White Collar by C. Wright Mills — Read

The new office at once raises a hierarchy and levels out personnel. The hierarchy is based upon the power and authority held by the managerial cadre, rather than upon the levels of skill. The individual employee is a unit in an administrative hierarchy of authority and discipline, but he is also equal before it with many other employees. Within this hierarchy and mass, he is classified by the function he performs, but sometimes there are also ‘artificial' distinctions of status, position, and above all title. These distinctions, to which Carl Dreyfuss has called attention, arise on the one hand from the employee's need to personalize a little area for himself, and on the other, they may be encouraged by management to improve morale and to discourage employee ‘solidarity.'

In the enormous file, smaller hierarchies fit into larger ones and are interlinked in a dozen ways. There is a formal line-up expressed by titles, and beneath these, further gradations in status and rank. Rank does not always correspond to skill or salary level; in general, it is expressed in the authority to give orders. The managerial cadre, infiltrating all divisions and units, is the backbone of the hierarchy. Where one stands depends, first upon the extent to which one participates in the cadre's authority, and second, the closeness of one's association with its members. The private secretary of the top manager of a division may thus be superior in rank and status to the assistant manager of a division further down. Educational level and experience naturally lend status, but only secondarily. It is from the managerial cadre that esteem is derived and status borrowed.