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Prior research assumes that high-status actors have greater organizational influence than lower-status ones, that is, it is easier for the former to get their ideas and initiatives adopted by the organization than it is for the latter. Drawing from the literature on ideology, we posit that the status-influence link is contingent on actors' ideological position. Specifically, status confers organizational influence to the degree that the focal actor is ideologically mainstream. The more an actor's ideology deviates from the mainstream the less will her status translate into increased organizational influence. We find support for this hypothesis using data on the work of legislators in the House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress. By illuminating how and under what conditions status leads to increased influence, this study qualifies and extends current understandings of the role of status in organizations.

We study the relationship between choice homophily in instrumental relationships and individual performance in knowledge-intensive organizations. Although homophily should make it easier for people to get access to some colleagues, it may also lead to neglecting relationships with other colleagues, reducing the diversity of information people access through their network. Using data on instrumental ties between bonus-eligible employees in the equity sales and trading division of a global investment bank, we show that the relationship between an employee's choice of similar colleagues and the employee's performance is contingent on the position this employee occupies in the formal and informal hierarchy of the bank. More specifically, homophily is negatively associated with performance for bankers in the higher levels of the formal and informal hierarchy whereas the association is either positive or nonexistent for lower hierarchical levels.