Ethnic minority status, political capital, and executive turnover in China: The moderating role of ethnic autonomous regions.

Social categorization theory argues that ethnic minority executives are more likely to be ostracized by the majority. This in turn leads to these minorities quitting the organizations where they are currently working. However, the perspective of social categorization ignores the ethnic minority institutional backgrounds of different countries and regions. This study examined the inhibiting effect of ethnic minority status on executive turnover from the perspective of institutional theory and explored the potential mediating and moderating variables in the relationship. Based on 42,350 executive-year observations of A-share listed companies in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock market exchanges from 2009 to 2018 and their one-year lagged turnover data, ethnic minority status was found to promote executives' political capital and then decrease the subsequent turnover behavior of ethnic minority executives. Moderated mediation analysis revealed that the indirect negative effect of ethnic minority status on executive turnover through political capital was moderated by ethnic autonomous regions. The indirect negative relationship between ethnic minority status and executive turnover was found to be stronger when the executive is from a non-ethnic than an ethnic autonomous region. Our results have theoretical and practical implications for the management of ethnic minority executives and the design of ethnic minority institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]