Business Commons^™

Exit, Voice, And Entrepreneurship: The Impact Of Identity Concerns On Underrepresented Minorities, Georgianna D. Melendez

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Despite organizations’ growing concerns over the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in the United States, not enough is known about the conditions that lead underrepresented minority professionals to exit organizations and become entrepreneurs. Through an intersectionality lens and using a phenomenological methodology to form descriptive themes, this study seeks to further explore the experiences of minority professionals in organizations. Specifically, the focus of the study is to understand the conditions prompting underrepresented minorities to become entrepreneurs and either straddle or exit when launching their ventures. Although underrepresented minorities launching their own businesses is not a new phenomenon, the idea …