The two aren't totally separable. Status calculations are a fundamental human behavior, and social systems tend to move in directions of class and hierarchy. (For more on this, the books Chimpanzee Politics by DeWaal and Impro by Johnstone are readable and very compelling. Consider also that absolute salary differences matter less for happiness than relative salary differences, which is economically insane but very human.)
I strongly believe that a lot of corporate idiocy is driven by hidden status games. E.g., the way that managers often have status in proportion to the size of budget or staff, which gives an incentive away from maximum efficiency.
Unconventional approaches to management push against this. E.g., the notion of servant leadership, or Toyota's explicit focus on management's responsibility to support the people doing the real work. Valve presumably has something similar.
