Hierarchy and Its Discontents: Status Disagreement Leads to Withdrawal of Contribution and Lower Group Performance

Gavin J. Kilduff (), Robb Willer () and Cameron Anderson ()
Additional contact information
Gavin J. Kilduff: Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10012
Robb Willer: Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
Cameron Anderson: Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720

Organization Science, 2016, vol. 27, issue 2, 373-390

Abstract: Research on status and group productivity has highlighted that status hierarchies tend to emerge quickly and encourage contributions to group efforts by rewarding contributors with enhanced status. This and other status research has tended to assume that status hierarchies are agreed-upon among group members. Here, we build on recent work on status conflict in investigating the prevalence and consequences of situations in which group members hold differing perceptions of the status ordering—that is, of who ranks where—which we call status disagreement. Across two studies of interacting groups, we examined several different types of status disagreement and found that disagreements in which two group members both viewed themselves as higher in status than the other, or upward disagreements , were uniquely harmful for groups. These types of disagreements led the involved members to reduce their contributions to the group, substantially decreasing group performance. However, other forms of dyadic status disagreements, as well as overall levels of status consensus, did not significantly affect group functioning. Furthermore, we found that individuals higher in personality dominance were those most likely to be involved in these harmful upward disagreements. These findings demonstrate the importance of more thoroughly considering status disagreement as a dimension that can vary in quantity and type across groups. In doing so, they contribute to understanding of status dynamics and group performance and suggest important implications for teams within organizations.

Keywords: status; hierarchy; status disagreement; small groups; group performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2016.1058 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:27:y:2016:i:2:p:373-390

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().