MOTIVATION TO LEAD AND ASIAN AMERICAN ENGINEERING MANAGERS.

A research effort intended to explain why Asian American engineers are underrepresented in management at American companies is described. Specifically, the literature establishes that Asian Americans generally outperform European Americans in American schools and yet Asian American engineers are underrepresented in leadership roles in American companies. Furthermore, the literature establishes individualism and collectivism as antecedents to motivation-to-lead. Accordingly, a cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted using validated instruments to measure (a) four patterns of individualism and collectivism, and (b) three factors of motivation-to-lead. These data were used to test seven hypotheses which reflected the notion that as Asian American engineers experience their Asian culture in an American context, their overall motivation to lead may be less than their European American coworkers. Furthermore, the data were also used to test three hypotheses relating to how engineers' motivation to lead differs from non-engineers, regardless of culture. Three findings emerged from the analysis. First, Asian American engineers do experience higher levels of vertical collectivism than European American engineers. Second, although differences in vertical collectivism exist, there was no difference between the motivation-to-lead between the Asian American engineers and the European American engineers. Third, regardless of culture and ethnicity, engineers experience less social/normative motivation to lead than non-engineers. Taken together, it is theorized that the perception that Asian American engineers do not want to lead may be rooted in a failure to recognize that observed lower levels of motivation-to-lead may be due to occupation (engineer) rather than culture (Asian). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]