Who Pays the Price of Brokerage? Transferring Constraint through Price Setting in the Staffing Sector

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4521992
AutoresIsabel Fernandez-Mateo (0000-0003-4170-2175, London Business School), Isabel Fernandez‐mateo (0000-0001-5814-8495, London Business School, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume72
Fascículo2
Páginas291-317
Data de publicação2007-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/000312240707200208
OpenAlexW2027115632
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas29
Referências citadas67

This article analyzes how a broker's ability to affect prices and extract superior value from its position has economic consequences for the actors tied to it. I argue that intermediaries may exercise partial control in price setting by transferring the price constraints imposed on them by the actors on one side of the market to those on the other side. In so doing, they generate unequal returns for the brokered parties, who then receive different prices due to the nature of the tie between the broker and its other exchange partners. I investigate this argument using a novel mix of quantitative and qualitative data gathered from an intermediary in the staffing sector. The results show that the broker is able to transfer discounts offered to valued buyers (clients) on to the sellers (workers) matched with them, instead of reducing its own margins. As a result, actors with the same resource endowments receive different prices depending on the relationships among other exchange partners in a given triadic network of ties. Using qualitative fieldwork, I elaborate on the mechanisms that make the quantitative results feasible, and I discuss the implications for our understanding of the processes, dynamics, and market stratification consequences of brokerage

Argument (complex analysis · Business · Constraint (computer-aided design · Economics · Industrial organization · Intermediary · Microeconomics · Position (finance · Price setting · Qualitative property · Staffing · Value (mathematics · Corporate Finance and Governance · Finance · Labor Movements and Unions · Management and Organizational Studies · Marketing