Teachers College of Columbia University, United States
Despite their increased presence at entry level of the professional workforce in the U.S., individuals with marginalized racial identities continue to be significantly underrepresented in the upper echelons. The first goal of this paper was to conceptualize such prevalent hierarchical representation gaps with the construct of management racial representativeness—which refers to the level of congruence in racial compositions among entry-level employees vis-à-vis upper management—and investigate how perceived management racial representativeness influences racial minorities’ workplace expectations and attitudes. The second goal was to explore the extent to which sponsorship behaviors—which refer to a specific set of instrumental behaviors aimed at amplifying employees’ chances for advancement—enacted by individual managers may moderate the impact of perceived management racial representativeness. The study findings demonstrate that perceived lack of management racial representativeness led racial minorities to hold negative expectations regarding their own advancement prospects, and that these negative expectations, in turn, resulted in negative workplace attitudes. Moreover, while manager sponsorship behaviors did not serve to mitigate the negative impact of low management racial representativeness, they independently positively influenced racial minorities’ expectations of advancement and subsequently their attitudes. These findings illustrate that management racial representativeness and manager sponsorship may act as two independent—and equally impactful—levers for fostering an organizational environment in which upward job mobility is perceived as accessible to all racial groups and is intentionally pursued at multiple levels.
