Status Classes in Organizations

Abstract

A theory is formulated from which a number of well-known properties of organizational status structures may be derived. It is then applied to the problem of assigning a new job to a place in the status structure. The theoretical formulation is concerned only with status in the sense of respect, worth, or esteem. It assumes two basic properties, a diffuse property and a balance property, and some notions of how status-valued states come to be related to each other. From this formulation, conditions are derived under which assignment of a new job will and will not disturb the stability of an organization's existing status structure.