Leadership perceptions as a function of race-occupation fit: the case of Asian Americans

On the basis of the connectionist model of leadership, we examined perceptions of leadership as a function of the contextual factors of race (Asian American, Caucasian American) and occupation (engineering, sales) in 3 experiments (1 student sample and 2 industry samples). Race and occupation exhibited differential effects for within- and between-race comparisons. With regard to within-race comparisons, leadership perceptions of Asian Americans were higher when race-occupation was a good fit (engineer position) than when race-occupation was a poor fit (sales position) for the two industry samples. With regard to between-race comparisons, leadership perceptions of Asian Americans were low relative to those of Caucasian Americans. Additionally, when race-occupation was a good fit for Asian Americans, such individuals were evaluated higher on perceptions of technical competence than were Caucasian Americans, whereas they were evaluated lower when race-occupation was a poor fit. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that race affects leadership perceptions through the activation of prototypic leadership attributes (i.e., implicit leadership theories). Implications for the findings are discussed in terms of the connectionist model of leadership and leadership opportunities for Asian Americans.