Doctoral Dissertation Research: Status and Authority in Small Organizations

我们知道这种地位，或者说人们相互尊重的程度，以及权力，或者一个人是否对另一个人发号施令，在组织中单独运作。然而，许多学术在等级观念下将这两种社会结构结合在一起，这使得人们很难发现每种结构如何可能是独一无二的。我们也不知道每种结构会随着时间的推移而发生怎样的变化。该项目通过询问组织状态和权限层次结构如何共同演变来解决这些差距。该项目调查了更高的地位是否与行使权力有关；行使权力是否会改变一个人的相对地位；这些变化的时间模式告诉我们什么是联系它们的机制。该项目研究了近三年来1700个组织的90,000多名员工的用户行为。这些发现有助于我们理解工作中不平等的演变，重点放在权力如何在较小的组织中运作，美国三分之二的净新增就业都是在较小的组织中创造的。在这样做时，它将就如何组织较小的工作场所以减少社会不平等提供政策指导。该项目通过询问小型组织中的地位和权力层次结构如何共同演变来分析动态的层次结构。为了衡量这些层次结构，该项目使用了来自项目和任务管理软件系统中的50亿用户操作的独特详细的匿名元数据。这些数据使人们有可能在近三年的时间里将1700个组织中90,000名个人的权力行使与其他行动分开。这些数据结合了对其中一个组织的三个月的参与者观察，以及对该组织和其他八个组织的经理和员工的采访。该项目提供了对期望状态理论以及关于地位、权威、等级及其演变的组织理论的见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

We know that status, or how much people defer to one another, and authority, or whether one individual gives orders to another, operate separately in organizations. However, much scholarship combines these two social structures under the notion of hierarchy, making it difficult to detect how each might be unique. We also do not know how each structure may change over time. This project addresses these gaps by asking how organizational status and authority hierarchies co-evolve. The project investigates whether higher status is associated with exercising authority; whether exercising authority changes a person's relative status; and what the temporal patterns of these changes tell us about the mechanisms linking them. The project studies user actions from over 90,000 workers in 1700 organizations over nearly three years. These findings help us understand the evolution of inequality at work, with a focus on how authority operates in smaller organizations, where two thirds of net new jobs in the United States are created. In doing so it will provide policy guidance regarding how smaller workplaces can be organized to reduce social inequality. This project analyzes hierarchies in motion by asking how status and authority hierarchies co-evolve in small organizations. To measure these hierarchies, the project uses uniquely detailed anonymized metadata from five billion user actions taken in a project-and-task-management software system. These data make it possible to separate the exercise of authority from other actions for 90,000 individuals in 1700 organizations over nearly three years. These data are combined with three months of participant observation at one of these organizations and interviews with managers and employees at it and eight other organizations. The project provides insights into expectation states theory as well as organizational theory regarding status, authority, hierarchy and their evolution.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.