UCL School of Management Professor Martin Kilduff’s research paper titled ‘The Strain of Spanning Structural Holes: How Brokering Leads to Burnout and Abusive Behavior’ has been published in INFORMS Organizational Science Journal. Former PhD student Jung Lee and Associate Professor Dr Sunny Lee are co-authors of this paper. 

Martin is an expert in the field of social networks, and he has conducted extensive research on how individuals and social networks interact with one another. He is also the author of several books, including “Social Networks and Organizations”, and Interpersonal Networks in Organizations: Cognition, Personality, Dynamics, and Culture”.

This paper examines how different brokering behaviours may lead to burnout and negative social behaviours. Through three studies involving 2,051 working adults, they found that the job of keeping two people apart, compared to introducing them together, resulted in higher levels of burnout, which then led them to engage more in abusive behaviours.

You can read the full research paper on INFORMS Organization Science Journal.