Chapter VIII covers the topic of social status and, specifically, the ways people gain it. The book provides an apt division between the types of social status based on how it is acquired. It distinguishes what it refers to as achieved and ascribed status, with the primary difference being the means of obtainment. While the first requires personal accomplishments, the second is assigned based on the societal perception of being. For example, a higher status can be ascribed to someone based on their better education due to their potential success in work, even if it has not happened yet.
In different communities, preferences for assigning a person a specific social status vary. The cultures with different ways of appointing it are respectively named achieving and ascriptive. This varying attitude often correlates to the region’s economics, with those cultures favoring status ascription as “economically backward” (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 2020). According to their worldview, financial success and commercial achievements do not contribute to a person’s status, which is thought to hinder economic development.
On the other hand, ascribed status can become what the book calls a “self-fulfilling prophecy” (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 2020). The French geologists’ example in this chapter clearly shows that attempts to live up to one’s ascribed status can result in better performance. That explains the notion that achieved status and ascribed status vary on paper, yet they are highly intertwined when it comes to real-life practice.
This chapter notes that working with people who emerge from a culture with a different attitude to status can be challenging when it comes to communication. However, it also states the importance of reconciliation. It gives the reader an understanding that, despite the different approaches, there is, in fact, no way for the ascription to exist without achievement and vice versa. Therefore, all societies inevitably have both aspects as necessary to their ways of assigning a social status, and the actual difference lies in where the initial nomination originates.
Reference
Hampden-Turner, C. & Trompenaars, F. (2020). Riding the waves of culture: Understanding diversity in global business. Hachette UK.