A talk of interest to the Center for Organizational Research community…

Wednesday, March 18, 2015
3:30pm-5:00pm (reception to follow)
SB1 5400
(Lyman Porter Colloquia Room)

Sarah Otner
University of Oxford, Saïd Business School, Post-Doc
Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation
“The Perception of Status: How third party observers infer status from network position”

Abstract:
We explore whether, how, and when TPOs’ perceptions of the social relationships of other individuals influence their (TPOs’) identification of other’s social status. We contend that an attributional process informs these inferences. In this context, the TPO attributes an event – the social relationship between two persons – either to its cause, or to the respect and admiration that one member of a dyad has for another. We propose that a TPO may attempt to construct a causal explanation for the presence and direction of an observed tie between ego and alter. By conceptualizing the information-processing mechanism underlying the TPO’s inference of status as an attributional process, our theoretical framework can account for differences in the accuracy of a TPO’s perception of ego’s ties, which may help to explain variance in how a TPO determines the status of Ego. We explore these questions in a series of laboratory experiments.