Abstract
This article investigates the role of status and status symbols for management consulting firms (MCF). MCF have had a high reputation as preferred employers. The reputation of a company in comparison with other companies leads to the emergence of a ranking system and the constitution of the firm's status among its peer companies. Highly respectable companies tend to have a high status among members of the compared group. The status of the company determines to a certain degree the status of its owners and employees. As status is widely considered to have economic value for the company, teams and individuals. MCFs are attractive employers that promise to provide their stakeholders with the benefits of a high status. Yet, status itself is not tangible. Thus people use status symbols to signal their status to others and thereby avoid troublesome ascertainment. Not surprisingly top management consultants, in particular, are well-known for their use of various forms of status symbols to express, for example, their self-assessment of elitism. The term status can be defined as a concept that describes social positions and social ranks and determines relative standings of the members of a social entity. It also bears organizational relevance because it motivates people and models their behavior either as an end in itself or as a means to an end and affects individual, group and organizational performance as it serves on the one hand as an inter-personal coordination mechanism, and on the other hand it motivates people.