Abstract
AbstractResearch supporting the Matthew effect demonstrates that high‐status actors experience performance benefits due to increased recognition of their work and greater opportunities and resources, but recent research also indicates that high‐status actors face a greater risk of negative performance evaluations. In this paper, we seek to contribute to the status literature by reconciling these findings and ask: To what extent does status influence heterogeneity in performance evaluations? We explore how project leader status affects the performance of innovation projects in the video game industry. We hypothesize that there is an inverted U‐shaped relationship between project leader status and project performance, and a positive relationship between project leader status and performance extremeness (i.e., performance variation). In order to test our hypotheses, we analysed the performance of video game projects and computed the status of project leaders by applying a project affiliation social network analysis. We find that an intermediate level of status – neither too much nor too little – is positively associated with average project performance. We also reveal more extreme performance effects for high‐status leaders: While some achieve superior project performance, others experience significant project failures. We, therefore, provide important theoretical and practical insights regarding how status affects the implementation of innovations. We also discuss the implications of these findings for the literature on middle‐status conformity.
Highlights
Ever since Merton coined the term ‘Matthew effect’ in 1968, there has been growing evidence that status has positive effects on performance
In this study we explored the performance effects of status in innovation projects, a context in which status shapes the expectations for project leaders
We showed that there is a curvilinear relationship between project leader status and innovation project performance and a positive association between status and absolute deviation from expected performance, which means that high-status project leaders tend to fail to meet these expectations
Summary
Ever since Merton coined the term ‘Matthew effect’ in 1968, there has been growing evidence that status has positive effects on performance (see Podolny, 2005; Sauder et al., 2012, for extensive reviews). The Matthew effect refers to the ‘rich get richer’ principle: Those who have high status are in a position to gain even more (Azoulay et al, 2014; Kim and King, 2014; Merton, 1968). People expect high-status actors to be able to continue to produce high-quality work. Such expectations can be beneficial to high-status individuals, inasmuch as it gives them more opportunities and resources for future projects
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