Network research has been criticized for neglecting causes of network structure in favor of its effects. The ongoing discussion regarding the performance effects of structural holes vs. closure is a lively example of this behavior. Furthermore, recently there has been a call for moving away from...

In recent years, the development of the idea of "Open Innovation" (Chesbrough, 2004; 2006) lead to the emergence of "Innovation brokers" who connect those seeking for solutions with a rather large number of potential knowledge suppliers. In this paper we analyze the implication that the existence of...