Frontiers of Hierarchy Research: Socioeconomic Status (SES), Inequality, and Work

Socioeconomic status (SES), defined as one’s social standing determined by the absolute level of material resources that one possesses (Tan, Kraus, Carpenter, & Adler, 2020), has spurred inquiry in the social sciences across time and disciplines. Despite the fact that SES has gathered ample attention from other disciplines, it remains underrepresented in the management literature (see Leana & Meuris, 2015 and Pitesa & Pillutla, 2019 for exceptions). This limits researchers’ ability to explain employees’ behaviors, as SES is a critical factor that influences individuals’ attitudes and perceptions. To help advance the literature, our symposium features four papers that explore the influences of SES on different work- and non-work-related consequences—people’s judgments of and reactions to rich versus poor people, lower-SES employees’ experiences of cultural mismatch at work, and the impacts of upward-cross-class interactions. Taken together, these papers extend our understanding of the experiences of people from different SES backgrounds and generate new research directions for how the literature can move forward. The “Panacea Effect” in Judgment about Children and Adults with Wealth Presenter: Yufei Zhong; Georgia Institute of Technology Presenter: Huisi Li; Georgia Institute of Technology Presenter: Vanessa Lazaro; U. Of Chicago Presenter: Lin Bian; U. Of Chicago From “Team” Talk to Teamwork: Interdependent Values and Practices Benefit Lower-Class Employees Presenter: Andrea Dittmann; Emory U., Goizueta Business School Presenter: Nicole Stephens; Northwestern U. Presenter: Sarah S M Townsend; U. of Southern California The Social Costs of Upper-Class Networks: Network Social Class Reduces Prosocial Behavior Presenter: Siyu Yu; Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice U. Presenter: Jiyin Cao; Stony Brook U.-State U. of New York Upward Cross-Class Interactions at Work Presenter: Emily Sue Corwin; Bentley U. Presenter: Lauren Simon; U. of Arkansas