexto único e negligenciado de recuperação pós-desastre em um país emergente e da aplicação de avanços na conceitualização da intermediação e de sua relação com a bricolagem social e a IS. Resumen Estudiamos cómo una comunidad brasileña respondió a un desastre con varias innovaciones sociales (IS) propiciadas por el bricolaje social y la intermediación con stakeholders. El artículo busca explicar tales procesos y su interrelación. El enfoque metodológico fue principalmente inductivo, utilizando entrevistas abiertas y semiestructuradas y análisis documental, además de la experiencia del autor principal que residió en la localidad antes, durante y después del desastre. Nuestros resultados sugieren que dicho acontecimiento afectó el equilibrio social de la comunidad de diversas maneras y desencadenó oleadas subsiguientes de IS relacionadas con el bricolaje social y la intermediación que se atenuaron parcialmente con el tiempo. La originalidad y el valor del artículo derivan del contexto único y de abandono de recuperación posdesastre en un país emergente y de la aplicación de avances en la conceptualización de la intermediación y de su relación con el bricolaje social y la IS. Abstract We studied how a Brazilian community responded to a disaster using social innovations (SI) developed based on social bricolage and brokerage with stakeholders. The paper seeks to explain these processes and their interrelation. The methodological approach was primarily inductive, using semi-structured and open-ended interviews, document analysis, and the residential experience of the senior author before, during, and after the disaster. Our results suggest that the disaster upset the social balance of the community in several ways and triggered waves of subsequent SI related to social bricolage and brokerage that faded somewhat over time. Originality and value of the paper derive both from the unique and neglected context of post-disaster recuperation in a developing country and from the application of advances in the conceptualization of brokerage and its relation to social bricolage and SI.

The crime gender gap is the difference between the levels of participation of men and women in crime, with men responsible for more crime than women. Recent evidence suggests that the crime gender gap is closing, both in crime in general and in organized crime. However, organized crime differs from other forms of criminal activity in that it entails an organizational structure of cooperation among offenders. Assessing whether the gender gap in organized crime is narrowing is not only about the overall levels of involvement of women, but about their roles and positions within the organized criminal structure, because the involvement of women does not mean that they are in influential positions, or that they have power or access to resources important for the commission of organized crime. This paper uses a social network approach to systematically compare the structural positions of men and women in an organized criminal network. We use a dataset collected by Canadian Law Enforcement consisting of 1390 individuals known or suspected to be involved in organized crime, 185 of whom are women. Our analysis provides evidence for an ongoing gender gap in organized crime, with women occupying structural positions that are generally associated with a lack of power. Overall, women are less present in the network, tend to collaborate with other women rather than with men, and are more often in the disadvantageous position of being connected by male intermediaries. Implications for theory and law enforcement practice are discussed.

Organizations typically employ a division of labor between specialist creator roles and generalist business roles in a bid to orchestrate innovation. We seek to determine the extent to which individuals dividing the work across roles can also benefit from dividing their network. We argue that collaborating individuals benefit from connecting to the same groups but different individuals within those groups—an approach we label dual networking—rather than from a pure divide-and-conquer approach. To test this argument, we study a dual career-ladder setting in a large multinational in which R&D managers and technologists partner up in their quest for innovation. We find that collaborators who engage in dual networking attain an innovation performance advantage over those who connect to distinct groups. This advantage stems from the opportunity to engage in the dual interpretation of input the partners receive, as well as from dual influencing that helps them to gain momentum for their proposed innovations, and it leads to more effective elaboration and championing of their ideas. In demonstrating these effects, we advance understanding of how collaborators organize their networking activities to best achieve innovative outcomes.

Integrating social identity threat and structural hole theories, this work examines how social network positions affect group-based identity threats. For individuals less well positioned to bridge (or “broker”) relations between unconnected friends, stigma-by-association concerns may constrain affiliation with stereotypic targets. Three experiments ( Ns = 280, 232, 553) test whether women (vs. men) in male-dominated STEM (vs. female-dominated) majors avoid befriending a female target with feminine-stereotypic (vs. STEM-stereotypic) interests. Only STEM women with less brokerage (i.e., less ability to manage introductions to unconnected friends) in their existing friendship networks avoided befriending (pilot experiment) and socially integrating (Experiments 1 and 2) feminine- (vs. STEM-) stereotypic targets, despite standardized target similarity and competence. STEM women in particular anticipated steeper reputational penalties for befriending stereotypically feminine peers (Experiment 2). Social identity threat may lead women in STEM—especially those lacking brokerage—to exclude stereotypically feminine women from social networks, reinforcing stereotypes of women and STEM fields.

Individuals in brokerage positions are vital when further developing complex organizations with multiple subgroups only loosely coupled to each other. Network theorists have conceptualized an individual’s brokerage as the degree to which a person occupies a bridging position between disconnected others. Research outside the school context has indicated for quite some time that an individual’s social capital in the form of brokerage is positively associated with professional development—not only on a collective but also on an individual level. Schools are without any doubt complex organizations with multiple loosely connected stakeholders involved when further developing their educational practice. Thus, it is not surprising that in recent years, the concept of brokerage has gained interest in research on school improvement as well. Up to now, in school improvement research brokerage has been operationalized in different ways: as individuals’ formal entitlement to act as intermediaries (formal brokerage), their position within a social network (structural brokerage), or their behavior when linking disconnected groups of staff members (behavioral brokerage). As these perspectives have often been examined separately, this study, as a first step, aimed to simultaneously assess school staff members’ formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage, and examine their degree of interrelatedness. In a second step, associations of brokerage with professional well-being were analyzed. Even though there is evidence for the positive impact of brokerage on professional development, only little is known about its associations with professional well-being. In a third step, interaction effects were examined when formal brokerage is congruent or incongruent with other facets of brokerage. Based on a sample of 1,316 school staff members at 51 primary schools in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, we conducted both bivariate correlational and multiple-group structural equation modeling analyses. The findings revealed that formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage are interrelated facets. However, formal entitlement did not determine either structural position or behavior. Moreover, brokerage within schools was only partially related to professional well-being. In the discussion section, the study’s key contributions and practical implications are presented in detail.

Social structures matter to software development. This is because software developers need to collaborate to share knowledge and solve problems together to drive software development success. Nonetheless, studies investigating how such interaction affects performance is limited to a dominant perspective of technical advice network (one-dimensional relations) and less of business advice network, and how they interact in online and offline communication combined to determine the performance of software developers. A few scholars in information systems (IS) and software engineering (SE) fields have called for the application of a multiplex network perspective (multidimensional relations) as a theoretical lens to investigate the structure of software developers. This thesis applies a multiplex network perspective to explain individuals’ embeddedness in social networks and what it means for performance-related outcomes based on three (interrelated) research studies. The study presented in chapter 2 (article 1 related) focuses on understanding, conceptualising, and applying the concept of multiplexity to studying social networks in software development settings. A systematic review of social network analysis (SNA) within the IS, SE and management science domain was conducted. The findings revealed an isolated perspective of multiplexity based on a resource access stance (business/technical knowledge), communication (offline/online networks) and relationship (formal/informal relations) dimensions. The lack of an integrated perspective limits the ability to generate sufficient insights concerning the dynamics of the social network of developers, particularly how different interpersonal network configurations (ties) and their interrelations impact performance differently. This is often needed to make sense of inherent variations in network behaviours undergirding an individual’s ability to generate and keep a steady flow of diverse resources. The study presented in chapter 3 (article 2 related) focuses on the multiplex network structures of software developers by examining how their brokerage roles (gatekeeping, consulting etc.) and knowledge sharing interactions (business/technical related) in the communication networks (offline/online) contribute to their software development effort. Prior studies have provided limited understanding about how the role and type of knowledge flowing through offline and online communication combined shape performance. Because studying diverse network structures and network knowledge types can generate understanding about an individual’s leverage in problem-solving activities. This study thereby revealed the influence of different network behaviours and knowledge interactions in shaping performance potentials. The study presented in chapter 4 (article 3 related) focuses on understanding the embedding of software developers in multiplex advice structures and how their brokerage in both business and technical advice networks provides access to business and technical knowledge resources and translate to an individual’s problem-solving competence. Research evidence in this area offers a limited understanding of the network antecedents of problem-solving competence. This study revealed the varying level of significance of brokerage and contact quality within and between the structure of advice networks for knowledge resources and the problem-solving competence of software developers. Overall, this thesis makes a number of contributions by integrating different dimensions of multiplexity, which have been observed in isolation in prior streams of literature and different fields, to generate sufficient insights about software development networks. In terms of contributions to theory, this research is one of the first to provide an integrated framework and its application to an individual’s coordination of resources and task performance in software development. It also makes this study one of the first to clearly reveal the optimal and sub-optimal use of offline and online networks based on different knowledge interactions. This research is also one of the first to directly link business and technical advice connectedness via brokerage (as antecedents) to problem-solving competence (as outcome) of software developers. As per contributions to practice, the insights generated can help organisational managers and leaders to promote knowledge networking, cultivate strategic brokers, promote expert interventions, and optimise knowledge resourcefulness for greater problem-solving competence of software developers. Building upon network theory or social network theory such as structural hole theory, the application of multiplexity to software development generate insights into the knowledge sharing processes and problem-solving potentials of software developers. In doing so, it provides a complete picture of the variance in brokerage action, network structure, and network knowledge influencing software development performance. In other words, it reveals the combined effect of the role of individuals, structures and knowledge types plays in deriving a better software development effort. This thesis considers these findings and their implications for future studies.

Contains fulltext : 229636.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) In scholarship on informal politics in Brazil, clientelism is a well-studied phenomenon. While studies of clientelism generally concentrate on elections, campaigning and vote buying, clientelist practices and their impact extend well beyond this temporal and thematic focus. This article develops an approach that builds on theories of brokerage in anthropology and social network studies. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in low-income neighbourhoods in Recife, Brazil, it shows how clientelism is based on informal exchanges both within and outside election periods. Through a study of community leaders, their projects and their search for resources, the article advances a more comprehensive understanding of how clientelism works as a social mechanism in the ordering of life in these neighbourhoods. 13 p.

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.

This paper analyzes the link between industrial districts and entrepreneurship, building a bridge between the literature on entrepreneurship and the literature on industrial districts. Draw...

To avoid polarization and maintain small-worldness in society, people who act as attitudinal brokers are critical. These people maintain social ties with people who have dissimilar and even incompatible attitudes. Based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (n= 139) and the complete social networks from two Korean villages (n= 1508), we investigated the individual-level neural capacity and social-level structural opportunity for attitudinal brokerage regarding gender role attitudes. First, using a connectome-based predictive model, we successfully identified the brain functional connectivity that predicts attitudinal diversity of respondents' social network members. Brain regions that contributed most to the prediction included mentalizing regions known to be recruited in reading and understanding others’ belief states. This result was corroborated by leave-one-out cross-validation, fivefold cross-validation and external validation where the brain connectivity identified in one village was used to predict the attitudinal diversity in another independent village. Second, the association between functional connectivity and attitudinal diversity of social network members was contingent on a specific position in a social network, namely, the structural brokerage position where people have ties with two people who are not otherwise connected.

Contains fulltext : 244104.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) In this paper, we draw on the distinction between a "politics of negotiation" and a "politics of refusal" in order to highlight the ambivalence of "slum politics" in Recife, Brazil. Slum politics can be a radical politics of collective solidarity as was the case during the military dictatorship when a popular movement rooted in land occupations initiated the institutionalization of an internationally lauded participatory slum governance system. However, as our case shows, slum politics also has an opportunistic and reactionary side when community leaders seek individual advantage from their position as brokers between fellow slum dwellers and political patrons. We conclude that for slum dwellers, a good way for dealing with the internal contradictions of slum politics is engaging in a "politics of refusal" based on memories of destitution, eviction, and struggle, as an alternative to the "politics of negotiation" proposed by reformist political forces and social movements. 19 p.

Resumen En el presente trabajo se utiliza una variable reticular para estratificar un grupo de actores sociales, lo cual permite exhibir la posición estructural de sus integrantes en base al origen de su capital social. Se utiliza la variable constricción debido a que integra en una sola medida las dos fuentes principales de capital social: cierre e intermediación. Este enfoque, permite generar hipótesis inmediatas sobre los mecanismos subyacentes a la Posición estructural que actualmente posee cada individuo; sobre las razones por las cuales unos individuos son más exitosos que otros (recursos sociales) y, sobre las acciones posibles para generar efectos agregados que generen valor en la red general. Abstract A In this paper we used a network variable for classifying a real group of social actors inside social capital stratums, it let shows the structural position for each integrant in order to social capital source. Since the individual constraint contains the two principal sources of social capital (closeness and brokerage), we used this one for that. We enhancement how we can to use this approach to generate quickly hypothesis to explain followings: actual individual structural position; mechanisms for upgrade individual social resource; and, strategies to create general effects to realizing the hidden value in the network.

A large body of the literature has found that occupying structural holes positively affect organizational outcomes. Structural holes pose strategic opportunities for organizations that are knowledgeable of their advantageous position. However, most studies do not consider whether organizations observe their structural holes accurately. Such observational (in)accuracy might explain variation in return-on-structural-holes. This study investigates the effects of (in)accurate perceptions of organizations’ structural holes position on organizational reputation. We consider scenarios where organizations (correctly) observe or (incorrectly) miss existing structural holes or where they incorrectly observe structural holes. We collected data in two whole networks in the healthcare industry. We find that accurately observing one’s structural hole position increases organizational reputation. Contrary, organizations that perceive structural holes that actually do not exist, suffer negative reputation effects. Our research implies that similar network positions can yield differential reputation effects depending on the accuracy of the knowledge of the organization occupying this position.

Building on recent efforts to bring a socio-political perspective to social capital research, we develop and test a multilevel framework that explains why middle managers who occupy brokerage positions differ in their ability and willingness to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. More specifically, we provide a contextualized understanding of the links among middle managers' brokerage, their political-support ties, and their personal initiative. Results derived from data on 383 middle managers and 72 top managers in 34 business units indicate that political-support ties with top managers strengthen the relationship between middle managers’ brokerage and personal initiative. However, this positive effect depends on the social capital resources available in the focal business unit. It is attenuated in business units with a supportive and trusting social context and amplified in business units with high levels of internal connectedness. By uncovering these incompatibilities and complementarities, our study demonstrates the value of accounting for different social capital configurations and the interplay of their inherent social capital resources when examining the effects of brokerage on corporate entrepreneurship.

This paper unpacks the continuum of social finance institutions (SFIs), ranging from foundations offering pure grants to social banks supplying soft loans. The in-between category includes under-researched “quasi-foundations” granting loans requiring partial repayment. We develop a model under which SFIs maximize their social contribution arising from financing successful social projects, under a budget constraint dictated by their funders. Our model determines the feasibility of each SFI category and reveals that quasi-foundations are efficient and adapted to environments with low market rates. Finally, we show that value-based unconditional reciprocity from SFI borrowers can elicit a so-called “hold-up” effect, whereby the SFI maximizing its social contribution charges a high interest rate to its loyal clients., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This research examines how potential backers form mental representations of products in reward- based crowdfunding campaigns, and how these representations affect funding decisions and campaign performance. To test our framework, we conducted four experiments and also drew on a sample of 961 Kickstarter campaigns. Our results show that two campaign characteristics – the product’s development stage and the indicated time to product delivery – determine the psychological distance that supporters experience in response to a campaign, and that psychological distance, in turn, inhibits individual campaign contributions and cumulative campaign success. Furthermore, we find that encouraging supporters to imagine the benefits of product usage is an effective means to increase support for campaigns that elicit high psychological distance.

Purpose Social capital plays an important role in transforming knowledge within and across inter-firm business networks in industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore different kinds of transfer mechanism such as “bonding,” “bridging,” and “protecting” within a case network of the Danish offshore windmill industry. Its aim is to describe how these mechanisms interactively support value co-creation among the involved enterprises and how social capital, residing in the relationships between actors from the firms, is influenced by the different transfer mechanisms. Design/methodology/approach Based upon a single case study, the paper demonstrates “bonding,” “bridging,” and “protecting” as distinct, yet related, mechanisms for inter-firm business networking. The sample used covers selected key actors from the network as well as third-party experts from the Danish windmill industry, which together represent the most important knowledge-offering and knowledge-demanding domains. Findings Activities associated with “bridging” and “bonding” clearly matter for creating value for the business network and the industry alike, as they are supportive of strategic capability development (for instance, high-skilled work). While producers and supply companies apply such “bridging,” “bonding,” and additional “protecting” mechanisms based upon their predominant position, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), however, need to shape teams to do so. A major finding of the study is, thus, that team-based interrelationships among SMEs activate “bridging,” “bonding.” and “protecting” initiatives which are particularly supportive of capability improvement and industry growth. They enable the transfer of relevant capabilities between different projects where actors within SMEs organizations learn to activate and use such knowledge transfer mechanisms. Moreover, asymmetrical dependency-relationships can be partly overcome by shaping and using the mechanisms on the part of SMEs in the network. Originality/value To date, brokerage is still an under-explored topic with regard to inter-firm business networks. This case study contributes to the research by illustrating important and distinct qualitative aspects of brokerage, which are conceptualized as “bonding,” “bridging,” and “protecting” initiatives on the part of brokers. The study highlights that not only strong actors with central positions can step into the role as a broker. Even less resourceful actors within asymmetrical relations can act as broker and compensate a lack of resources or strengthen their position within the industry network. Consequently, value co-creating processes within industry networks can also be boosted by brokerage initiated by small companies.

Organic agriculture only allows a few ‘natural’ compounds for managing pests and diseases such as copper which is applied as fungicide in apple, grape, potato, and tomato production. But as a heavy metal, copper is under debate in the organic sector. One key strategy to replace copper use is the market introduction of resistant varieties. In this article, key obstacles and opportunities for the introduction of new apple and potato varieties are identified and described. A comparative analysis integrating agricultural, economic, cultural, and social perspectives is conducted based on literature review, information on internet, and interviews with key experts, mainly from the organic sector. As a framework for analysis, the concepts of brokerage and the multilevel perspective have been used. The following solution pathways are described: (a) make use of added value of varieties, (b) create demand (pull effects), (c) well-coordinated marketing concepts, (d) new marketing concepts such as the Flavour Group Concept, (e) gradual introduction through shorter chain (when limited funding), and (f) match varieties to food chain styles. Key lessons are the following: (i) there must be an urgent need that develops into a pull factor; (ii) for creating pull factors, it is important to involve others; (iii) a shared language and a common culture between involved stakeholders needs to be developed; (iv) without push factor, no new steps will be realised; (v) new concepts need to fit in existing chain structures; (vi) patience is often important, and (vii) some luck is often crucial.

Triads examine the associations among three actors, involving, at a minimum, the analysis of two dyadic ties among three interrelated actors. By making apparent the indirect ties bearing on actors, the triad is the smallest unit of analysis for a network. Despite extensive conceptual and empirical work, little systematic attention is given to the triad in the marketing literature. This article reviews literature spanning multiple academic disciplines and makes three contributions. First, it provides an overview of the triad concept combining sociological insights with more recent work emerging in operations management and marketing. Second, the article identifies three distinct forms of triadic relationships in existing literature: (1) brokerage, focused on the action of the third between two others; (2) mediation, describing different mechanisms by which a dyadic relationship affects and is affected by a relationship with a third party; and (3) coalition, capturing the configuration and evolution of ties in the three-actor system as a whole. Finally, this article develops an initial research agenda for triadic marketing research.

I explore company characteristics which explain the difference in analysts’ recommendations for companies that were underwritten (affiliated) versus non-underwritten (unaffiliated) by analysts’ brokerage firms. Prior literature documents that analysts issue more optimistic recommendations to underwriting clients of analysts’ brokerage employers. Extant research uses regression models to find general associations between recommendations and financial qualities of companies, with or without underwriting relationship. However, regression models cannot identify the qualities that cause the most difference in recommendations between affiliated versus unaffiliated companies. I adopt uplift random forest model, a popular technique in recent marketing and healthcare research, to identify the type of companies that earn analysts’ favor. I find that companies of stable earnings in the past, higher book-to-market ratio, smaller sizes, worsened earnings, and lower forward PE ratio are likely to receive higher recommendations if they are affiliated with analysts than if they are unaffiliated with analysts. With uplift random forest model, I show that analysts pay more attention on price-related than earnings-related matrices when they value affiliated versus unaffiliated companies. This paper contributes to the literature by introducing an effective predictive model to capital market research and shedding additional light on the usefulness of analysts’ reports.

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.

In this paper, we consider whether brokerage in an intra-organizational communication network and type of work role interact to predict individual performance in a professional organization. The independent–interdependent nature of work roles is considered a key factor in structural contingency theory, but is yet to be studied in relation to brokerage. We propose that a brokerage position has a joint effect on performance along with work role in a study of organization-wide communication network in an architectural firm with 65 employees. Our analysis suggests an association between brokerage and role-prescribed performance for individuals in both interdependent and independent types of work roles. Our findings also suggest that interdependent roles requiring broad, organization-wide collaboration, and communication with others, brokerage is positively associated with the performance prescribed by the role, but for independent roles, wherein collaboration and communication are somewhat limited by the formal role, brokerage has far less of an effect. Our findings contribute to brokerage theory by comparing how brokerage affects performance in two distinct work roles by illustrating how the benefits of brokerage seem more restricted to those in interdependent work roles. The contribution of this paper is to suggest the independent–interdependent nature of work role as a boundary condition for brokerage.

We take issue with claims that the funding mix of banks, which makes them fragile and crisis-prone, is efficient because it reflects special liquidity benefits of bank debt. Even aside from neglecting the systemic damage to the economy that banks’ distress and default cause, such claims are invalid because banks have multiple small creditors and are unable to commit effectively to their overall funding mix and investment strategy ex ante. The resulting market outcomes under laissez-faire are inefficient and involve excessive borrowing, with default risks that jeopardize the purported liquidity benefits. Contrary to claims in the literature that “equity is expensive” and that regulation requiring more equity in the funding mix entails costs to society, such regulation actually helps create useful commitment for banks to avoid the inefficiently high borrowing that comes under laissez-faire. Effective regulation is beneficial even without considering systemic risk; if such regulation also reduces systemic risk, the benefits are even larger.

Рассмотрено понятие «кредитный брокер». Определены правовая природа, основные и перспективные направления развития института кредитного брокера в России., This article discusses the concept of «credit broker». The nature, main and perspective directions of development of the institute of a credit broker in Russia are determined.

El presente artículo científico producto de investigación finalizada, muestra el análisis realizado sobre la transculturación en los procesos de producción y comercialización de las artesanías wayuu en la ciudad de Riohacha; se determinó si las representaciones simbólicas que reflejan los valores culturales wayuu, son sustituidos en los procesos de producción y comercialización de las artesanías; se identifican los efectos de la intermediación; se conocen el apoyo de las instituciones públicas y privadas en la preservación de los patrones culturales de estos tejidos con el fin de proponer lineamientos estratégicos con la finalidad de contrarrestar los efectos de transculturación en los procesos de producción y comercialización de las artesanías wayuu en la ciudad de Riohacha. El presente artículo es producto de una investigación de tipo descriptiva de campo y fundamentada en la no experimental, de corte transversal; la muestra del estudio estuvo constituida por 150 tejedoras de la etnia wayuu en la ciudad de Riohacha. La técnica e instrumento de recolección de datos fue la encuesta directa, conformada por 24 ítems, con tres opciones de respuestas cada uno, fundamentada en la escala de Likert . Se pudo concluir que estas artesanas en sus tejidos representan el baile típico, comidas típicas, muerte, vida, el mal, el bien, la casta, animales, la naturaleza y la espiritualidad; la intermediación de sus productos se están dando por medio de mayoristas, minoristas y personas naturales que comercializan estos tejidos; también se conoció el poco apoyo de entidades como Asuntos Indígenas, Gobierno Departamental, y Texas; pero cuentan con otros apoyos importantes como son las entidades de El Cerrejón, Concepción Salinas, Artesanías de Colombia, y el Gobierno Nacional, para contrarrestar la transculturación que se viene presentando en el proceso de producción y comercialización de las artesanías wayuu en la ciudad de Riohacha.

Background Recovery oriented service provisions means focusing on outcomes that are important to consumers themselves rather than to clinicians or services. Partners in Recovery (PIR) is an Australia-wide initiative designed to provide service coordination and brokerage for individuals with severe and persistent mental illness. One PIR service engaged a consumer-led research team to evaluate the service from the perspective of consumers. This consumer-led study was established to explore PIR consumers’ perceptions of outcomes they achieved through their involvement with PIR. Methods Data were collected through semi-structured interviews exploring participants’ views about and experiences with PIR. Data analysis occurred simultaneously with data collection using constant comparative analysis. Results Twenty consumers participated. They reported experiencing valued outcomes in six domains: feeling supported; feeling more hopeful and positive about the future; improved mental clarity, focus and order in life; getting out of the house and engaging in positive activity; having a better social life; and improved physical health. Conclusions Exploring outcomes achieved by PIR consumers, from their own perspective provides a nuanced understanding of the contribution these programs can have in supporting individuals’ recovery. Findings from this study highlight the kinds of outcomes consumers achieve when engaged with service coordination and brokerage services. Findings also suggest that outcome measures used in these types of services should focus on recovery outcomes as well as met and unmet needs.

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.\ud \ud 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.\ud \ud 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.\ud \ud 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.

This paper provides a counterexample to the theory that the infringement of freedom is the solution to the tragedy of the commons dilemma. From the outside, it is possible to depict the exploitation of precious timber in an Oaxacan indigenous community’s forest as a case of abuse, where many individuals overuse a limited resource in pursuit of their own interests. If this is the case an authority would be required to restrict damage to the shared resource through coercion, according to Garrett Hardin (1968, 1998). However, the actual situation has little to do with the economic logic and game theories, which support the thesis of those articles. In reality, this over-exploitation of the valuable hardwood lumber is not caused by the resources’ common condition or communal land tenure. It is actually the result of an authority that coerces and infringes upon freedom through cultural rather than economic logic, defined by asymmetric reciprocity, patronage, brokerage, and the protection racket. Therefore, it is wrong to interpret this situation as the economic disaster of the commons, which is as tragic as it is inevitable. Este artículo describe un contraejemplo a la teoría que sostiene que la restricción de la libertad es la solución al dilema de la tragedia de los comunes. Desde el exterior, es posible describir la explotación excesiva de las maderas nobles del bosque natural de una comunidad de Oaxaca como un caso de abuso, en el que muchos individuos destruyen un recurso limitado persiguiendo su propio interés. Si ese fuera el caso, se precisaría una autoridad que contuviera el daño al recurso compartido mediante la coerción, siguiendo a Garrett Hardin (1968, 1998). Sin embargo, la situación real tiene muy poco que ver con la lógica económica y la teoría de juegos que apoyan la tesis de dichos artículos. En realidad, esta sobreexplotación de la madera dura no está causada por la condición común de este recurso ni por el régimen de tenencia comunal, sino que es fruto precisamente de una autoridad coercitiva que restringe la libertad dentro de una lógica más cultural que económica, definida por la reciprocidad asimétrica, el patronazgo, la intermediación y el fraude de la protección. En consecuencia, es incorrecto calificar esta situación como un desastre de los comunes, tan trágico como inevitable.

Through a microhistorical approach focused on an Andalusian agrotown (Priego de Córdoba), this article contributes to a social history of brokerage at the end of the Old Regime. It throws light on the strategies of a broker who specialized in relations with the royal tribunal of Granada (Real Chancillería), and on his position within the local community. The article describes the interactions between local networks, the development of a more professionalized legal culture and the growing importance of royal jurisdiction within the Spanish society of the 18th century. The author concludes that the reorganization of bureaucratic relations into patron-client ties shaped particular patterns of state-building. This was, however, not characteristic of a traditional rural world, but, on the contrary, part of efficient and rational strategies, that allowed active participation in the formation of a national political sphere., A través de un análisis microhistórico centrado en una agrociudad andaluza (Priego de Córdoba), este artículo aporta elementos para una historia social de la mediación a finales del Antiguo Régimen. Enfoca, por un lado, las estrategias de un intermediario especializado en el trato con la Real Chancilleria de Granada, y, por otro, su posición dentro del municipio. Con ello, se exponen las interacciones entre las redes locales, el desarrollo de una cultura jurídica más profesionalizada y la creciente importancia de las instancias judiciales dependientes de la Corona en la sociedad española del siglo XVIII. El autor concluye que la reorganización de las relaciones burocráticas según un modelo clientelar iba configurando formas peculiares de estatalidad. Sin embargo, ésto no era la característica de un mundo rural tradicional, sino, al contrario, parte de estrategias eficientes y racionales a su manera, que permitían participar de manera activa en la formación de un espacio político nacional

This article studies how legal sanctions and enforcement affect brokers’ conflicts of interest emanating from investment banking activities. We exploit the recent adoption of the Market Abuse Directive (MAD) across European countries and use the variation in legal sanctions and enforcement that exists in Europe to identify brokers’ reaction. Overall, the enactment of MAD significantly reduced optimistic investment advice. This reduction is larger in countries equipped with more severe legal sanctions and in countries that strongly enforce the rules. Our analysis underscores the importance of legal sanctions and enforcement power to understand the real consequences of regulatory changes.

Focusing on the art market, where auction houses act as brokers between art sellers and buyers, we investigate whether more experienced brokers achieve better performance as information providers. We use a unique data set of auctions of Italian paintings in various houses around the world, and we measure experience as the number of times an auctioneer has auctioned the artworks of a certain artist in a given location. We find that more experienced auction houses (i) are more likely to sell and (ii) provide more precise pre-sale estimates. These findings suggest that experience plays an important role for brokers to reduce illiquidity and opacity in markets with asymmetric information.

This paper reports on the findings from a review of the literature relating to the brokerage role of career guidance services. The review initially identified over 15,000 papers for possible inclusion and a systematic process was applied which sifted these down to only the highest quality research papers with direct relevance to the research question: How is effective brokerage between education and employers organised?The review found that much of the research in this area is based on organisations with a sole remit for brokering the links between employers and education. Their funding and delivery models were, in most cases, quite different to that of the current National Careers Service. The studies also focused on the perceived impact and benefits of the links between employers and educational institutions, with rather less evidence on the pre-conditions for such links or on the ways in which they could best be engendered and supported. Nonetheless, the research highlighted the wide-ranging benefits these links can have for both parties, with impacts on: • Schools, colleges and pupils such as: improved motivation and attainment; contextualisation of learning; reduction in NEET; greater understanding of industries and educational pathways; clarification of career aspirations; and improved transitions into further and higher education, training or the workplace. • Employers such as: the development of company personnel; the building of a positive reputation for organisations and the contribution to business recruitment strategies. Based on this evidence, the review provides some summary guidance on the factors that the National Careers Service should consider in the development of a brokerage role between education institutions and employers.

Broker organizations increasingly facilitate the partnering process of public–private partnerships (PPPs) for development. In this paper, we argue that their function goes beyond simply match-making between partners and develop a theoretical framework for the broker organizations' roles throughout the PPP life cycle. Research on 19 broker organizations shows that these organizations act in the roles of convener, mediator, and learning catalyst. We analyze how and why they can facilitate the partnering process through these roles and discuss the research findings in the light of the social capital, collaboration, and inter-organizational learning literatures. The discussion highlights the benefits of broker organizations in the partnering process of PPPs and how those organizations' roles can best be performed.

Open networks give actors non-redundant information that is diverse, while closed networks offer redundant information that is easier to interpret. Integrating arguments about network structure and the similarity of actors’ knowledge, we propose two types of network configurations that combine diversity and ease of interpretation. Closed-diverse networks offer diversity in actors’ knowledge domains and shared third-party ties to help in interpreting that knowledge. In open-specialized networks, structural holes offer diversity, while shared interpretive schema and overlap between received information and actors’ prior knowledge help in interpreting new information without the help of third parties. In contrast, actors in open-diverse networks suffer from information overload due to the lack of shared schema or overlapping prior knowledge for the interpretation of diverse information, and actors in closed-specialized networks suffer from overembeddedness because they cannot access diverse information. Using CrunchBase data on early-stage venture capital investments in the U.S. information technology sector, we test the effect of investors’ social capital on the success of their portfolio ventures. We find that ventures have the highest chances of success if their syndicating investors have either open-specialized or closed-diverse networks. These effects are manifested beyond the direct effects of ventures’ or investors’ quality and are robust to controlling for the possibility that certain investors could have chosen more promising ventures at the time of first funding.

The purpose of this thesis is to illuminate the pathways of Iranian influence in Iraq in order to provide U.S. decision makers with a possible strategy to counter Iran’s malignant influence there. By using a combination of social network analysis and social movement theory, this study illuminates the network of actors fighting Daesh in Iraq by first analyzing the network to map Iran’s influence channels and identify macro- and micro-level brokerage within the network. Using a social-movement focused approach, this study then identifies a candidate group for mobilization. Study of the network reveals that Iranian influence is exerted via its sponsored Shi’a militias and by conducting bloc recruitment of tribal militias. To counter this, the Jubouri tribal confederation located in Salahuddin Province offers high potential for mobilization under U.S. sponsorship that could be used to combat Iranian influence. http://archive.org/details/counteringhidden1094547831 Major, United States Army Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

This paper examines the implications of bank activity and short-term funding strategies for bank risk and returns using an international sample of 1,334 banks in 101 countries leading up to the 2007 financial crisis. Expansion into non-interest income generating activities such as trading increases the rate of return on assets, and it may offer some risk diversification benefits at very low levels. Non-deposit, wholesale funding, by contrast, lowers the rate of return on assets, although it can offer some risk reduction at commonly observed low levels of non-deposit funding. A sizeable proportion of banks, however, attract most of their short-term funding in the form of non-deposits at a cost of enhanced bank fragility. Overall, banking strategies that rely prominently on generating non-interest income or attracting non-deposit funding are very risky, which is consistent with the demise of the U.S. investment banking sector.

Este artigo argumenta que a liderança de Joaquim Nabuco no movimento pela abolição da escravidão no Brasil deveu-se à sua capacidade de operar como broker entre diferentes redes sociais, conectando, de um lado, o abolicionismo das ruas e o parlamento, e, de outro, o movimento abolicionista brasileiro e a rede abolicionista transnacional ativa no final do século XIX.This article argues that Joaquim Nabuco's position as a leader of the Brazilian anti-slavery movement was due to his ability to build the brokerage between diverse social networks, operating as a broker between parliamentary and civil society activism, on the one hand, and between the local activism and the global abolitionist network, on the other.

Though the central role of educational intermediaries that can connect research and practice is increasingly appreciated, our present understanding of their motivations, products, and processes is inadequate. SpecificallyIn response OR to fill this knowledge gap?, this multiple case study asks how and why three large-scale intermediaries—Edutopia, the Marshall Memo, and Usable Knowledge—are engaging in brokerage activities, and compares the features of the knowledge they seek to share and mobilize. These entities were deliberately chosen and anticipated to reveal diversity. Multiple data sources were analyzed based primarily upon Ward’s (2017) knowledge mobilization framework. These entities contrasted widely, especially in relation to core knowledge dimensions, and enable us to identify two distinct brokerage types emerged. To conclude, theoretical (how to conceptualize brokerage) and practical (how to foster interactive knowledge exchange) implications are presented. This study also reveals certain innovative mobilization approaches, including skillful use of social media and the production of videos depicting how and why to adopt particular strategies.

Why do certain domains of knowledge grow fast while others grow slowly or stagnate? Two distinct theoretical arguments hold that knowledge growth is enhanced by knowledge specialization and knowledge brokerage. Based on the notion of recombinant knowledge growth, we show that specialization and brokerage are opposing modes of knowledge generation, the difference between them lying in the extent to which homogeneous vs. heterogeneous input ideas get creatively recombined. Accordingly, we investigate how both modes of knowledge generation can enhance the growth of technology domains. To address this question, we develop an argument that reconciles both specialization and brokerage into a dynamic explanation. Our contention is that specializing in an increasingly homogeneous set of input ideas is both more efficient and less risky than brokering knowledge. Nevertheless, specializing implies progressively exhausting available recombinant possibilities, while brokerage creates new ones. Hence, technology domains tend to grow faster when they specialize, but the more specialized they become, the more they need knowledge brokerage to grow. We cast out our argument into five hypotheses that predict how growth rates vary across technology domains.

We study transfers of ownership rights, completed between 1996 and 2004, in five major European countries. We use the traditional literature on corporate governance systems to identify expected groups of countries. Results from the supervised cluster analysis show significant dissimilarities between deals according to the target country. These dissimilarities correspond to the traditional classification of corporate governance systems. An exception is Spain. We show dissimilarities between two groups of countries. There are, on the one hand, deals concerning French, German and, to a lesser extent, Italian targets, and, on the other hand, deals concerning British and Spanish targets. This result reflects recent studies, which stress the new situation of the Spanish corporate governance system which now follows British practice more closely., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This study is the first to identify whether specific individual homebuyer characteristics, such as repeat versus first-time, local versus out-of-town, individual versus joint decision-makers, and Web versus non-Web users relate to the rating of a firm’s overall service quality and whether or not the buyer will recommend the firm to others. A hedonic model reveals there is a significant linkage between repeat homebuyers and recommending the firm to others. Variations of the hedonic models are also examined. Specifically, multiple ways to measure each buyer characteristic are considered.