TY - JOUR
T1 - The Dark Side of Status at Work
T2 - Perceived Status Importance, Envy, and Interpersonal Deviance
AU - Den Nieuwenboer, Niki A.
AU - Kish-Gephart, Jennifer J.
AU - Treviño, Linda K.
AU - Peng, Ann C.
AU - Reychav, Iris
N1 - Funding Information:
We extend our thanks to David Harrison, Stephen Humphery, and Nathan Pettit, as well as to the participants of the 2014 Behavioral Ethics Workshop at the University of Central Florida, for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts. We also thank Scott Reynolds and our anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback throughout the review process. We extend our appreciation to the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, which supported this research with a Hackworth Research Grant, and to the Alumni Association of the University of Arkansas, which also helped fund some of this research. 1
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Business Ethics.
PY - 2023/4/28
Y1 - 2023/4/28
N2 - Organizations differ in the extent to which they emphasize the importance of status, yet most extant research on the role of status at work has utilized a limited view of status as merely a matter of a person's status rank. In contrast, we examine people's perceptions of the extent to which having status matters in their work context and explore the behavioral implications of such perceptions. We offer a new construct, perceived status importance, defined as employees' subjective assessment of the degree to which people within their organization are preoccupied with status. Relying on social comparison theory, we propose that higher perceived status importance triggers envy, which leads to interpersonal deviance. Across three studies, using multiwave survey and experimental designs, we find support for these relationships. We also find support for the mitigating influence of core self-evaluations on the perceived status importance - envy relationship. Implications are discussed.
AB - Organizations differ in the extent to which they emphasize the importance of status, yet most extant research on the role of status at work has utilized a limited view of status as merely a matter of a person's status rank. In contrast, we examine people's perceptions of the extent to which having status matters in their work context and explore the behavioral implications of such perceptions. We offer a new construct, perceived status importance, defined as employees' subjective assessment of the degree to which people within their organization are preoccupied with status. Relying on social comparison theory, we propose that higher perceived status importance triggers envy, which leads to interpersonal deviance. Across three studies, using multiwave survey and experimental designs, we find support for these relationships. We also find support for the mitigating influence of core self-evaluations on the perceived status importance - envy relationship. Implications are discussed.
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U2 - 10.1017/beq.2022.2
DO - 10.1017/beq.2022.2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85129666865
SN - 1052-150X
VL - 33
SP - 261
EP - 295
JO - Business Ethics Quarterly
JF - Business Ethics Quarterly
IS - 2
ER -