Locating Cultural Holes Brokers in Diffusion Dynamics Across Bright Symbolic Boundaries

Abstract

Although the literature on cultural holes has expanded considerably in recent years, there is no concrete measure in that literature to locate cultural holes brokers. This article develops a conceptual framework grounded in social network theory and cultural sociology to propose a specific solution to fill this measurement gap. Agent-based computational experiments are leveraged to develop a theoretical test of the analytic purchase and distinctiveness of the proposed measure, termed potential for intercultural brokerage (PIB). Results demonstrate the effectiveness of PIB in locating early adopters that can achieve widespread levels of diffusion in societies segregated along bright symbolic boundaries. Findings also show the superiority of PIB when compared to classic alternative measures in the network literature that focus on locating early adopters based on structural holes (e.g., network constraint, effective size), geodesics (e.g., betweenness centrality), and degree (e.g., degree centrality), among other classic network measures. Broader implications of these findings for brokerage theory are discussed herein.