Roles of ethnic identity and locus of control on the psychosocial and professional outcomes for ethnic tokens
PSYCHOSOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL OUTCOMES FOR ETHNIC TOKENS by CORIANNE M. BAZEMORE (Under the Direction of Kecia Thomas) ABSTRACT While the United States continues to see an increase of diversity in today’s workforce, the levels of that diversity are still not equal across many jobs and organizations. In many work places in our country there are ethnic token employees who struggle to prove their worth and competence in companies. Some companies are still employing just one or a few minority employees at a time, as they may be unaware that they could be putting them in compromised token situations. Thus they may struggle to understand the varying experiences of token employees which may affect their work-related outcomes. In the current study, we were interested in discovering if the level of ethnic token employees’ ethnic identity and their locus of control would affect their work engagement, burnout, and turnover intentions. The research also examined locus of control as a potential moderator of the relationship between perceived tokenism and burnout, as well as ethnic identity as a potential moderator of the relationships between perceived tokenism with engagement and turnover intentions.