The Strain of Spanning Structural Holes: How Brokering Leads to Burnout and Abusive Behavior
研究发现，在社交网络中扮演分离他人角色的中介者（tertius separans）比促进他人联结的中介者更容易产生职业倦怠，进而对同事表现出虐待行为。该结论基于三项研究，包括对南美大学员工的实地调查和美国员工的问卷及实验。
Connecting otherwise disconnected individuals and groups—spanning structural holes—can earn social network brokers faster promotions, higher remuneration, and enhanced creativity. Organizations also benefit through improved communication and coordination from these connections between knowledge silos. Neglected in prior research, however, has been theory and evidence concerning the psychological costs to individuals of engaging in brokering activities. We build new theory concerning the extent to which keeping people separated (i.e., tertius separans brokering) relative to bringing people together (i.e., tertius iungens brokering) results in burnout and in abusive behavior toward coworkers. Engagement in tertius separans brokering, relative to tertius iungens brokering, we suggest, burdens people with onerous demands while limiting access to resources necessary to recover. Across three studies, we find that tertius separans leads to abusive behavior of others, mediated by an increased experience of burnout on the part of the broker. First, we conducted a five-month field study of burnout and abusive behavior, with brokering assessed via email exchanges among 1,536 university employees in South America. Second, we examined time-separated data on self-reported brokering behaviors, burnout, and coworker abuse among 242 employees of U.S. organizations. Third, we experimentally investigated the effects of the two types of brokering behaviors on burnout and abusive behavior for 273 employed adults. The results across three studies showed that tertius separans brokering puts the broker at an increased risk of burnout and subsequent abusive behavior toward others in the workplace. Funding: E. Quintane received funding from Ernst & Young GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft.