Concept – Status symbols
Status symbols are visual and other means of recognition and identification of an individual’s status as also status distinctions in a group or an organization. They represent explicit evidence of relative ranking or graduations among positions in a hierarchy. They serve as convenient and clear guidelines to assess one’s status in a group or an organization.
Groups and organizations, whether formal or informal, have evolved several status symbols. In formal organizations, the most important status symbol is the job title or designation.
People holding lower status in an organization have their own status symbols also but they are different from those holding higher status. Even among officers, some get more privileges than others depending on their rank. Even freedom from punching the time card or signing the attendance register is a status symbol.
Many organizations customarily extend different status symbols to different ranks of their personnel not only in order to distinguish one rank from another, but also in recognition of the need for extending extra privileges to people holding higher positions.
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