Understanding Embedded Intergroup Relations

Abstract

This comment critically examines Yammarino and Jung's article titled "Asian Americans and Leadership: A Levels of Analysis Perspective" from the perspective of embedded intergroup relations theory. These authors address the absence of empirical research on the relationship between leadership and level of analysis and draw on empirical findings about individualism and collectivism to support arguments for leadership by dyads or whole groups, depending on the racial and ethnic makeup of work groups. Their strategy reflects an antitheoretical basis common among industrial and organizational psychologists, shows a lack of historical knowledge of group-level thinking about groups and organizations, demonstrates an exclusively internal focus for task group leadership, provides primarily an external emphasis for racial and ethnic group roles, and omits theoretical consideration of how work groups are embedded in organizations and organizations are embedded in regional cultures. Overall, the conceptual flaws present in the article are substantial and suggest that embedded intergroup relations theory is a preferred alternative to their point of view