USI community

Audience Structure and Status Multiplicity: seminar given by Balazs Kovacs (USI)

Thursday 11 October 2012
12:30
Room 254

Status is a central concept in social and organizational theories. Most status research implicitly assume that in the population they study status rankings are universally agreed upon, but we assert that status is embedded in audiences and might vary both within and across audience segments. We argue that embracing status multiplicity is important as it is local status, i.e., status as perceived by audience members the actor is dealing with, that drives action. We posit that the more fragmented audiences are, the more likely status multiplicity will arise; and while high-status (low-status) actors are often recognized as high (low) status in multiple domains, the status of middle-status actors are likely to vary across audience segments. We introduce a method to map out status multiplicity, and demonstrate through a dataset of academics, journals, and departments how the status of journals differs within and across audiences. We close with discussing the theoretical implications of status multiplicity.