Organizational Support, Participation in Organizational Decision-Making, Organizational Politics, and Perceived Social Status among Faculty Members: The Mediating Effects of Status Seeking Styles

The aim of this study was to examine a psychosocial model of predicting perceived social status among faculty members. To this end, 135 faculty members in one of the state universities in Tehran, Iran, were recruited through convenient sampling. We used Perceived Organizational Support Scale (POSS), Perceptions of Organizational Politics Scale (POPS), Participation in Organizational Decisions Making Scale (PODMS), and Dominance and Prestige Scale (DPS) to collect data. Findings showed that 40% of participants believed that social status of academic careers has decreased in Iran since they have entered into their jobs. Perceived organizational support, perceived organizational politics, and participation in decision-making were associated with perceived social status directly and indirectly by the mediating role of prestige-based status-seeking style. The link between perceived organizational politics and perceived social status were negative, but there were positive associations between other factors in model and perceived social status. Then, we might conclude that perceived social status is determined by the quality of organizational support, political atmosphere in organization, participation in organizational decision-making, and prestige-based status-seeking styles. Faculty members with prestige-based status-seeking style had better feelings toward their job as a high social status job, which may facilitate their self- actualization