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The Organizational Selection of Status Characteristics: Status Evaluations in an Open Source Community

Author

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  • Alison J. Bianchi

    (Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242)

  • Soong Moon Kang

    (Department of Management Science and Innovation, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom)

  • Daniel Stewart

    (School of Business Administration, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington 99258)

Abstract

Organizations mediate societal cultural belief systems and group-level encounters by filtering, and sometimes transforming, social information regarding which status characteristics are salient during group encounters embedded within organizations. This study uses status characteristics theory to add to our understanding of social status within organizations by explaining why organizations matter in determining which status characteristics will be activated within task groups. By analyzing status rankings within an organization of open source software programmers, we find that the organization develops its own unique shared belief system, which inculcates actors with beliefs about status characteristics that are potentially unique within the boundaries of the organization. Specifically, in this study we find that through a process of status generalization, organizational members create new status markers (location) that are potentially only meaningful for the given social situation, and they selectively nullify others (education and age). To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first work in the expectation states tradition to demonstrate an outcome for an organization-level selection process for status characteristics. This paper adds to status characteristics theory by empirically analyzing how organizational contexts create boundaries around groups in which new and extant status characteristics are activated and in which predefined characteristics inherited from more global, society-level contexts are deactivated.

Suggested Citation

  • Alison J. Bianchi & Soong Moon Kang & Daniel Stewart, 2012. "The Organizational Selection of Status Characteristics: Status Evaluations in an Open Source Community," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 341-354, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:23:y:2012:i:2:p:341-354
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1100.0580
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Ya-Ru Chen & Randall S. Peterson & Damon J. Phillips & Joel M. Podolny & Cecilia L. Ridgeway, 2012. "Introduction to the Special Issue: Bringing Status to the Table—Attaining, Maintaining, and Experiencing Status in Organizations and Markets," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 299-307, April.
    2. Seigner, Benedikt David Christian & Milanov, Hana & Lundmark, Erik & Shepherd, Dean A., 2023. "Tweeting like Elon? Provocative language, new-venture status, and audience engagement on social media," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2).
    3. Yan Liu & Long Lam & Raymond Loi, 2014. "Examining professionals’ identification in the workplace: The roles of organizational prestige, work-unit prestige, and professional status," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 789-810, September.
    4. Natalia Levina & Manuel Arriaga, 2014. "Distinction and Status Production on User-Generated Content Platforms: Using Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Production to Understand Social Dynamics in Online Fields," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 468-488, September.
    5. Jürgen Bitzer & Ingo Geishecker & Philipp J. H. Schröder, 2017. "Is there a wage premium for volunteer OSS engagement? – signalling, learning and noise," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(14), pages 1379-1394, March.
    6. Erin A. Cech & William R. Rothwell, 2020. "LGBT Workplace Inequality in the Federal Workforce: Intersectional Processes, Organizational Contexts, and Turnover Considerations," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 73(1), pages 25-60, January.

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    group structure; organizational behavior;

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