Jackson G. Lu PhD '18, a recipient of CJEB’s Doctoral Fellowship, authored a paper published in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Jackson G. Lu PhD '18, the Mitsui Career Development Professor and an Associate Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a recipient of CJEB’s Doctoral Fellowship, authored the paper "A social network perspective on the Bamboo Ceiling: Ethnic homophily explains why East Asians but not South Asians are underrepresented in leadership in multiethnic environments" published in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

The paper examines the puzzling "Bamboo Ceiling" phenomenon, whereby East Asians in the United States tend to be underrepresented in leadership roles. Professor Lu advances a social network explanation for this phenomenon: ethnic homophily. He theorizes that East Asians (e.g., ethnic Chinese)—but not South Asians (e.g., ethnic Indians)—are less likely than other ethnicities to emerge as leaders in multiethnic environments partly because East Asians socialize more with ethnic ingroup members (i.e., other East Asians). By uncovering the negative link between ethnic homophily and leadership emergence, the research suggests that bonding with people from different ethnic backgrounds can facilitate individuals’ leadership emergence in multiethnic environments.