Excavating Structural Holes: How A Triadic Theory Relies on Dyadic Measures

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Abstract

Structural holes is a broadly applied theoretical program with extensive inconclusive and contradictory results. We propose that the literature’s contradictions derive from subtly problematic measures and imprecise mappings to the theory’s propositions. Formally decomposing aggregate constraint, this paper reveals that the measure combines five potentially conflicting network properties, suggests that the widely referenced structural effect on performance is almost completely attributable to dyadic activity dependence, identifies those network properties that can test structural holes, disconfirms structural holes, and proposes a path toward literature reconciliation. Aggregate constraint is an opaque test of many different theories. The clarity we add by decomposing constraint provides a path forward for reconciling previously recognized conflicting findings and the new insight that structural holes probably explains very little, if any, of the existing literature.

Authors

• John Chandler Johnson, BI Norwegian School of Management

• Amir Sasson, BI Norwegian Business School