Brokerage that works: Balanced triads and the brokerage roles that matter for innovation

A key premise in innovation literature suggests that individuals enabling contact between pairs of otherwise disconnected others (i.e., holding open triads) are more innovative, as they benefit from opportunities for knowledge recombination. Such benefits also come with a cost, conducting innovative action triads requires finding common ground to coordinate and integrate disparate efforts unconnected others. However, it is yet unclear which specific triadic structures offer the greatest net value facilitate individual innovativeness. We contribute this debate by going beyond homogeneous conceptualization triads, examining relation different brokerage roles theorize some balanced than terms access novelty integration costs. Specifically, we find (gatekeepers itinerant roles) crucial innovativeness, compared unbalanced (coordinator liaison roles). propose brokers obtain when embedded institutional settings distant applicability. test our ideas through large-scale study 1.010 biomedical scientists.