Social capital in Asia: Investigating returns to brokerage in collectivistic national cultures.

Evidence on the returns to brokerage networks predominately comes from studies of firms located in the United States. Analyses conducted in other countries have noted differences in how social capital may be valued questioning whether brokerage networks yield economic advantage in less individualistic contexts such as Asia. Using network data on employees involved in a product launch in the Asian region of a large American software firm, evidence of returns to brokerage is found among the top executives located and working in the collectivistic national country offices. This finding provides new insights on how returns to brokerage in a non-US culture may arise by considering the differing influences of firm and national culture as well as an employee's formal position at a firm.