Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Social Structure of Competition -- Opportunity and Capital -- Information -- Structural Holes -- Control and the Tertius Gaudens -- Entrepreneurs -- Secondary Holes -- Structural Autonomy -- Summary -- 2. Formalizing the Argument -- Network Data -- Redundancy -- Constraint -- Hole Signature -- Structural Autonomy -- Summary -- 3. Turning a Profit -- Product Networks and Market Profit -- The Study Population -- Hole Effects -- Market Hole Signatures -- Summary -- Appendix: Weighing Alternatives -- 4. Getting Ahead -- Contact Networks and Manager Achievement -- The Study Population -- Hole Effects -- Hierarchy -- Institutional Holes -- Selecting a Network -- Summary -- Appendix A: Weighing Alternatives -- Appendix B: Causal Order -- 5. Player-Structure Duality -- Structural Unit of Analysis -- Players and Structures -- Escape from Attributes -- No Escape -- Summary -- 6. Commit and Survive -- Holes and Heterogeneity -- Interface and the Commit Hypothesis -- Population Ecology and the Survival Hypothesis -- Summary -- 7. Strategic Embedding and Institutional Residue -- The Other Tertius -- Strategy Hypothesis -- Formal Organization as Social Residue -- Personality as Emotional Residue -- Summary -- Notes -- References -- Index.