Emerging research has recognized the presence of multiple status hierarchies, where members may occupy a higher position in one hierarchy but a lower one in another hierarchy compared to their interaction partner. However, we remain unclear about how this situation, referred to as dyadic status incongruence, impacts interactions and coordination within dyads, which are crucial for collective goal accomplishment. Drawing upon status inconsistency theory, we propose that dyadic status incongruence hinders members’ coordination by decreasing interpersonal liking and information seeking due to disagreements over each other’s status rankings. However, we expect team specialization to weaken these effects by directing members’ focus towards specialized expertise and shared accountability rather than relative rankings. Using polynomial regression and social relations modeling, our analyses revealed that dyadic status incongruence, based on education level and organizational tenure, negatively influences interpersonal liking and information seeking, thereby impeding dyadic coordination. Besides, team specialization can mitigate the detrimental effects of dyadic status incongruence on coordination via interpersonal liking. These findings contribute to the literature on status and team microdynamics, and provide practical implications for harnessing the benefits of team diversity.
