Highlights:
- Sociology scholars were publishing articles on status as early as in 1930s. Subsequent research has focused on phenomena such as: status organizing, status crystallisation and status inconsistency
- According to Weber (1978), status, along with power and wealth, is one of the fundamental determinants of social inequality
- Most management research draws on theories in sociology to explain status in organizations
- The precise definition and empirical usage of status are still debated.
- Status plays three critical roles: signal, intangible asset and mobile resource
- Status is viewed as either: (a) relationship between groups; or (b)hierarchical relationship among individuals
- Definitions on status referred to in the paper:
- social status is a subjective judgement of social rank based on a hierarchy of values"
- status is a signal of quality
- status is socially constructed, intersubjectively agreed-on and accepted ordering or ranking of individuals, groups organizations, or activities in a social system
- Status is different from cognate concepts such as legitimacy and reputation
- Status conceptually and empirically differs from reputation; status, unlike reputation, generates privileges not related to performance.
- Status is different from legitimacy; the latter relates to degree of consistency with societal expectations
- It is argued that status is not only a means, but an end in itself.
- Status needs to be socially shared through consensus
- At macro level, status compensates for uncertainty in markets and translates to cost advantage
- High-status actors gain more from subsequent high-status affiliations than low-status actors
- Status inconsistency refers to both negative and positive influence of social position on status
- Status loss can occur purely as a result of organizational policies too.
- Status could hamper performance because of complacency and distraction.
- Organizations can provide context for societal-level status characteristics to be re-activated/de-activated.
- Expertise assessment can be conceptualized as status-organizing process.
- Status measures can be clustered into: (a) deference; (b) certification; and (c) ranking
- At the macro level, status is measured as Bonacich's centrality - in which status of an actor is dependent on the status of others he/she is connected to.
- Potential areas of future research:
- status and social networks
- status homophily
- status hierarchy emergence
- multilevel status effects
Quick comments:
- The article, perhaps due to limitation of space, does not provide for:
- conceptual/empirical distinctions of status from reputation, legitimacy, respect, prestige, esteem and honour at the micro level
- relationship and difference between power and status
- evaluation of applications of sociological theories (particularly status characteristics and status value theories) to organizational context
- measures of status used at micro-level
- specific questions for future research at the micro-level
- Are informal hierarchies based on power and status in organizations different? Do they merge into one hierarchy at some stage of group evolution?
- When do high-status actors benefit from low-status affiliations?
- When does status become more a liability than an asset? What unique challenges confront high-status actors?
- Does Matthew Effect apply to status?
- How does status transfer from one domain to another (work or nonwork)?
Reference paper:
Piazza, A., & Castellucci, F. (2014). Status in Organization and Management Theory. Journal of Management, 40(1), 287-315.