Status in Management and Organizations

Shows how a better understanding of status can be used to address problems in a number of different organizational settings.

People go to extraordinary lengths to gain and defend their status. Those with higher status are listened to more, receive more deference from others, and are perceived as having more power. People with higher status also tend to have better health and longevity. In short, status matters. Despite the importance of status, particularly in the workplace, it has received comparatively little attention from management scholars. It is only relatively recently that they have turned their attention to the powerful role that social status plays in organizations. This book brings together this important work, showing why we should distinguish status from power, hierarchy and work quality. It also shows how a better understanding of status can be used to address problems in a number of different areas, including strategic acquisitions, the development of innovations, new venture funding, executive compensation, discrimination, and team diversity effects.

List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Foreword; Preface; 1. Introduction: the power of status Jone L. Pearce; Part I. How Status Differences are Legitimated: 2. Divergence in status evaluation: theoretical implications for a social construction view of status building Bilian Ni Sullivan and Daniel Stewart; 3. Maintaining but also changing hierarchies: what social dominance theory has to say James O'Brien and Joerg Dietz; Part II. The Influence of Status on Markets: 4. The importance of status in markets: a market identity perspective Michael Jensen, Bo Kyung Kim and Heeyon Kim; 5. On the need to extend tournament theory through insights from status research Michael Nippa; Part III. The Role of Status in New Industries and Ventures: 6. The cultural context of status: generating important knowledge in nanotechnology Tyler Wry, Michael Lounsbury and Royston Greenwood; 7. Venture launch and growth as a status-building process M. Kim Saxton and Todd Saxton; Part IV. When Ascriptive Status Trumps Achieved Status in Teams: 8. Status cues and expertise assessment in groups: how group members size one another up… and why it matters J. Stuart Bunderson and Michelle A. Barton; 9. The malleability of race in organizational teams: a theory of racial status activation Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt and Katherine W. Phillips; Part V. Status in the Workplace: 10. Resolving conflicts between status distinctiveness in individual identity: a framework of multiple identity displays Kimberly D. Elsbach; 11. Organizational justice and status: theoretical perspectives and promising directions Jerald Greenberg and Deshani B. Ganegoda; Part VI. Developing Status and Management Knowledge: 12. The value of status in management and organization research Jone L. Pearce; Index.

It is only relatively recently that management scholars have turned their attention to the powerful role that social status plays in organizations. This book brings together this important work, showing how a better understanding of status can be used to address problems in a number of different organizational settings.

Jone L. Pearce is Dean's Professor of Leadership and Co-director of the Center for Leadership and Team Development at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. She has published nearly ninety scholarly articles and is the author of four books, including Organization and Management in the Embrace of Government (2001) and Organizational Behavior: Real Research for Real Managers (2009). She is a fellow of the Academy of Management, the International Association of Applied Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.