Networks, Information and Brokerage: The Diversity-Bandwidth Tradeoff

We propose that a trade-off between network diversity and communications bandwidth regulates access to novel information. As the structural diversity of a network increases, the bandwidth of its communication channels decrease, creating countervailing effects on the receipt of novel information. This trade-off occurs because more diverse networks, presumed to provide more information novelty, typically contain weaker ties. Weaker ties imply fewer opportunities for interaction and less total information flow. Information advantages to brokerage then depend on (a) whether the information overlap among alters is small enough to justify bridging structural holes, (b) whether the size of the topic space known to alters is large enough to consistently provide novelty, and (c) whether the knowledge stock of alters refreshes enough over time to justify updating what was previously known. We test these arguments by combining social network and performance data with direct observation of the information content flowing through e-mail at a medium-sized executive recruiting firm. We find that brokers with bridging ties to disparate parts of a social network can have disadvantaged access to novel information because their lower bandwidth communication curbs the total volume of novelty they receive. These analyses suggest that information benefits to brokerage depend on the information environments in which brokers find themselves and that we should embrace a more nuanced view of how information flows in social networks. The methods developed serve as ‘proof-of-concept’ for using e-mail content data to analyze relationships among information flows, networks and social capital.