Dynamics of Social Status : A Sociological Study of an Open Source Community

ISBN-13: 9783639119633 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 96 str.

Daniel Stewart

Opis

There exists in the literature on social status a tension between the forces that sort members of a community into differing social strata and the forces that constrain membership in relatively stable status orders. This study conducts a primary investigation into the manner in which social forces exert pressures that initially shape and define an actor s status, but eventually constrain an actor s movement in a status ordering. The results of empirical analyses of dyadic relationships within an open source software community present a vivid example of social cues at work in establishing both status mobility and stability. In the process of status formation, others will tend to evaluate a focal actor s reputation according to socially driven cues provided by others. Ironically, these same social forces eventually produce status stability. It is argued here that this effect is largely a product of both uncertainty reduction (through informational cues) and conformity (through normative forces).

O autorze

Received his PhD in Organizational Behavior and
MA in Sociology from Stanford University. Currently a professor
of management at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington USA.