The impact of status hierarchy on individual behavior and team processes
Doornenbal, B.M.
2021
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Doornenbal, B. M. (2021). The impact of status hierarchy on individual behavior and team processes.
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SUMMARY
We live our lives in social hierarchies; we have families in hierarchies, we practice sports in hierarchies, and we work in hierarchies. Every social hierarchy, extensively formalized or not, has an informal ranking based on status – that is, esteem, prestige, and respect. Although status hierarchies are not always clearly visible, they do affect individuals and teams. A central proposition in the hierarchy literature is that hierarchy result in upward status-based deference – that is, individuals that yield to those higher in the hierarchy. Building on this proposition, individual-level research shows that individuals pursue status because receiving deference often results in greater self-worth and improved well-being and health. Team-level research suggests that upward status-based deference leads to processes related to coordination and conflict, and ultimately affects performance.
Although the importance of status hierarchy is widely recognized, knowledge on the impact of status hierarchy on individual behavior and team processes is still maturing. A current debate in the hierarchy literature surrounds the inconsistency of the impact of status hierarchy. Functionalist accounts argue that status hierarchy benefits teams, through coordination-enabling processes, whereas critical accounts argue that status hierarchy harms teams, through conflict-enabling states. Thus far, most studies suggest that status hierarchy has a negative impact on team performance. This negative impact both supports the critical accounts and suggests that the functionalist accounts need to be reconsidered. However, scholars argue that the lack of support for the functionalist accounts may be partly due to the complexity of studying hierarchy.
The concept and measurement of hierarchy is an important complexity in the study of hierarchy. Researchers often conceptualize hierarchy as disparity. Disparity is greater when the distribution of status (or other valued resources) is positively skewed – that is, when the hierarchy is pyramid-shaped ( ). When individuals perceive the hierarchy to be shaped like a pyramid, they are more convinced that the hierarchy is dysfunctional. As a result, the often-chosen concept of hierarchy – disparity – is more likely to support the critical accounts. To measure hierarchy, researchers often focus on either the average status-difference between high and low-ranking members, or the relative size of the top of the hierarchy. When the differences between high- and low-ranking members are large and the top of the hierarchy is small, hierarchy is argued to be a recipe for jealousy, competition, and conflict. Thus, the often-applied measurements of hierarchy also seem to be tailored to the critical accounts. Hence, in reconsidering the
functionalist accounts, scholars suggest studying the degree to which the conceptualization and measurements of hierarchy affect study outcomes.
In this dissertation, I respond to this suggestion by examining the impact of status hierarchy while studying the conceptualization and measurement of status hierarchy and its purported outcomes. The goal of my work is to increase the understanding of the impact of status hierarchy on individual behavior and team processes. I focus on three research questions: (1) “what are the consequences of the choice of the conceptualization and associated measurement in studies on the impact of hierarchy?”, (2) “how does the influence of status hierarchy vary across functional group processes?”, and (3) “when does upward status-based deference
occur?” These research questions are addressed across the six chapters of this dissertation.
Chapter 1 describes the focal concepts, introduces the research questions, and provides an overview of the dissertation chapters. At the end of the chapter, validity is presented as an overarching theme that is vital to studying and
understanding the impact of status hierarchy. By introducing the theme of validity, this chapter highlights the broader perspective from which I conducted the studies. This broader perspective is used throughout the dissertation as a framework through which I reflect on the study findings and – ultimately – attempt to strengthen the development of the theory.
Chapter 2 advances the conceptualization and measurement of status hierarchy and demonstrates that this advancement helps to understand functional group processes and – in turn – team performance. Based on a survey study, this chapter shows that status hierarchy can hurt team performance when the hierarchy is pyramid-shaped ( ), through lower levels of information elaboration – that is, a learning-related process. While advancing the conceptualization and
measurement of status hierarchy, hierarchy skewness is introduced as a hierarchy concentration measure. Hierarchy skewness helps to overcome a shortcoming of existing hierarchy concentration measures. Moreover, I demonstrate that the combination of hierarchy steepness and hierarchy skewness – i.e., the steepness-skewness interaction – helps to measure the concept of disparity.
Chapter 3 further uncovers the relationship between status hierarchy and functional group processes by measuring status hierarchy as the
steepness-process, the focus is on efficiency-related processes. Based on an archival study and a vignette study, this chapter finds that teams coordinate worse when their hierarchy is shaped as an inverted pyramid ( ). No support was found for a mediating role of deference, the process of yielding to others, in the relationship between status hierarchy and team outcomes. Taken together, this chapter further supports that the steepness-skewness interaction helps to study the impact of status hierarchy and suggests that status hierarchy might benefit teams less than expected.
Chapter 4 aims to contribute to the understanding of when upward status-based deference occurs. Based on an experiment, support is provided for the impact of goal orientation, together with self-efficacy, on upward status-based deference to low-quality input. The results of the experiment suggest that not all individuals defer more to higher-status partners. Because upward status-based deference is argued to mediate the relationship between status hierarchy and team outcomes, the findings suggest that the characteristics of team members may affect the impact of status hierarchy.
Chapter 5 creates clarity about when and why to measure hierarchy either as the steepness-skewness interaction or as Krackhardt’s hierarchy measure. The aim of this chapter is to reduce inconsistent use of hierarchy operationalizations and avoid mistaken research conclusions caused by misfits between
operationalizations and conceptualizations. Besides conceptually addressing the differences and similarities between the hierarchy measures and the
difference between the steepness-skewness interaction and Krackhardt’s hierarchy measure through a survey study and simulation studies.
Chapter 6 summarizes the findings of this dissertation and discusses the answers my research provides to the research questions. While discussing the answers to the research questions, this chapter reflects on the theoretical implications of my work, elaborates on the limitations of the studies, and suggests avenues for further research. The broader perspective on validity, as introduced in Chapter 1, is used to reflect on the research findings. This chapter concludes with recommendations for practitioners.
Collectively, the studies in this dissertation help to answer the research questions. Regarding RQ1, addressed in Chapters 2 and 5, my findings suggest that the choice of the conceptualization and measurement affects study outcomes. In particular, my findings suggest that (a) the hierarchy conceptualizations disparity and acyclicity, and their associated measures, represent different concepts, and (b) that combining hierarchy measures in studying hierarchy can help to explain team processes. Regarding Q2, addressed in Chapters 2 and 3, my findings indicate that the influence of status hierarchy on learning-related processes and efficiency-related processes – which are both functional group processes – can be very different. I found that pyramid-shaped hierarchy ( ) can hinder a learning-related process (information elaboration), and hierarchy shaped like an inverted pyramid ( ) can hinder efficiency-related processes (coordination efficiency and implicit coordination). Regarding RQ3, addressed in Chapters 3 and 4, my findings suggest that the impact of status hierarchy on upward status-based deference may be contextually dependent. Upward status-based deference may depend on the
personal characteristics of the individuals within the hierarchy. In an experiment, I found that low self-efficacy individuals that have a performance-avoidance goal orientation, in contrast to a performance-approach goal orientation and learning goal orientation, defer more to higher-status peers.
This dissertation contributes to the understanding of the impact of status hierarchy on individual behavior and team processes. First, this dissertation demonstrates that conceptualizing and measuring (about) the shape of hierarchy is important in studying the impact of hierarchy. As mentioned above, hierarchy is often conceptualized as disparity – which is greater when it is pyramid-shaped ( ). This dissertation shows that hierarchy can have a stronger impact when it is shaped as an inverted pyramid ( ) and proposes a way to conceptualize and measure the shape of hierarchy. This advancement is relevant because it implies that the impact of status hierarchy can be better understood by broadening the view on hierarchy beyond hierarchy as disparity. Second, my work suggest that distinguishing types of functional group processes can help to understand the influence of status hierarchy on functional group processes. If hierarchy has opposing effects between different functional group processes, such as in my studies, meta-analyses focused on the overall relationship between hierarchy and functional group processes might yield incomplete (or even misleading) insights. For example, a non-significant impact of pyramid-shaped hierarchies ( ) on efficiency-related processes might balance out a negative impact of these hierarchies on learning-related processes. Finally, my work on upward status-based deference challenges the central proposition that status hierarchy benefits teams through upward status-based deference. My findings indicate that status hierarchy does not
always result in upward status-based deference, which is an explanation for the lack of support for the functionalist accounts.
