要約

Purpose: Ethnic minorities are underrepresented in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including information technology. The purpose of this study was to better understand the negative effects of ethnic minority tokenism and the isolation of "solo" status. A solo is the only representative of his/her ethnicity in a workgroup. Design/methodology/approach: Using web-based survey data collected from 239 ethnic minorities working in information technology, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to compare the experiences of solos and non-solos. Findings: Compared to non-solos, solos were less likely to perceive equal opportunity in the workplace, reported less affective support from coworkers, and experienced less satisfaction with the social environment. There were no differences between solos and non-solos with respect to leader-member exchange, satisfaction with supervision, or instrumental coworker support. When as few as 1−9% of the workgroup were the same ethnicity as the focal individual, affective support and perceptions of equal opportunity were increased. Satisfaction with the social environment increased when the workgroup had at least 20% of similar others. Implications: There is no single ethnic minority experience at work. The relative representation of one's own ethnic group matters. Workplaces can eliminate the negative effects of solo status by increasing representation of a given ethnic minority group beyond 10% of a workgroup.