Social Class as a Neglected Variable in Organizational Behavior

Social Class and Work: A Review and Organizing Framework

“…Despite early scholarly calls for research (Cotton, 1994; Holvino, 2002; Scully & Blake-Beard, 2006), the topic of social class in management studies has endured decades of near silence. Work by Côté (2011: 44) compellingly argued that social class “has potent, robust, and distinct effects on how individuals behave in organizations.” New theory (e.g., Gray & Kish-Gephart, 2013; Leana, Mittal, & Stiehl, 2012; Martin & Côté, 2019) and empirical research (e.g., Fang & Saks, 2021; Kish-Gephart & Campbell, 2015; Martin, Côté, & Woodruff, 2016; Sharps & Anderson, 2021; Wanberg, Csillag, Douglass, Zhou, & Pollard, 2020) followed, offering additional insight into the role and critical impact of social class in organizations.…”

“…Despite early scholarly calls for research (Cotton, 1994;Holvino, 2002;Scully & Blake-Beard, 2006), the topic of social class in management studies has endured decades of near silence. Work by Côté (2011: 44) compellingly argued that social class "has potent, robust, and distinct effects on how individuals behave in organizations."…”