The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

This literature review note attempts to review and import from Asian American studies into organizational behavior key aspects of the Model Minority Thesis literature as it relates to workforce diversity. The supportive and critical perspectives on the Model Minority Thesis are explored. On the supportive side, it is argued that Asian Americans are a Model Minority: too successful to be considered a disadvantaged minority. Supporters want other minority groups to emulate Asian Americans and to eliminate affirmative action. Critics disaggregate the statistics used by proponents and find a bimodal distribution; some Asian Americans are economically well off but run into a glass ceiling, whereas others are disadvantaged.

In this article, the author explores whether Asian Americans in science and engineering fit the image of a successful Model Minority and whether, compared to whites and blacks, Asian Americans have similar chances of moving into management. Drawing from National Science Foundation panel data, this study examines the likelihood of whites, blacks, and Asians moving into management across occupational fields and organizations. Results indicate that only in certain occupations and organizations are Asian American males and females doing as well as their white peers. In contrast, blacks seem to have mobility comparable to whites across fields and organizations. The racial patterns of the career mobility of scientists and engineers provide mixed evidence for the thesis that Asian Americans are a successful Model Minority in professional occupations.

In this article, the authors examine the social conditions experienced by Asian employees in the workforce, focusing in particular on the lower returns to education that have been documented for both immigrant and U.S.-born Asians. The authors suggest that human capital translates into improved career outcomes by producing greater social capital and hypothesize that those who are more socially and culturally different from the dominant group-such as native-born and immigrant Asians-are less likely to be able to turn human capital into social capital. The theory is illustrated using data from five work teams at the computer services division of a major bank that was staffed with a sizable number of immigrant Asians. The authors found lower returns to education for Chinese and Asian Indians than for European Americans, in terms of managers' assessment of career potential, and also found that education translated into work team centrality only for European Americans.

Asian American managers report using significantly lower levels of self-disclosure, self-focused impression management tactics, and supervisor-focused impression management tactics but more job-focused impression management tactics compared to European American managers. Asian Americans appear to use tactics that do not impress supervisors and do not make enough use of tactics that might pay off in improved supervisor-subordinate relationships and upward mobility. Further, supervisors are not impressed by the tactics Asian Americans believe they are using to impress their supervisors. Asian American managers' perceptions of the quality of supervisor-subordinate relationships are not in harmony with supervisors' perceptions of these relationships. European American managers seem to be in tune with their supervisors' perceptions of the quality of the relationship and the impression management tactics they report. If upward mobility is enhanced by good supervisor-subordinate relationships, this impression management gap may help explain why so few Asian American managers attain leadership positions.

The authors applied the Fishbein and Ajzen theory of attitudes to understand Asian Americans' beliefs and attitudes toward affirmative action programs (AAPs) in employment, emphasizing the (dis)similarity of Asians' attitudes to those of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. In two studies involving more than 1,000 participants, the authors found evidence of greater attitudinal similarity among Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics than between Asians and Whites. Asian U.S. citizens reported significantly more experience with workplace discrimination than did Whites, about the same as Hispanics, and less than Blacks. These reports of discrimination were significantly and positively correlated with attitude toward AAPs. These results, which are contrary to the Model Minority Myth, are discussed along with implications for further research and for affirmative action practices.

This study empirically examined the relationship between individuals' race and their union membership status, with particular emphasis on Asian Americans. Using a data set drawn from 14,178 respondents in the March 1996 Current Population Survey, the authors evaluated the predictions of three competing theoretical perspectives-the segmented labor market model, the assimilation model, and the self-protection model-on the union status of Asian Americans. Probit regression results showed that Asians are more likely to join unions than whites. Contrasted to the cases of blacks and whites, immigration-related variables (e.g., length of stay in the United States, naturalized citizens, and foreign nationals) were found to be more significant determinants of union status for Asians than the conventional explanatory variables of union status (e.g., earnings and age). These results are more compatible with the assimilation and the self-protection models than the segmented labor market model.