Brokerage and Closure in the Indian Ownership Network: Distinguishing between Levels of Analyses

Abstract

Brokerage and closure affect various organizational outcomes, and are beneficial depending on contextual features. We explore how level of analyses affects the relationship between brokerage, closure and organizational performance by conceptualizing closure as a complete-network property. In the context of a complete population corporate network in India, we find that firms are more likely to occupy structural holes within macro closed structures. However, broker firms have negative or insignificant performance within macro closed structures, and the positive effects of brokerage are limited to firms outside macro closed structures. This research contributes to our understanding of complete-network properties and the interaction between complete-network and egocentric network properties.