ABSTRACT
The theory of status characteristics describes the evolution of a status organization process in a task situation. A status characteristic is any characteristic around which expectations and beliefs about actors come to be organized. In this chapter, the authors distinguish between what they call the level of the social framework and the level of the situation of action. The elements in a social framework may be cultural, including things as norms, values, beliefs, and social categories; formal, such as institutionalized and formalized roles and authority positions; or interpersonal, such as enduring networks of sentiments, influence, and communication. The conception of a state organizing process has certain features that imply particular ways of solving micro-macro problems in sociology. Social processes occur in situations of immediate action that have stipulated properties and features. In the status characteristics theory the activating events are collective tasks, the outcome states of which are capable of being evaluated in terms of team success or failure.
