To be or not to be political? Racialized cognitive scripts and political motivation

Abstract

How do employees become politically motivated? In this study, we examine how ethnic minority employees interpret political experiences at work and form motivations to act politically (or not) by uncovering attribution-based political scripts. We propose that cognitive scripts entail learning about the political landscape at work and motivational pathways (personal responses to the political landscape). Adopting a mixed methods approach, we interviewed 40 ethnic minority employees and extracted 810 spontaneous causal attributions about beneficial or detrimental career-related political experiences. Using latent class analysis, we identified how combinations of these attributions formed six political scripts. The content of these scripts revealed that most political experiences motivated participants to opt out of the political arena, unless political activity was legitimized or enabled by senior gatekeepers. Our findings advance scholarship on political cognition, political will, and racialized politics at work by highlighting how the wider organizational political environment shapes employees’ political motivation. We also demonstrate how politics can be perceived as racialized and offer practical suggestions for ways organizations can make workplace politics more racially inclusive.