UC Riverside

The current study explores the potential psychological explanations for the underrepresentation of Asian Americans (AAs) in management positions. Making AAs aware of their collectivist identities was expected to be related to lower leadership aspirations and intrapersonal leadership perceptions as compared to a no prime control group. Moreover, making AA leaders aware of their collectivist backgrounds was expected to be related to evaluating their followers positively according to Implicit Followership Theory. A new Social Identity Model of Organizational Followership (SIMOF) is proposed in this paper, in which AA individuals’ positive implicit followership theories are expected to be related to higher leadership aspirations and intrapersonal leadership perceptions. Two hundred ninety-nine AA undergraduates were primed with their collectivist vs. individualist cultural backgrounds and told that they would be developing a business plan with the colleagues in the room (other AAs or European Americans) based on their answers to leadership aspiration questions, intrapersonal leadership perception questions, and indirect measures of implicit followership theories. No actual business plan was created. Participants primed with their collectivist identity were more likely to have lower leadership aspirations and be more self-conscious about being a good leader than those primed with their individualist identity. Moreover, participants primed with their collectivist identities were more likely to view European American followers as worse citizens and as less industrious than AA followers. Finally, although the SIMOF was largely unsupported in this study, a relationship was found between viewing followers as enthusiastic and both leadership perception and leadership aspiration.