IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02550088.html

Research on Structural Holes: An Assessment on Measurement Issues

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence Saglietto

    (UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur, GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur)

  • Cécile Cézanne

    (UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur, GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur)

  • Delphine David

    (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord)

Abstract

Social capital theory generally analyzes network structures by focusing on the connections between players. Yet, several authors suggest that the absence of relations in a network, known as "structural holes", is meaningful. The aim of this paper is to provide an exhaustive survey of the academic research dedicated to the study of structural holes and to develop a precise undertsanding of its main measurements. Based on a bibliometric approach, we identify a typology of practices, developments, and issues related to structural holes. We highlight a set of articles on the operationalization of structural holes and discuss the various measures they propose. We provide numerical examples emphasizing the respective advantages and limitations of the studied measures. Based on these results, we suggest a guide on how to use existing measures of structural holes according to the type of network, i.e. in simple and complex networks.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence Saglietto & Cécile Cézanne & Delphine David, 2020. "Research on Structural Holes: An Assessment on Measurement Issues," Post-Print hal-02550088, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02550088
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Qiang & Pu, Shunhao & Luo, Lihua & Liu, Zhichao & Xu, Jie, 2022. "Revisiting important ports in container shipping networks: A structural hole-based approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 239-248.
    2. Lubang Wang & Shuping Lin & Mingliang Zhang & Jia Ding & Liqin Zhang, 2025. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: Technological Innovation Through Complex Networks: a Study of 100 Listed Companies on China’s Growth Enterprise Market," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 16(2), pages 6200-6247, June.
    3. Antonio García-Sánchez & Ruth Rama, 2024. "New challenges in European innovation partnerships: SOEs, POEs and foreign MNEs during crises," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1053-1092, December.
    4. Yalcin, Haydar & Daim, Tugrul & Moughari, Mahdieh Mokhtari & Mermoud, Alain, 2024. "Supercomputers and quantum computing on the axis of cyber security," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Yunhan Liu & Xia Xu & Shuqing Li, 2025. "Understanding of evolutionary features in the library and information science with interdisciplinary network analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(2), pages 781-808, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02550088. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.