Networks refer to a web of social relations by which social actorsbe they individuals or organizationsexchange knowledge and resources, tangible or intangible. Brokerage occurs when these actorsoften noted as brokersconnect otherwise disconnected alters. Brokerage is important in network research for several reasons. Brokers play an integral role in connecting different communities of actors, moving knowledge and information, or intermediating resource exchanges. In doing so, brokers take various types of advantages based on their access to diverse information and their opportunities to arbitrage resource exchanges. These advantages have been shown to help brokers gain competitive advantages. However, such advantages might come at a cost, especially because brokers sometimes need to handle and work with alters who hold incompatible expectations with each other, or with alters who wish to disintermediate brokers. Given these implications of brokerages on various types of advantages, another set of works focuses on where do brokers come from and how brokerage changes over time. Both dispositional characteristics and situational conditions are known to help social actors to engage in brokerage activities. However, given the inherent challenges in brokerage acts, actors find difficult to persist as brokers, ensuing a complex dynamics on the brokerage.
