"Smart, but Shifty: Trustworthiness and the Contingent Appeal of Brokers"

Abstract

A wealth of research documents the benefits of network brokerage both to the broker in the form of professional outcomes and to the network in terms of innovation (Burt, 2004; Burt, 2001,; Kilduff & Brass, 2010; Gould, 1989; Gould & Fernandez, 1989; Marsden, 1987). We proposed that the act of brokering is also likely to carry significant and negative consequences for the actor in question. The behaviors necessary for brokerage—e.g., moving through a network opportunistically looking for structural holes, keeping parties apart as one facilitates the transfer of resources between them—can undermine the perceived trustworthiness of the broker. In three experiments, we tested this claim. Results showed that people perceived those who engaged in brokerage behavior as less trustworthy than equivalent people who did not. As we predicted, in situations that called for trust, people who had witnessed this behavior were less likely to choose the broker as a partner. However, this was not true for situations that did not require trust; in that case, brokers were preferred. Specifically, when diversity of knowledge and information were valued, brokers were preferred over their non-broker counterparts. Finally, in a trust game with relatively high stakes, people offered less of their endowment to those who were brokers than those who were not, and perceptions of trustworthiness accounted for this behavior. Together the results from these experiments indicate a clear risk for brokers— the real possibility of developing a reputation for untrustworthiness