Dali Ma, PhD - LeBow College of Business, Drexel University

ABSTRACT

This study connects organizational status inquiry with social identity theory. We suggest that permeability of the boundary between status groups depends on (1) individual status in a professional community; and (2) physical distance between status-distant organizations. Analysis of co-authorship tie formation in academic accounting over a 30-year period indicates that faculty members from two status-distant academic departments were more likely to form a co-authorship tie if the person from the lower-status department was highly productive, or the two status-distant departments were physically far apart. These findings are consistent with our argument that individual status reduces anxiety/uncertainty over crossing organizational status boundary, and that physical proximity not only heightens the salience of organizational status boundaries but also provides more interaction opportunities for people from status-similar departments to reinforce organizational status boundary.

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