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The resilience of immigrant Asian American women professional engineers in the construction industry

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The resilience of immigrant Asian American women professional engineers in the construction industry

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The Resilience of Immigrant Asian American: Women Professional Engineers in the
Construction Industry
by
Rapunzel J. Amador-Lewis

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education

May 2022

© Copyright by Rapunzel J. Amador-Lewis 2022
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Rapunzel Joan Amador-Lewis certifies the approval of this Dissertation

Ekaterina Moore
Wayne Combs
Cathy Sloane Krop, Committee Chair

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2022

iv
Abstract
The jobs for civil engineers are expected to increase substantially, with the anticipated need to
rebuild America’s aging infrastructure. The literature presented the alarming stagnation of
women pursuing civil engineering degrees and an even smaller pool of women persisting in the
profession. The literature recognized the overrepresentation of Asian American (AA) women in
STEM, but specific studies on the representation of immigrant AA women professional (civil)
engineers (PEs) were nonexistent. This study sought to understand the strategies used by
immigrant AA women PEs in navigating barriers to reach leadership positions in the field, how
they perceived their intersectional identities contribute to their resilience, and how they
perceived leaders’ roles in implementing inclusive organizational culture in the construction
industry. This study used a mixed-methods approach consisting of online surveys and semi-
structured interviews. The findings indicated the strategies used by the participants in
successfully navigating systemic barriers and how they leveraged their intersectional identities to
build resilience leading to leadership roles in the profession. Moreover, this study found that
influential leaders created psychological safety at work for the immigrant AA women PEs, but
more work could be done. By triangulation of mixed-methods data, the literature, and the
conceptual framework, this study generated three recommendations for practice. The limitations
and delimitations identified for this study informed the recommendations for future research. The
participants’ lived experiences generated insights into how leaders could foster inclusive cultures
to help attract and retain untapped human capital. A critical component of this challenge would
be to invest in the potential of all Americans by building a robust workforce that includes those
traditionally invisible in the field, such as the immigrant AA women PEs.

v
Dedication
To our daughters Kaila and Khiara Lewis: this dissertation is dedicated to both of you, two
strong women of color. It took me all my life to validate the experiences and barriers I have
encountered and continue to face as a first-generation Filipino-American woman professional
(civil) engineer in the construction industry. I didn’t see it before, but today, I understand the
systemic barriers you have experienced and the challenges ahead. Recognize your superpowers
as women with intersectional identities, draw strengths from your unique experiences, embrace
barriers as learning opportunities leading to success, share your stories to inspire others, and
most importantly, lift others and bring them with you to the top of the mountain. You both
continue to amaze and inspire me.

To our son Mason Lewis: watching you grow up with a solid moral compass, you have always
shown empathy towards others and stood against injustices. As you have just begun your career
in law enforcement, I am proud to know you will continue to serve the greater good as an officer
of the law.

To my dearest husband Geo Amador-Lewis, my best friend, my soulmate, and my partner for
life: you have been alongside of me since the beginning of this journey. You cooked, did my
laundry (folded and put away my clothes), watched my Zoom classes, took care of the dogs,
washed the dishes, mowed the lawn, raked the leaves, shoveled the snow, made me coffee,
watched Netflix, and talked to the neighbors. I am forever grateful for all the sacrifices in doing
all these alone, and for me, while I hibernated in my study space for eight semesters. I could not
have made it through without your unconditional support and companionship, I love you Babe!

vi
Acknowledgments
In loving memory of Dr. Viji Sundar. She was someone who impacted so many lives,
served the underserved, and brought so much light in very dark places. I am the leader you
nurtured me to be because you gave me wings so I could fly. Dr. Viji Sundar was my mentor,
second mom, and forever angel. She passed a few days after serving on my committee during my
proposal defense. It was the last hour I spent with her, but her soul will live in my heart. I finally
made it, Dr. Sundar!
I would like to thank my compassionate dissertation committee. To my chair Dr. Krop. I
am deeply grateful for your support, time, wisdom, and resilience in reviewing countless drafts
of my chapters to make me a better writer and researcher. But most importantly, I appreciate all
your accommodations to support the aggressive schedule to push this paper through one semester
ahead. To Dr. Moore and Dr. Combs, I sincerely value and appreciate your expertise, time, and
directions dedicated to help me improve my research. I am proud of the experience, knowledge,
and tools I gained through this study because of your guidance.
To my Cohort 16 sisters and brothers in the Saturday Breakfast Club, we fought through
the COVID-19 pandemic, stood in solidarity during the BLM and Stop AAPI Hate movements,
and offered support in times of illnesses and losses. I enjoyed every grinding Saturday hour
together and every beeping text that came from whatever part of the globe we stood on. I would
not have enjoyed and survived this academic journey without you! Let us continue our journey.
And to my beloved parents Amando and Aida Amador: thank you for giving me a moral
compass and raising me to believe in myself and be the best I can be. Thank you for your
continued loving support for Kaila and Khiara when we moved from California to Oklahoma in
2021. I love you very much and hope you finally get to enjoy your retirement in the Philippines.

vii
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ........................................................................................................................................v
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... vi
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................x
List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... xi
Chapter One: Introduction of the Study ...........................................................................................1
Context and Background of the Problem .............................................................................1
Stakeholder Groups for the Study ........................................................................................5
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions ...................................................................7
Importance of the Study .......................................................................................................8
Overview of Theoretical Framework and Methodology .....................................................9
Organization of the Study ....................................................................................................9
Chapter Two: Literature Review ...................................................................................................11
Social Marginalization of Women in Civil Engineering ...................................................11
Immigrant Asian American Experiences ...........................................................................15
Role Construction of Immigrant Asian American Women in STEM................................21
Support Systems for Immigrant Asian American Women in Engineering........................27
Summary of Review ..........................................................................................................30
Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................................31
Chapter Three: Methodology .........................................................................................................36
Research Questions ............................................................................................................36
Methodological Approach and Rationale ..........................................................................36
Population and Sample ......................................................................................................38

viii
The Researcher...................................................................................................................39
Data Sources ......................................................................................................................40
Participant Recruitment Strategy and Rationale ................................................................42
Data Collection Procedures and Instrumentation ..............................................................44
Data Analysis and Integration ............................................................................................46
Validity and Reliability ......................................................................................................48
Chapter Four: Findings ..................................................................................................................50
Participating Stakeholders .................................................................................................51
Results for Research Questions .........................................................................................57
Summary of Results and Findings .....................................................................................99
Chapter Five: Recommendations .................................................................................................102
Discussion of Findings .....................................................................................................102
Recommendations for Practice ........................................................................................125
Limitations and Delimitations ..........................................................................................142
Recommendations for Future Research ...........................................................................143
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................144
References ....................................................................................................................................148
Appendix A: Recruitment Email .................................................................................................168
Appendix B: Survey Protocol ......................................................................................................169
Appendix C: Interview Protocol ..................................................................................................173
Appendix D: Ethics ......................................................................................................................176

ix
List of Tables
Table 1: Data Sources 40
Table 2: Frequency Table of Characteristics of Survey Respondents 52
Table 3: Survey Respondents and the Five Characteristics of the Target Population 54
Table 4: Frequency Table of Characteristics of the Interview Participants (N = 6) 56
Table 5: Highlights of Participants’ Responses to Q2 59
Table 6: Comparison Analysis of Participants’ Responses to Q5 and Q12 63
Table 7: Comparison Analysis of Participants Educational and PE License Attainment 71
Table 8: Comparison Analysis of Participants’ Responses to Q4 73
Table 9: Variables Assigned to Leadership Influence and Inclusive Culture 83
Table 10: Descriptive Statistics for Respondents’ Perceived Values of Leadership Influence
and Inclusive Culture 84
Table 11: Correlation for Engineers’ Perceived Values of Leadership Influence and
Inclusive Culture 88
Table 12: Summary Table of Research Questions, Findings (Themes) and Sub-Themes 101
Table 13: Overview of Discussion of Findings and Links to Theoretical Framework and
Existing Literature 104
Table 14: Overview of Findings and Recommendations 126
Table 15: Summary of Recommendation 1 132
Table 16: Summary of Recommendation Two 138
Table 17: Summary of Recommendation 3 141
Table C1: Survey 169

x
List of Figures
Figure 1: Do I Qualify to Apply for the PE? 3
Figure 2: Proposed Infrastructure Funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 6
Figure 3: Conceptual Framework 35
Figure 4: Comparison of Average Values of Inclusive Culture and Leadership Influence 86
Figure 5: Correlation Between the Immigrant AA Women PEs’ Perceived Value of
Leadership Influence and Inclusive Culture 89
Figure 6: Correlation Between the Women PEs’ Perceived Value of Leadership Influence
and Inclusive Culture 91
Figure 7: Correlation Between the Men PEs’ Perceived Value of Leadership Influence and
Inclusive Culture 92

xi
List of Abbreviations
AA Asian American
ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers
CE Civil Engineering
EIT Engineer-In-Training
PEs Professional (Civil) Engineers
STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
SWE Society of Women Engineers
USBLS United States Bureau of Labor Statistics
USC University of Southern California
USCB United States Census Bureau
1

Chapter One: Introduction of the Study
America needed civil engineers (CEs) to rebuild its crumbling infrastructure (American
Society of Civil Engineers, 2021). One critical component of the U.S. response to this challenge
would be to invest in the potential of all Americans by building a robust CE workforce (National
Academy of Engineering, 2019). Women and racial/ethnic minorities, especially women from
African American, Asian American, Chicano/Latina, and Native American groups, represent an
untapped human resource that could increase America’s infrastructure vitality (Ong et al., 2011).
The U.S. Census Bureau (2020) reported that Asian American (AA) women accounted for 3.7%
of the U.S. workforce population, and they received 5.35% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded.
Immigrant AA women continue to be in junior-level leadership positions in the science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Min & Jang, 2015). They are not
advancing to leadership positions at the same pace as their male and White female counterparts,
despite their overrepresentation among bachelor’s degree holders (U.S. Census Bureau [USCB],
2020) and engineering and architecture professions (Jafari et al., 2020; Min & Jang, 2015;
USCB, 2020). This study explored the role of intersectional identities on the resilience of
immigrant AA women professional engineers (PEs) and understood the strategies they used to
navigate barriers while accessing equitable opportunities for advancement within the
construction industry.
Context and Background of the Problem
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE, 2021) defined professional (civil)
engineers (PEs) in the construction industry as licensed engineers who are responsible for
designing, building, and maintaining society’s infrastructure. While women accounted for about
55.4% of the workforce (USCB, 2020), they represented only 20% of the graduates with CE
2

degrees and only 9.7% of the CE workforce in the United States (USBLS, 2012). Moreover,
about one-third of the women eventually left the CE profession to change their career paths
(Ayre et al., 2013). Further evidence from an extensive survey of 700 women working in
engineering management capacity indicated 69% had experienced sexual harassment, and 33%
reported feeling isolated (Servon & Visser, 2011). Obtaining a PE license in CE was another
barrier. As an example, the State of California Department of Consumer Affairs provided a
mapping of the different pathways to qualify to apply for a PE license (See Figure 1). Each
applicant was required to pass an initial 8-hr state board examination to obtain an engineer-in-
training (EIT) certificate, obtain an engineering degree, have 2 to 6 years (varies depending on
pathway) of qualifying work experience in CE, and pass an 8-hr state of CA board exam in
addition to two 2½-hour California state-specific board exams in seismic and land surveying.

Figure 1
Do I Qualify to Apply for the PE?

3
4

Due to gender norms and expectations (i.e., family obligations, household duties), women
applicants tended to delay this process or chose not to apply for PE licensure (Cech et al., 2011).
These challenges directly contributed to the climate of gender inequality and women’s
persistence in the CE field, thus negatively impacting economic growth in the United States
(Ayre et al., 2013; Cech et al., 2011; Powell & Sang, 2015). There is a growing body of literature
on the need for improvements in the workforce climate to increase women’s participation,
retention, and recruitment in the CE field (Fouad & Singh, 2011; Ghiasi et al., 2015; Johnson,
2013; Manesh et al., 2020; Morello et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2018). While women’s
underrepresentation is a macro problem of practice within the construction industry, there is very
little knowledge on women of color in CE and hardly any literature on the participation of
immigrant AA women, specifically in the field of CE. Ross et al. (2021) recently contributed to
filling this gap in the literature by studying the experiences of Black women in engineering,
highlighting the compounded challenges and complexities associated with this group’s
intersectional identities.
Ong et al. (2011) reviewed nearly 40 years of empirical research on the postsecondary
educational experiences of women of color in STEM. They posited that the current
underrepresentation of women of color in STEM fields represented an underutilization of
America’s human capital. Contrary to this generalization, some researchers have examined the
concentration of AA in the STEM and healthcare fields and found that AA, both men, and
women, have a much higher representation in STEM than native-born White Americans (Chen &
Weko, 2009; Ma, 2011). Likewise, Min and Jang (2015) found that Asian male immigrants were
overrepresented in engineering and architecture compared to native-born White men by more
than two times. Furthermore, their research indicated that immigrant AA women had an even
5

higher overrepresentation in engineering and architecture than native-born White women by
about three times (Min & Jang, 2015). Although previous studies indicated the
overrepresentation of immigrant AA women in STEM, engineering, and architecture, none has
shown their concentrations within the different engineering fields by ethnic group and gender.
This study focused on the lived experiences of immigrant AA women who held PE licensure in
the field of CE.
Stakeholder Groups for the Study
In alignment with the problem of practice, this study identified two stakeholder groups,
the women PE members of the ASCE, Engineering Association X, and the women PE members
of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Engineering Association Y. Founded in 1852, ASCE
(2021) was the nation’s oldest engineering society and had a global membership of more than
150,000 of the CE professions in 177 countries. The ASCE was the professional society for the
designers and builders of society’s infrastructure, devoted to protecting the public’s health,
safety, and welfare. Through the expertise of its active membership, ASCE was a leading
provider of technical and professional conferences and continuing education, the world’s largest
publisher of CE content, and the authoritative source for codes and standards that protect the
public.
The U.S. Senate passed the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R.
3684) on August 10, 2021. According to Caroline Sevier, ASCE’s director of government
relations (ASCE, 2021), the 5-year bill included $550 billion in new spending above the current
baseline for existing infrastructure programs. This massive infusion of federal funding would be
allocated among nearly all the categories that ASCE tracks as part of its quadrennial assessment
of the state of U.S. infrastructure (Figure 2). Released in March 2021, the most recent such
6

evaluation, the 2021 Report Card for America ’s Infrastructure, assigned an overall grade of C-
to the nation’s infrastructure. The women PE members of ASCE were positioned to achieve the
change needed to help ASCE address the CE workforce shortage.

Figure 2
Proposed Infrastructure Funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

7

The women PE members of the SWE, Engineering Association Y, were the second
stakeholder group of focus. Founded in 1950, SWE (SWE, 2021) had a global membership of
40,000, from 300 collegiate member sections and 100 professional member sections. As a not-
for-profit educational and service organization, SWE moved to empower women to succeed and
advance in engineering, champion diversity in engineering and technology professions, advocate
for the inclusion and success of women engineers, and promote an inclusive engineering
environment. Moreover, SWE was the driving force behind establishing engineering as a highly
desirable profession for women through training and development programs, networking
opportunities, scholarships, outreach programs, and advocacy activities (SWE, 2021). The
women PE/CE members of SWE were positioned to advocate changes that promote diversity,
equity, and inclusion in the workplace to help attract and retain women PEs, positively impacting
the CE workforce shortage.
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions
This study aimed to understand the strategies used by immigrant AA women PEs in
building resilience to navigate the CE profession successfully and to identify the role of
leadership in supporting and implementing an inclusive organizational culture for immigrant AA
women PEs in the construction industry. The following research questions guided this study.
1. What strategies have been used by immigrant AA women PEs to successfully
navigate barriers to reach leadership positions in the civil engineering field?
2. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive their intersectional identities contribute
to their resilience in the construction industry?
3. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles of leaders in implementing an
inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry?
8

Importance of the Study
Women faced challenges in the male-dominant field of CE, where men used gender to
reinforce boundaries despite women’s active effort to challenge gender interaction and
engineering identity (Denissen, 2010). A transformative paradigm held that research inquiry
needed to be intertwined with politics and political change agendas to confront social oppression
at whatever levels it occurred (Mertens, 2010). This paradigm informed this study as it placed
importance on the lives and the social marginalization that highlighted the disadvantages,
compounded by the intersectional identities immigrant AA women PEs face in a gender-biased
CE profession, where male engineers and the exclusive engineering culture became the
oppressors (Denissen, 2010).
This study gave the immigrant AA women PEs the voices to describe how oppressors had
impacted their lives and understand their strategies to persist as they resisted, challenged, and
subverted these constraints. Furthermore, this study was crucial in understanding why
oppression, domination, and power relationships existed within these dynamics. Finally, this
study centered on the lived experiences of the marginalized individuals, who faced compounded
challenges due to their intersectional identities (Crenshaw, 1989), to understand how some
leadership practices supported an inclusive organizational culture for the immigrant AA women
PEs. As the nation pushed an ambitious but achievable agenda to rebuild and sustain its
infrastructure, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012) predicted a much higher than average
growth in jobs for CEs by 2022, approximately 19%, as a result of the nation’s current needs. A
critical component of this challenge was to invest in the potential of all Americans by building a
robust CE workforce that includes those traditionally marginalized in the field, such as
immigrant AA women PEs.
9

Overview of Theoretical Framework and Methodology
Bronfenbrenner’s (1974) ecological systems and intersectionality theory (Crenshaw,
1989) guided this study through a mixed research method of collecting data. This study primarily
used Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theoretical framework to address the problem of
practice. Bronfenbrenner suggested that an individual’s environment is a nested arrangement of
five interrelated ecological systems. The influence of one system on the individual’s life depends
on its relationship with the others (Salazar & Beaton, 2000). I also used the intersectionality
theory (Crenshaw, 1989) to examine how immigrant AA women PEs perceived the role of their
intersectional identities as they navigated the industry. Crenshaw (1989) first developed the
intersectionality theory to describe how the individual’s subordinate identities concerning race,
class, gender, and other individual identities intersected and formed a compounding effect on the
marginalized individual or groups of individuals. This study used a mixed-method approach
utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative approach was used to
administer a survey to recruit participants from two engineering associations. The survey results
were analyzed to select a purposive sample of six to 10 individuals willing to participate in
interviews for the qualitative approach method.
Organization of the Study
This study is organized into five chapters. The first chapter introduced the study and
discussed the purpose of the study, followed by the three research questions guiding the study.
The second chapter consists of the literature review encompassing the problem and scope of the
study to provide a broader perspective of the ecological system framework and intersectionality
theory relevant to the understanding of how immigrant AA women PEs built resilience to persist
in the CE profession. Chapter Three details the methodology regarding the choice of participants,
10

data collection, and analysis. In Chapter Four, I analyze and explain each research question’s
data findings and results. Finally, Chapter Five concludes this study with recommendations
based on data and literature and a discussion on how this study’s findings could increase the CE
workforce in the United States.

11

Chapter Two: Literature Review
Empirical research that examined the intersections of multiple identities of immigrant AA
women PEs practicing within the CE fields was sparse. In searching through the University of
Southern California (USC) Libraries, using the terms “immigrant Asian American women PEs
practicing in CE fields,” the database found no results published in the last decade. When the
search terms were broadened using “Asian American women in civil engineering,” only three
results emerged: one article, one book chapter, and one newspaper article. When the search terms
were modified to “Asian American women in STEM,” only 12 results emerged: six articles, four
reports, and two newspaper articles. However, when the search terms were further broadened
using “Asian American women in engineering” published within the last decade, 98 results
emerged: 48 reports, 31 datasets, eight articles, eight book chapters, and two newspaper articles.
To lay the groundwork for this literature review, four specific search terms were used to expand
the results: immigrant Asian Americans, immigrant Asian American women, Asian American
women in STEM, and women in civil engineering.
Consequently, this literature review examined selected peer-reviewed literature on
individual identities focusing on the structural barriers this minority group faced. The three main
topics to emerge from this literature review were social marginalization of women in CE,
immigrant AA experiences, and role construction of immigrant AA women in STEM.
Social Marginalization of Women in Civil Engineering
Women faced challenges of social marginalization resulting in gender inequality as they
pursued a career in CE within the male-dominant construction industry (Diekman et al., 2017).
Marxism’s social exclusion theory strongly influenced social marginalization theory, which
stressed the importance of social networks and symbolic boundaries (Denissen, 2010). Three
12

sub-topic areas emerging from the literature’s application of gender inequality due to women’s
social marginalization in CE were a sense of belonging, experiences of sexism and sexual
harassment, and negotiation of gender and engineering identity.
Sense of Belonging
Women in CE exerted more effort than their male counterparts to achieve a sense of
belonging. Ayre et al. (2013) found that employers successfully attracted and retained women
CEs when line managers strongly supported an inclusive culture. In a similar study, Smith et al.
(2018) examined the effects of a male-dominant culture on women’s perception of CE using
information from interviews with 13 women CEs who had at least 10 years of experience in the
profession. Smith et al. found that women CEs reported their feelings of isolation and invisibility
with an adverse, exclusive work climate and intent to leave the industry. In contrast, women
associated influence and power with positive work experiences (Smith et al., 2018).
In a case study of women in their first year of a demanding CE program, Walton et al.
(2015) used a randomized controlled trial with two brief interventions: social-belonging and
affirmation training. The social-belonging intervention aimed to protect students’ sense of
belonging in engineering by providing a narrative that posed no threat to navigating challenges
of adversity. The affirmation-training intervention aimed to help students manage the stress that
could arise from social marginalization by integrating various aspects of their self-identity into
their daily routines. Walton et al. found that both interventions raised women’s school-reported
grade-point average. Equally important, the interventions helped women to view daily
adversities as more manageable and increased friendships with male peers (Walton et al., 2015).
The study had two significant shortcomings: it focused on one college setting and female
students in all engineering majors (not specifically CE). Nevertheless, these early strategic
13

interventions (Walton et al., 2015), the association of influence and power with a positive work
climate (Ayre et al., 2013), and inclusive CE culture for women engineers (Smith et al., 2018),
the researchers argued, could help women cope with their negative experiences in a male-
dominated CE field. Women’s efforts to achieve a sense of belonging played a critical role in
their persistence in a male-dominated profession. Other prevailing challenges included women’s
experiences of sexism and sexual harassment within the construction industry.
Experiences of Sexism and Sexual Harassment
Women in the CE profession routinely combat sexism and sexual harassment, directly
impacting their decision to leave the profession. Ong et al. (2011) conducted a literature review
of 116 empirical studies over nearly 40 years of research on professional experiences. Ong et al.
found that women of color in STEM had heightened adverse social climate issues. For example,
women of color felt surveilled by their peers, where issues of sexism were a prevalent culture in
a masculine work environment (Ong et al., 2011). While there is a lack of literature on women of
color, specifically in CE, this study filled a literature gap on the intersection of gender, race, and
ethnicity for women of color in STEM and exposed their lived experiences of sexism.
According to data from a survey of 700 women engineers who worked in a management
capacity, Servon and Visser (2011) reported that 69% of the respondents have experienced
sexual harassment, and 32% received unwanted attention due to their feminine appearance.
Moreover, these women felt socially marginalized and repeatedly excluded from informal and
formal networking opportunities (Servon & Visser, 2011). Similarly, based on the findings from
three interview-based research projects, Powell and Sang (2015) described the challenges women
experienced in engineering and construction. Powell et al. used the work of Bourdieu,
particularly the concept of symbolic violence, to shed light on the continued dominance of White
14

men in engineering and construction and how the sector reproduced societal gender norms and
relations. Women who entered male-dominated occupations were challenging this traditional
boundary.
Consequently, the routineness of sexism and discrimination, coupled with inflexible
hours, often resulted in women’s high-stress levels (Powell & Sang, 2015). Sexism and sexual
harassment were often manifested through women’s experiences working in male-dominated
occupational contexts. These studies were valuable in understanding how the sociology of
everyday life revealed women’s challenges in negotiating gender and engineering identity.
Negotiation of Gender and Engineering Identity
Women in the gendered CE profession negotiated their gender and constructed their
professional identity in response to the work climate. Based on data from in-depth interviews of
51 women in the CE field in Southern California, Denissen (2010) claimed that men used gender
to reinforce boundaries. In contrast, women used gender as a tool by varying gender practices to
counter unfavorable stereotypes to break these boundaries. For example, Denissen found that
women in leadership roles identified themselves with masculinity and suppressed feminine
identities to demonstrate competence, confidence, and capability (Denissen, 2010). As women
struggled for inclusion, gender became both a liability and an asset. Likewise, Hatmaker (2012)
used the term role configurations to define how both men and women construct a professional
identity within the highly gendered CE profession. By interviewing 44 women and 14 men who
earned a degree in engineering from the same university and worked as engineers in the United
States, Hatmaker argued that women distanced themselves from the stereotypical nerd
engineering identity. Although the women often enacted the stereotype by invoking and
contrasting it to how they viewed themselves, they also embraced the more social or
15

stereotypical feminine roles (Hatmaker, 2012). Still, other researchers examined how
intersectional identities play a role in negotiating gender and engineering identity.
Carlone and Johnson (2007) argued that women of color in engineering have personal
agency and drive. Carlone and Johnson found that women of color often used their dual
subordinate status to empower themselves despite marginalization. Johnson et al. (2011)
concurred that the construction of gender in the African American community was congruent
with the personal characteristics needed for success in science: high self-esteem, independence,
assertiveness, and high educational and occupational goals. Equally important, exerting extra
efforts for meaningful social interactions and finding communal goals (Diekman et al., 2017)
influenced the women engineers’ sense of self and persistence (Ayre et al., 2013; Fouad et al.,
2016) in the CE profession. Nevertheless, women CEs questioned their fit in engineering, which
made them negotiate their gender identity while constructing their professional identity. The
experiences of women’s social marginalization in the CE profession were similar to the
immigrant AA experiences as a minority group in the United States.
Immigrant Asian American Experiences
Asian Americans represent a growing minority group in the United States, with about 1
in 10 American youth projected to be of Asian origin by 2060 (USCB, 2020). The USCB (2020)
classified Asians as having origins in any of the original people of the Far East, Southeast Asia,
or the Indian subcontinent, including China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, India, Cambodia,
Vietnam, and the Philippines. Three sub-topic areas emerging from the literature’s application to
the experiences of immigrant AAs are heterogeneity among AA ethnic groups, the stress of
acculturation, racial stereotypes, microaggressions, and macroaggressions.
16

Heterogeneity Among Asian American Ethnic Groups
Asian immigrants in the United States were diverse in national origins, socioeconomic
characteristics, and generational status. According to Fishman’s (2020) review of AA
immigration historical context, although some AA communities persevered before the mid-20th
century, most AA immigration occurred after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943
and the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, removing many legal barriers to
immigration from Asian countries. In comparison, most Japanese Americans immigrated with
their families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to settle in the United States. Fishman
pointed out that most Japanese Americans were the third generation or later, while most other
AA ethnic groups were primarily composed of immigrants and their children. Moreover, he
observed variation in educational attainment among AA ethnic groups, a product of different
immigrant selection and experiences within the United States (Fishman, 2020).
Many researchers agreed that the passing of the Hart Celler Immigration and Nationality
Act in 1965 also marked a milestone that facilitated nonimmigrant visas for highly educated
foreign workers in STEM occupations and provided predictable pathways to permanent
residency and citizenship, disproportionately issued to Chinese, Indians, and Filipino immigrants
(Fishman, 2020; Poon, 2014; Sharma et al., 2020; Zhou & Bankston, 2020). On the opposite
spectrum, the U.S. refugee policy welcomed immigrants from war-torn Vietnam, Cambodia, and
Laos from 1980 onward (Zhou & Bankston, 2020). Consequently, Poon (2014) found that race
and the social context of immigrant adaptation could affect the occupational trajectories of the
children of these AA immigrants. Through their experiences at home and on campus, with
immigrant Asian parents, family, friends, and classmates, AA undergraduate students faced
17

familial expectations and confronted social pressures that value the pursuit of careers in STEM
as a safe and practical choice, yielding financial rewards (Poon, 2014).
In a study of 110 articles published on the experiences of Southeast Asians and South
Asians’ journey to the United States, Sharma et al. (2020) found the U.S. political landscape
moved away from race-based to talent-based immigration, which facilitated the immigration of
highly-skilled professionals in these Asian ethnic subgroups in the last 50 years. According to
the USCB (2020), over 5.4 million South Asians lived in the United States and traced their roots
to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and the diaspora,
including Trinidad/Tobago, Guyana, Fiji, Tanzania, and Kenya. This number increased roughly
40% compared to the 2010 census (USCB, 2010). Hence, aggregating AAs and controlling for
generational status ignored heterogeneity among AAs. Instead, correctly specified AA
educational attainment models should disaggregate ethnicity by nativity (Fishman, 2020).
Since the majority of the sub-groups of AAs’ impetus to migrate came from academic
and career opportunities in the 1960s and beyond (Fishman, 2020; Poon, 2014; Sharma et al.,
2020; Zhou & Bankston, 2020), the financial, social and mental health struggles faced by this
group was under-recognized. One example of these mental health struggles common to all
immigrant AAs was acculturative stress (Hsu et al., 2012; Tikhonov et al., 2019; Yoon et al.,
2017).
Stress of Acculturation
Acculturative stress was associated with distress experienced by immigrant minority
groups, characterized by anxiety, depression, identity confusion, low self-esteem, and
psychosomatic symptoms (i.e., stomach pain, headaches, fatigue, worry about health),
particularly when the mainstream cultural values conflicted with heritage cultural values (Hsu et
18

al., 2012; Tikhonov et al. 2019; Yoon et al., 2017). In comparison, Western societies highlighted
individual achievement, rights, uniqueness, and autonomy, with a view of the self as independent
of others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), defining the Western standards of social behavior that
recognized confidence, candid communication, and competence. In contrast, Hsu et al. (2012)
suggested that East Asian cultural collectivist values often prioritized filial piety, a virtue in
which families were central to human identity, with a view of self as interdependent with
significant others and family, recognizing interpersonal harmony, communal goal congruity,
reticence, and emotional restraint. They also found that people of East Asian heritage reported
higher levels of social anxiety due to acculturative stress than people of Western heritage due to
cultural values discrepancy with the mainstream American culture (Hsu et al., 2012).
Similarly, researchers Tikhonov et al. (2019) investigated the link between depressive
and anxious symptoms with multiple indicators of cultural identity among 766 participants who
self-identified as first or second-generation immigrants. Although these researchers supported
increased integration of racial and ethnic minority immigrants into the U.S. society to improve
mental health, they argued that integration into U.S. society should not come at the expense of
losing cultural ties to immigrants’ heritage culture. Yoon et al. (2017) agreed that positive mental
health resulted when the individual’s environment cultivated a subjective sense of harmony
between ethnic and national identity. In their study of 13 adolescent children of East Asian
immigrant families, they found that these participants were culturally marginalized and were
more likely to be affected by acculturative stress, as they often had to navigate two different
cultures (e.g., home vs. school) on their own, while parents strongly fostered their ethnic culture
(Yoon et al., 2017). Depression and anxiety were mental health concerns frequently resulting
from stressors associated with migration and adaptations. This was especially true for racial and
19

ethnic minorities who were first or second-generation immigrants, who also frequently
experienced microaggressions, macroaggressions, and racial stereotypes and discriminations.
Microaggressions, Macroaggressions, and Racial Stereotypes
Despite the belief that AAs easily integrated into American society and were immune to
racism, widespread prejudice, and discrimination due to microaggressions, microaggressions,
and racial stereotypes continued to take a toll on their standard of living, self-esteem, and
psychological well-being (Sue, 2017). Microaggressions were subtle, stunning, and often
automatic exchanges that were “put-downs” (Pierce et al., 1978, p. 66), and Sue (2017) described
racial microaggressions as a form of racism that occurred in the daily lives of people of color,
often overlooked and unacknowledged. In a study of two focus groups of a total of 10 adult
volunteers, who self-identified as AAs (one male and nine females), Sue et al. identified the
following microaggressive themes directed towards AAs: foreigner in own country, recognition
of aptitude, romanticization of Asian women, invalidation of heterogeneity, rejection of racial
injustice, demeaning of cultural values, second-class citizenship, and seclusion. Indeed, the study
of Asians in America was the study of microaggressions, described as widespread prejudice and
discrimination of large-scale governmental actions to deny this group of fundamental civil and
human rights, rights of citizenship, and rights to own land, including incarceration in internment
camps (Sue et al., 2009).
In a study of the challenges facing AA immigrants and their children, Zhou and Bankston
(2020) argued that society’s overgeneralization of Asian immigrants integrating into their host
nation as model minorities could be misleading. They explained that Asian American youth often
had a strong sense of familial obligation to succeed in school while their parents exhibited a
sense of immigrant optimism, expecting their children to do so. However, the model minority
20

stereotype hindered a complete understanding of the diversity in adaptation across Asian origin
groups; they also created burdens for the relatively advantaged and the relatively disadvantaged.
For example, the researchers explained that the children of Asian Indian, Chinese, and Filipino
physicians frequently enjoyed high-performing schools in suburban middle-class communities
and, therefore, could maximize the advantages of these schools with the additional support and
resources from their social and ethnic communities. In contrast, the children of Hmong refugees
who resettled in unfamiliar cultural environments faced hardships in all aspects of life. Since
their families come from a largely non-literate background in Laos, the researchers argued that
young Hmong Americans faced more significant challenges than many immigrants and had less
social capital to overcome them (Zhou & Bankston, 2020).
In a similar study with 152 participant volunteers, Berdahl and Min (2012) argued that
awareness of racial stereotypes and how they functioned could help East Asians overcome their
deleterious effects, which were likely to serve to keep East Asians in subordinate organizational
positions and undesirable social roles in the workplace. The perception that East Asians were
competent (model minority stereotype) and low in warmth and dominance (yellow peril
stereotype) were likely to help perpetuate the idea that East Asians were ideal as subordinate
employees, suited for technical competence positions, but were unqualified to be leaders and
managers, reinforcing the glass ceiling (Berdahl & Min, 2012). The racialization and
stereotyping of Asian Americans based on general trends of successful selective acculturation by
members of some of the larger Asian groups could promote unanticipated consequences at the
intersections of multiple identities for constructing the roles of immigrant AA women in STEM.
21

Role Construction of Immigrant Asian American Women in STEM
An adaptation of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model for studying the resilience of
immigrant AA women in STEM required examining the literature on the compounded barriers
these women encounter within the context of human behavior that involved multiple levels of
analysis within the ecological system. The three sub-topics that emerged in this literature review
were education and career expectations, familial expectations, and negotiation of gender, ethnic,
and professional identities.
Education and Career Expectations
As AA women made an active choice to participate in the workforce, many researchers
examined the compounded barriers immigrants experience in the United States that evolved
within the multiple nested environmental contexts at the educational, workplace, community, and
societal levels (Leong & Tang, 2016; Min & Jang, 2015; Samanta, 2018). These barriers ranged
from ethnic stereotypes to unintended consequences of the model minority myth to language
barriers, lack of social support, and workplace discrimination. In educational settings,
immigrants or children of immigrants lacked knowledge about the American educational system,
faced stereotypes and discrimination from teachers and peers, lacked the resources to navigate or
ask for support, and faced conflict with family obligations (Samanta, 2018). At the workplace
level, finding a job supporting the family was more important than finding a job that fully
utilized their abilities (Min & Jang, 2015). At the community level, depending on their
immigration status, participation and engagement in their local communities suffered because of
a lack of confidence in their ability to interact with mainstream culture (Leong & Tang, 2016).
At the societal level, employers perceived Asian Americans to be valuable employees because of
their dedication, productivity, and ability to perform well on many tasks, resulting in unfair
22

performance demands for Asian workers and backlash from other coworkers, including other
minority workers, who felt intimidated by the work ethic of their Asian American counterparts
(Leong & Tang, 2016). The interruptions or failure to have a satisfying job in the new country
could be due to multifaceted barriers, as their career aspirations and achievements were
contingent upon their interactions with each ecological system, such as schools, family, work
environment, community, and society.
Based on a study of an extensive data set from the combined 2009–2011 American
Community Surveys (ACS) from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Min and Jang
(2015) found the preference U.S. immigration law gives to those in STEM fields likely increased
AA women’s participation in the STEM workforce. Moreover, they indicated that Asian
immigrant women were overrepresented in the STEM fields in that there are three times as many
AA women as White women in these fields. As this marginalized group experienced a threefold
disadvantage in the workforce (i.e., being an immigrant, being Asian, and being a woman),
immigrant Asian women chose to persist in the STEM fields to offset these disadvantages and to
capitalize on their overall academic performance in math and science (Min & Jang, 2015).
Similarly, in nine accounts of the educational aspirations and experiences of a diverse
group of AA women undergraduate students, Samanta (2018) presented the group’s personal
motivation in selecting programs of study leading to practical careers that their families
perceived to yield financial returns. Samanta posited that their stories spoke of complex family
dynamics and histories across gender and generation, made reference to stereotypes of Asians as
high achievers, and spoke of changes in traditional roles in a context of migration and financial
need as they aspired to educational opportunity and economic mobility. Moreover, Samanta
problematized the related model minority myths of Asian academic and economic success in the
23

United States and a homogeneous, collectivist stereotype of the Asian family as the cause of such
success. The counter-narratives illustrated the participants’ expressed agency and transformation,
often supported by their families but sometimes constrained by exigencies of complex family
dynamics, financial needs, and high familial expectations (Samanta, 2018).
Familial Expectations
Numerous studies have presented familial expectations for immigrant AA women that
varied by ethnic sub-group (Model, 2018; Morey et al., 2020; Mun & Hertzog, 2019). Based on
25 Korean American young adult participants, Kang and Raffaelli (2016) found that Korean
American young adults’ level of internalization positively influenced their sense of indebtedness
toward parental sacrifice. Moreover, their findings indicated that high-internalized youth were
more likely to be female and older, not a surprising finding given the literature on the gendered
socialization that encouraged females to be more sensitive to others’ needs as well as older
participants’ better perspective-taking abilities (Kang & Raffaelli, 2016)
In Omori’s (2016) review of a survey with a sample of 8,573 new immigrants legally
admitted to the United States between May and November of 2003, the percentage of
homemakers among the Asian immigrant women varied by origin nation; 12% of Filipinas
identified themselves as a homemaker, compared to approximately a third of Korean, Indian, and
Vietnamese women and a quarter of Chinese women. Omori pointed out that their educational
attainment differed by their origin nation: over one-fifth of Chinese and Indian women
completed a graduate degree, whereas the proportion of wives with a graduate degree was small
for Filipinas and Vietnamese (4.91% and 1.54%, respectively); Vietnamese wives showed the
highest proportion of no high school degrees; in contrast, nearly two-thirds of Filipina wives had
a college degree. Moreover, because women from the Philippines were English-speaking
24

(English as one of their primary languages), the findings indicated that Filipinas were less likely
to be homemakers than women from China, Korea, India, and Vietnam. Furthermore, Omori
found that wives’ child-caring responsibilities were widely accepted and expected among US-
born women and women from these Asian countries.
In another study consisting of 17 women participants who were first-generation
immigrant South Asian faculty spread out throughout the United States, Witenstein (2020) found
that these women often faced the task of negotiating a bicultural existence as South Asian
women carried a heavier burden than men toward maintaining an authentic culture. For these
groups of highly educated women joining the faculty ranks, Witenstein posited that the issues
were compounded due to the expectations of gender norms, familial obligations, and balancing a
complex set of tasks expected in the forms of teaching, research, and service. Moreover, South
Asian cultural values espoused selflessness and validation through cultural involvement, contrary
to the American value of independence (Sharma et al., 2020; Witenstein, 2020).
For immigrant Asian women raised with a traditional Asian upbringing, the addition of
American culture caused conflicting scenarios, attitudes, and feelings of dissonance, conflict, and
discord (Samanta, 2018; Sharma et al., 2020). When negotiating their gender, ethnic, and
professional identity within the host culture, they were expected to achieve in the competitive
professional setting while attending to familial obligations (Witenstein, 2020).
Negotiation of Gender, Ethnic, and Professional Identity
Ethnic identity refers to an individual’s subjective sense of membership in an ethnic
group and is a multifaceted construct that includes self-identification with a sense of belonging to
and attitudes toward an ethnic group (Ocampo, 2013; Phinney & Ong, 2007). Similarly, gender
and professional identity refer to an individual’s sense of belonging to a particular gender and
25

professional field, respectively (Hatmaker, 2013). Identity scholars argued that in STEM fields,
the construction of role identity is crucial to engagement and building resilience; however,
structural barriers in the workplace and intersectional identities often threaten women’s
resilience (Johnson et al., 2011; Ong & Viernes, 2012; Ross et al., 2021). In its most
sophisticated articulations, intersectionality acknowledges both the plurality and diversity of
identities that comprise any group and the common concerns that create aggregate identities.
Without intersectionality, group unity threatened to degenerate into a compulsory uniformity that
benefitted some group members at the expense of others (Chun et al., 2013).
Established in 1983 in Oakland, California, the American Immigrant Women Advocates
(AIWA) was one of the first community organizations to address the predominance of Asian
immigrant women employed in low-paid manufacturing and service jobs in the San Francisco
Bay Area (Chun et al., 2013). In reviewing AIWA’s organizing model and campaign, Chun et al.
illuminated how AIWA embraced intersectionality as a vital part of the everyday work of social
movement mobilizations of immigrant AA women. They argued that intersectionality was an
analytic tool used to strategically take inventory of differences, identify potential contradictions
and conflicts, and recognize split and conflicting identities, not as obstacles to solidarity but as
valuable evidence about problems unsolved and forming new coalitions. Moreover, AIWA
members collectively shared their lived transformations based on their everyday struggles around
low wages, job insecurity, and job loss, as a negotiation of gender identity, while household
burdens, access to healthcare care and housing, public safety, and anti-immigrant sentiment and
racism emerged during negotiations of ethnic identity (Chun et al., 2013).
As the notion of model minority (Kitano & Sue, 1973) assumed that AAs, without
aggregating ethnic subgroups, were uniformly successful academically and professionally, many
26

researchers argued that this myth minimized the recognition of the impact of structural (social,
cultural, economic) challenges and social injustice on their psychological well-being (Inman et
al., 2014; Tikhonov et al., 2019). Researchers found that it was crucial to promoting a strong
sense of ethnic identity to support healthy self-esteem (Tumala-Narra et al., 2016; Umaña-Taylor
et al., 2011) and protect against the deleterious effects of discrimination among racial and ethnic
minority individuals, uniquely positioned to navigate two cultural milieus: the culture of their
society of origin and the culture of their host society.
For the immigrant AA women in engineering, building resilience also included strategies
for negotiating their professional identity (Hatmaker, 2013). Based on a large-scale survey
completed by engineering college students who self-identified as immigrant Asian women
enrolled in four institutions across the United States, Verdin et al. (2019) measured attitudinal
profiles of belongingness in engineering, identity constructs, grit, and demographic information.
The researchers found that engineering identity had a positive direct effect on students’ sense of
belongingness and both engineering identity and belongingness had a positive direct effect on
grit and persistence. Their study highlighted supporting grit and persistence development in
engineering college students among first-generation Asian women immigrants (Verdin et al.,
2019). Moreover, scholars have reported that in STEM, grit and persistence influenced
immigrant AA women’s resilience (Hatmaker, 2013; Verdin et al., 2019); some studies explored
how organizations built support systems for the marginalized group within an engineering
culture.
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Support Systems for Immigrant Asian American Women in Engineering
In building support systems for immigrant AA women in engineering professions, two
subtopics emerged in the literature: inclusive work climate for women of color and professional
development, mentorship, and access to leadership.
Inclusive Work Climate for Women of Color
Miner et al. (2018) posited that studying the role of social structures, processes, and
meanings associated with gender rather than individual behavior, choices, and preferences,
entailed taking a broader perspective for explicating the causes of gender inequality. Moreover,
Miner et al. indicated that both women and men contributed to perpetuating gender roles,
expectations, and, subsequently, oppression. Miriti (2020) provided recommendations to increase
gender parity in STEM, including reimagining workplaces that did not require workers to meet
the ideal worker norm to be successful. For instance, flextime and telecommuting allow
employees to work at different locations and hours and still successfully perform, consequently
improving work-life balance (Alfred et al., 2019).
Many researchers also suggested that organizational transformation geared towards
recognizing and remedying embedded gender biases could increase STEM diversity (Alfred et
al., 2019; DeAro et al., 2019; Regis et al., 2019; Richman et al., 2011). Underlying initiatives
such as the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) ADVANCE, a program dedicated to increasing
the representation of women in academic science and engineering careers, and the National
Academy of Sciences’ statement on bias in science and engineering (National Academy of
Sciences et al., 2007) was the understanding that systemic, cultural biases became embedded in
institutional practices and contributed to inequities in participation and performance along the
lines of gender, race, and other historically marginalized demographics. Miriti (2020) found that
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personal narratives, or counter-narratives, also raise awareness of institutional injustices and can
be used as tools to advocate on behalf of marginalized people.
In a case study of an organization’s implementation of an inclusion and diversity
program, Davis (2019) found that the organization created employee resource groups (ERGs),
whose purposes were to develop practices, goals, and objectives intended to help every
individual feel welcome and valued within an inclusive culture. Regis et al. (2019) concurred
that ERGs focused on underrepresented groups that shared common characteristics or
experiences, including sexual orientation, gender, cultural diversity, and disabilities, and gave a
voice to different viewpoints and new perspectives. The ERGs helped identify biases that created
barriers to inclusion, performance, engagement, attraction and retention, promotions, and
innovation by providing unconscious or implicit bias training and discussions (Davis, 2019;
Regis et al., 2019). An inclusive work environment helped women CEs thrive and persist in their
profession. The climate transformation began creating networking opportunities, leading to
mentorship and professional development for the marginalized women CEs.
Professional Development, Mentorship, and Access to Leadership
Immigrant AA women feel isolated and often alienated because of the absence of a
limited number of peers from their cultural or ethnic group (Alfred et al., 2019). The critical
absence of women of color in the STEM work environments and executive leadership positions
in business and industry exacerbates and intensifies their negative experiences (Alfred et al.,
2019). In many studies, the participants’ subordinate identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity,
immigration status) intersected to compound these negative experiences, which eventually
derailed women’s aspirations and interests in engineering careers, resulting in withdrawal from
the profession (Alfred et al., 2019; Johnson, 2013; Shrestha et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2013).
29

Researchers have found immigrant AA women who persist in engineering professions drew on
their sense of agency and resilience to manage the oppressive cultures in their work
organizations (Kachchaf et al., 2015; Song et al., 2020). However, these women often lacked
informal peer networks, mentors, and female engineer role models. They were vulnerable to
harassment and discrimination and worked in an organizational climate where the male-
dominant leadership stance on inclusion was often nonexistent, and they needed to contend with
isolation, marginalization, and racialization (Kossek & Buzzanell, 2018).
Alfred et al. (2019) recommended that organizations ensure that strategic planning for
inclusive engineering culture must include meaningful and goal-oriented mentoring and
opportunities for equitable access to leadership positions. In addition, the incorporation of
women of color at all levels of the organization demonstrated structural changes in hiring,
recruitment, and promotion within the organization (Kossek & Buzzanell, 2018).
In a study exploring leadership representation and perceptions of workplace equality, job
satisfaction, and work-life balance in the landscape of high-tech and biomedical engineering
professions, Denend et al. (2020) found that men believed that senior leaders were focused on
recruiting and promoting women and that promotion criteria were equitable. Moreover, men
perceived the significant barrier to leadership roles for women as work-family balance. In
contrast, women perceived a less meritocratic and inclusive workplace, and exclusion from
influential communication networks and stereotyping/bias hindered their ability to rise to
leadership positions (Denend et al., 2020; Torre, 2017). Nevertheless, the study indicated that
both men and women perceived those inequalities existed in the availability of role models, the
pace of career advancement, and compensation. Thus, without role models to demonstrate that
30

women could rise to the top, the researchers argued that upward mobility could feel unattainable
to female engineers (Denend et al., 2020).
Siemiatycki (2019) examined women and visible minorities in senior leadership positions
amongst 2,800 business executives in engineering, construction, and infrastructure industries.
Siemiatycki’s findings supported other studies that indicated organizations with higher levels of
diversity in their top management teams tended to have the following: better financial and
organizational performance, higher employee job satisfaction, were more creative and
innovative, had superior risk management approaches, had more excellent local and global
connectivity, and created role models for future generations of leaders within the sectors (Faccio
et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2015; Stainback et al., 2016; Tanaka, 2014). Moreover, Stainback et al.
(2016) found that women in top management roles often served as change agents in their
organizations to dismantle the gender-segregated organization, create opportunities, and
empower other female leaders, generating a virtuous cycle that encouraged greater workforce
diversity in the future. Similarly, Siemiatycki’s (2019) findings were consistent with the existing
literature that placed women into lower status roles and the amplified barriers to professional
advancement that visible minorities faced. These amplified barriers had resulted in their near-
complete exclusion as top leaders in the CE and construction industries (Yun et al., 2020).
Summary of Review
The purpose of this study was to understand the strategies immigrant AA women PEs use
to build resilience to navigate the CE profession and identify the role of leadership in supporting
and implementing an inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry. The literature
review consisted of studies revolving around cultural challenges and structural barriers due to the
intersections of multiple identities of immigrant AA women PEs practicing in CE fields. Four
31

main topics guided this study. The women’s social marginalization in CE was reviewed with the
following subtopics: a sense of belonging, experiences of sexism and sexual harassment, and the
negotiation of gender and engineering identity. The immigrant AA experiences consisted of the
following subtopics: heterogeneity among AA ethnic groups, the stress of acculturation,
microaggressions, microaggressions, and racial stereotypes. The role construction of immigrant
AA women in STEM was examined and further divided into the following subtopics: education
and career expectations, familial expectations, and negotiation of gender, ethnic, and
professional identity. The final main topic, the support systems for immigrant AA women in
engineering culture, consisted of the following subtopics: inclusive work climate for women of
color and professional development, mentorship, and access to leadership.
Conceptual Framework
The theories used in this study supported various theoretical concepts that shaped the
conceptual framework guiding this study.
Overview of the Theories
As the study centered on the immigrant AA women PEs (the individual),
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems framework informed this study in examining what roles, if
any, the environment and upbringing from an Asian country (the exosystem) played in building
resilience in the construction industry (the macrosystem) as they transitioned between CE career
milestones (the chronosystem). The theory of intersectionality guided the examination of the
compounded challenges inherent to participants who identified with intersectional identities of
the race (AAs as forever foreigners in their own land), socioeconomic class (immigrants as
second-class citizens), gender (female as a disadvantage in a male-dominant profession), and
ethnicity (with Asian heritage). A body of literature suggested an overrepresentation of AA
32

women in the STEM fields. This study joined this conversation by filling a gap in the literature
and exploring the role of intersectional identities in this group’s resilience in the profession.
Furthermore, this study focused on understanding strategic ways (as the bridge) to break down
some structural barriers to promote equitable access (Northouse, 2019) to career progression for
immigrant AA women PEs.
Intersectionality Theory
Crenshaw (1989) first developed the intersectionality theory to describe how the
individual’s subordinate identities concerning race, class, gender, and other marginalized
identities intersect and form a compounding effect on the marginalized individual or groups of
individuals. This study, examined the multiple intersection systems of oppression that perpetuate
inequities and affordances (Crenshaw, 1989) that subsequently shaped the participants’ lived
experiences. These intersectional identities included race and ethnicity (AA), gender pronouns
(she/her/hers), and generational immigration status (first- to second-generation immigrants).
Bronfenbrenner ’s Ecological Systems
Bronfenbrenner (1974) proposed the ecological systems theory based on the recognition
of a child’s development and the dynamic interactions and relationships that the environments
have with the child (individual). This study emphasized the theoretical concepts of the
exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem (the third, fourth, and fifth ecological systems) and
their application to the adult participants (Bronfenbrenner, 1977).
Exosystem. The exosystem incorporates other formal and informal social structures
which do not include the individual but affect their immediate environment (Bronfenbrenner,
1977). Paat (2013) posited that children of immigrants adapted better to the larger society when
there was public support for cultural diversity. The immigrant family’s connections with multiple
33

networks (e.g., ethnic community, school community, and workplace) served as a source of
social capital that promoted family values and strengthened social solidarity (Paat, 2013).
Macrosystem. The macrosystem focuses on the established society and culture in which
the individual develops (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Paat (2013) applied the concept of macrosystem
to immigrant culture and values, which may seem distant but provided immigrant families with a
social context in which parenting took place. Immigrant families were socially disadvantaged as
newcomers due to acculturation and had fewer privileges and capacity to voice and exercise their
rights, which affected their adjustment to the host country (Paat, 2013).
Chronosystem. The chronosystem, the final ecological system, consists of all the
environmental changes that occur over an individual’s lifetime that directly influence her major
life transitions and historical events (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979, 1986). Immigrant generational
status impacts Asian immigrant children’s patterns of adaptation to mainstream American culture
(Paat, 2013). Second-generation (children of first-generation) and 1.5-generation (those who
immigrated before age 12) Asian immigrants experience acculturation differently since learning
a new culture or language is easier for younger children (Paat, 2013).
Key Concepts
The key concepts in this study were defined as follows:
● The ASCE (2021) defines professional (civil) engineers (PEs) in the construction
industry as licensed engineers who are responsible for designing, building, and
maintaining society’s infrastructure.
● Ramsey and Moore (1927) first defined leadership as the ability to impress the
leader’s will and induce obedience, respect, loyalty, and cooperation to those who
will follow.
34

● Schein (1985) defined organizational culture as “a pattern of basic assumptions,
invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its
problems of external adaptation and internal integration” (p. 9).
● The USCB (2020) defined Asian Americans as often grouped with Pacific Islanders
as denoted by the term AAPI, which would include heritages from Hawaii, Guam,
Samoa, or the Pacific Islands. The U.S. Census Bureau (2020) classified Asians as
having origins in any of the original people of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the
Indian subcontinent, including China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, India,
Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Hence, this study defined immigrant AA
women as naturalized Asian American adults (ages 21 and up) who were immigrants
from Asian countries (USCB, 2020).
Summary of Conceptual Framework
A summary of the conceptual framework is illustrated in Figure 3. In pursuit of a
successful CE career, women PEs navigated structural barriers within the male-dominated
construction industry in the United States. Leadership played a critical role in creating an
organizational culture that provided equitable access to career progression for American women
PEs and other marginalized PEs. This study centered on the voices of the invisible immigrant
AA women PEs who perceived compounded challenges and employed strategies influenced by
their intersectional identities as they built resilience within the CE profession.

35

Figure 3
Conceptual Framework

36

Chapter Three: Methodology
As America combats a shortage of CEs to rebuild its aging infrastructure, the nation must
invest in the potential of all Americans to enter and persist in the CE field. Women and
racial/ethnic minorities, and especially women of color, represent an untapped human resource.
Asian American (AA) women represent the fastest-growing immigrants in the United States and
the labor force (USCB, 2020). This study aimed to understand the strategies used by immigrant
AA women PEs to build resilience as they navigate the CE profssion. Moreover, the study also
sought to identify the perceived role of leadership in supporting and implementing an inclusive
organizational culture in the construction industry.
Research Questions
The following research questions guided this study:
1. What strategies have been used by immigrant AA women PEs to successfully
navigate barriers to reach leadership positions in the civil engineering field?
2. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive their intersectional identities contribute
to their resilience in the construction industry?
3. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles of leaders in implementing an
inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry?
Methodological Approach and Rationale
This study used the explanatory sequential mixed-methods design approach, which
involved two-phase data collection procedures. In the first phase, I collected quantitative data
(e.g., online survey), obtained background information, evaluated and interpreted the results, and
then used the results to inform the types of participants selected for the second, qualitative, phase
(Creswell & Creswell, 2018). The mixed methodology originated around the late 1980s and early
37

1990s based on researchers from diverse fields, and it continues to evolve, especially in
procedures (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). This study chose the mixed-methods research design to
draw on the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative research and minimize both
approaches’ limitations.
The intent of using a quantitative approach through cross-sectional data collected at one
point in time (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) through an online survey was two-fold. The first goal
was to understand the correlational relationships, if any, between the respondents’ perceived
value of Leadership Influence, the independent variable, and Inclusive Engineering Culture, the
dependent variable. The second was to rapidly and economically recruit participants who self-
identified as first- or second-generation immigrant AA women PEs for the succeeding qualitative
interviews. The intersectionality theory (Crenshaw, 1989) suggested that the more subordinate
identities intersected, the more likely the individuals encountered compounded barriers. The
more likely they employed various strategies to overcome those barriers, the more likely they
correlated leadership with inclusive engineering culture.
This explanatory sequential mixed-method design intended to have the qualitative data
provide a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of a purposeful smaller sample (n = 6) of
interviewees in comparison to the quantitative (online survey) results of perceptions of the larger
sample (N = 49). Thus, it was crucial to integrate and connect the survey results to the interview
data collection.
The qualitative interviews centered on the participants’ counter-narratives to find
meaning as they constructed reality within their social network (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
However, they also addressed the role of my past experiences, history, culture, and how they
potentially molded interpretations of the data (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). This qualitative
38

design of inquiry draws from the humanities in which the narrative combined views from the
participant’s life with those of the researcher’s inquiry design narrative (Creswell & Creswell,
2018). In the second phase, semi-structured interviews for this study allowed me to use the
coding process (dependability) to describe the participants and categories or themes for analysis
(Creswell & Creswell, 2018). The participants’ stories informed (confirmability) my
interpretation (transferability) of their perceptions as they related to the participants’ engineering
career progression and persistence (Elliot et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2018; Walton et al., 2015) in
comparison to each other (credibility).
As an insider in the construction industry, the semi-structured interview was a good fit
given my positionality to interpret the participants’ lived experiences and retell their stories to
inform the problem of practice. Because a qualitative research method relied on me as the
instrument for data collection, was both inductive and deductive, was based on participants’
meanings, included researcher reflexivity, and was holistic (Creswell & Creswell, 2018), the data
collected through interviews were compared against my analysis and interpretations of the data
and cross-checked against existing literature.
Population and Sample
This mixed-method approach began with a rigorous quantitative sampling consisting of
the members of two engineering associations: X and Y. Engineering Association X has a global
membership of about 150,000 across North America. I contacted the director of research and
development (R&D) using a recruitment letter (Appendix A), introduced the study, and asked
permission to invite the members to participate in an online survey. Upon approval, the director
posted the recruitment letter on the organization’s social media sites and the engineering
39

community forums. The members of the two engineering associations were invited to take part in
the online survey. However, not all survey respondents were invited for interviews.
The mixed-methods continued with follow-up interviews consisting of a purposive
sample of six participants who self-identified as individuals with multiple intersecting
homogeneous identities. These identities included first- to second-generation immigrants,
female, practicing licensed PEs with Asian heritage, which included origins from Far East Asia,
Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. A homogeneous sample is often described as
participants with similar traits to provide access to a particular perspective relevant to the
problem of practice (Smith et al., 2009). As such, homogeneity may include access to the
particular population, time, or rarity of the intersectional identities (Smith et al., 2009). For this
study, homogeneity in the participants’ intersectional identities was defined by gender identity,
racial identity, ethnic identity, the engineering discipline, and engineering credentials. Since this
study also examined heterogeneity among the Asian ethnic groups, and due to preconceived
scarcity of participants who identified with the homogeneous sample, recruitment of participants
was extended to the various Asian ethnic groups.
The Researcher
I acknowledge that I am a first-generation immigrant AA woman, a practicing licensed
PE, in a leadership position, with over 30 years of experience in the construction industry. As I
engaged in this study, I was aware of her preconceived knowledge, experiences, and barriers I
had faced as a woman and as a first-generation immigrant of Asian heritage navigating the male-
dominated engineering culture and the construction industry, which were like the experiences of
the participants to some degree. These intersectional identities were all elements of my position
as the researcher or instrument of data collection. Employing constant reflective practices
40

throughout the research raised awareness of this influence on my interpretation of the data
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
While my background provided insight, it also pushed me to see that each participant had
unique journeys and life dynamics. The constant self-reflective practice through journaling, in
conjunction with feedback from my cohort and the dissertation committee, aided in
acknowledging the bias inherent to my participation in the study. While this acknowledgment did
not eliminate bias, it added transparency to the research process.
Data Sources
As shown in Table 1, this study used two primary sources of data, surveys, and
interviews, which allowed for triangulation and a holistic interpretation of the data collected
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).

Table 1
Data Sources
Research questions Survey Interview
What strategies have been used by immigrant AA women PEs to
successfully navigate barriers to reach leadership positions in the civil
engineering field?
X
How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive their intersectional
identities contribute to their resilience in the construction industry?
X
How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles of leaders in
implementing an inclusive organizational culture in the construction
industry?
X X

41

Surveys
The survey was administered in online mode and included 17 closed-ended questions
(with distinct sets of response or answer questions) and three open-ended questions (Robinson &
Leonard, 2019; see Appendix B). The survey questions related to intersectional identities contain
demographic information (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, age group, familial obligations,
immigration generational status, educational level, employment status). The questions related to
professional engineering experience ask which branch of engineering the participant practices in,
the years of experience in the industry, and whether they were registered PEs. Data collected
from all questions relevant to demographics and years of professional engineering experience
allowed me to purposefully sample (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) qualified participants for
follow-up qualitative interviews. Finally, the survey questions related to leadership and inclusion
in organizational culture measured the participants’ perceptions of the role of leadership in
influencing inclusive organizational culture.
For the survey questions relating to demographics and intersectional identities, I adapted
the “Respectful Collection of Demographic Data” by Rosenberg (2017). Rosenberg suggested
that the questionnaire design should inform the users and let them make flexible choices to self-
identify their gender in terms of pronouns they prefer (see Question 1). According to Rosenberg,
the questionnaire should offer multi-select checkboxes in place of a single-select radio button to
allow users to select multiple options with example descriptions, choose not to answer, or write
their description (see Question 6; Rosenberg, 2017).
Interviews
I conducted semi-structured interviews (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) to elicit in-depth
expressions related to each participant’s experiences of their intersectional identities as they
42

navigate their professional engineering career within the construction industry. All interviews,
following the semi-structured guidelines, were guided by a list of structured protocol questions
relating to the study’s research questions (see Appendix C), followed by unstructured probing
questions without a prior determination of the exact wording, order, or sequencing of questions
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Participant Recruitment Strategy and Rationale
I held a professional grade membership in various engineering organizations in the
United States and selected two of the most significant professional engineering associations, X
and Y, each comprising tens of thousands of members. The following steps were taken to recruit
online survey participants for the first phase of this study:
1. One week after receiving approval from the institutional review board, I approached
the leadership of engineering associations X and Y, using a recruitment letter sent via
email (see Appendix A), to obtain permission to post the call for participation on an
online survey.
2. Upon obtaining permission, I provided a link using Qualtrics as the survey service
tool, which was made available to the target participants for access within a one-time
period of 43 calendar days.
3. At the online survey closing, I proceeded with data collection procedures and analysis
of the survey results.
Once I received volunteers from survey participants for the follow-up interviews, the
second phase of this study, qualitative follow-up interviews, began with the following steps:
4. I received six volunteer participants from the online survey respondents interested in
participating in Phase 2 of the study.
43

5. Next, these participants were categorized into three levels of possible participants.
The criteria for selection were listed under three levels. If qualified participants from
Level 1 were more than 10, I then moved to Level 2 and finally to Level 3 of the
selection process.
a. Level 1 was the first level of the selection process. Level 1 participants were first-
generation to second-generation immigrant Asian Americans who identify with
the pronouns she/her and are practicing PEs in the CE branch. Consistent with the
qualifications and licensing requirements of the majority of the states’ licensing
boards for PEs (NCEES, 2021), participants’ credentials were verified to
maximize the credibility of this study. Every state board for PE and land
surveyors’ website has a search tool, making it convenient to access a licensee’s
credentials. The targeted credentials were driven by occupational theory,
suggesting that when a person has invested time and effort, they begin to
experience stabilization and is less likely to change professions (Swanson &
Fouad, 2014).
b. Level 2 participants had all the qualifications of Level 1 participants and were in
leadership roles in their respective employment.
c. Level 3 participants have all Level 2 participants’ qualifications and represent
different Asian ethnic subgroups (e.g., Far East Asian, Southeast Asians, South
Asians). Considerations were given to respondents with in-depth and well-
articulated responses to the open-ended questions.
6. If the number of Level 1 participants fell below six, the participants were asked to
identify or refer to other women who meet the target sample population to participate
44

in this study through a snowball sampling method (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
Given the start paucity of first-generation immigrant AA women licensed as PEs,
snowball sampling is the most appropriate for recruiting additional participants from
broader geographical locations and the CE industry.
The explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach, beginning with an online cross-sectional
survey, made the recruitment process economical, convenient for both the participants and me,
and allowed the rapid selection of participants for the qualitative follow-up interviews.
Data Collection Procedures and Instrumentation
The data collection proceeded in two distinct phases, with rigorous quantitative sampling
in the first and purposeful sampling in the second, qualitative, phase (Creswell & Creswell,
2018). Two major professional engineering societies, X and Y, were selected due to their
extensive membership database. To recruit participants for the first phase, the online survey, a
survey recruitment email was sent to the organization’s director of R&D to introduce the study
and obtain permission to collect surveys via online distribution for convenience and accessibility
(see Appendix A). Before the survey or interview, participants received an information sheet
with a brief introduction to the study and were asked for voluntary participation. The survey was
accessible to the memberships of these two organizations for 43 calendar days. This study used
Qualtrics as the survey tool and included an access link on the call for participation postings.
After electronically signing the consent form, the survey was administered anonymously, with an
option, at the end of the survey, for participants to identify themselves if they had an interest in
further participating in phase two of the study, a qualitative interview. The survey results were
analyzed, and the volunteer participants were contacted to schedule the follow-up interviews.
45

The qualitative research method used in this study relied on the researcher as the
instrument for data collection, employed multiple data collection methods, was both inductive
and deductive, was based on participants’ meanings, included researcher reflexivity, and was
holistic (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). I sent an initial email to potential interviewees (Appendix
A) with an information sheet describing an overview of the study. Correspondents to participants
to schedule interviews followed. I conducted semi-structured interviews (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016) with a purposeful sample (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) of six participants between
November 8 and December 20, 2021. Each interview took approximately 24–110 minutes.
Because the participants were located throughout the United States, I utilized live video
interviews using the Zoom platform, allowing recording, participant consent, and retrieval of
recorded transcriptions of the interviews. Following the semi-structured guidelines, all interviews
were guided by a list of structured protocol questions relating to the study’s research questions,
followed by unstructured probing questions, without a prior determination of the exact working,
order, or sequencing of questions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Semi-structured interviews elicited in-depth expressions related to each participant’s
experiences of their intersectional identities as they navigated their professional engineering
career within the construction industry. I began the interview by providing ample time for
developing rapport with each participant and then gradually shifted the conversation to asking
questions about their background or pathways to CE, work experiences, and identity meaning-
making. Identity meaning-making refers to questions that ask participants to reflect on their
feelings or perceptions around their self-ascribed identities, that is, “How do you feel your
identity as an immigrant AA woman has shaped your experience as an engineer?”
46

Asking participants purposeful questions allows the researcher to enter into the other
person’s understanding or reflections about events that may have taken place at different periods
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton, 2002). The meaning-making element of the interview was
fundamental to the execution of qualitative research as the specific strategy of inquiry; it
centered on the participants’ detailed stories about their lived experiences and combined views of
the participant’s life with those of my inquiry design narrative (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
Data Analysis and Integration
I analyzed the quantitative and qualitative databases separately in the two-phase approach
and combined the two databases by integrating the quantitative results into the qualitative data
collection (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Based on the quantitative data, I reevaluated the
interview protocol and adjusted the open-ended questions or probes. The philosophical
underpinnings and my mindset guided the analysis and interpretations of the participants’
recorded interviews. By watching the recorded videos of the participants’ interviews, I made a
second pass as a cross-checked for the data collected through the interviews. I analyzed data
collected through the coding and triangulation process and integrated my experiences to interpret
the data.
Coding
After the collection of data utilizing interview videos and audio recordings, analysis and
interpretations of the participants’ responses, using semi-structured interviews as the design of
inquiry for this study allowed me to use the coding process to generate a description of the
participants and categories or inductive themes for analysis (Creswell & Creswell, 2018;
Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The interview data were coded and categorized based on their
relevance to the three research questions. Moreover, coding required an iterative yet progressive
47

process of constant reflection, beginning with empirical coding. The codes were independently
analyzed and further examined to generate inductive themes emerging from the collected data.
Deductive analysis using a priori codes created from theoretical constructs emerging from the
literature review followed the coding process.
Secondary Data
This study examined multiple types of secondary data to gather context and background
information relevant to the problem of practice: existing literature, public records, and personal
documents obtained through reputable online sources (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Examining
existing literature and cross-checking the literature with semi-structured interviews as the design
of inquiry for this study allowed me to use the coding process to generate a description of the
participants and categories or themes for analysis, consistent with the emerging topics from the
literature review. Public records are official documents and ongoing records of a society’s
activities (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), including USCB, U.S. Labor Statistics, and professional
society’s programs and records available through online search engines. This study also
reviewed pertinent publications of the ASCE and the SWE to seize information that helped this
study connect with the inductive themes and categorization, consistent with the conceptual
framework and research questions.
Although highly subjective, Merriam and Tisdell (2016) acknowledged that personal
documents are a good source of data concerning a person’s construction of reality and maybe a
representation reflecting some participants’ perspectives, which is what most qualitative research
is seeking (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).

48

Triangulation
The process of triangulation was a strategy that maximized the credibility and
trustworthiness of data collected in a qualitative research approach (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I
employed triangulation (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) using multiple data sources to compare and
cross-check data. I evaluated the survey data to adjust the sequencing of interview questions. The
interview data were compared and cross-checked against secondary data examined during the
literature review.
Validity and Reliability
Internal validity refers to how we can infer a relationship between two variables, whereas
external validity is the extent to which the causal relationship applies across different people,
settings, and times (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Salkind, 2014). The survey questions on
demographics allowed this study to infer a relationship between the engineers’ perceived value
of Leadership Influence (dependent variables) and an Inclusive Engineering Culture
(independent variables). The survey was distributed to two different professional engineering
organizations to reach more participants. Both strategies aimed to increase internal validity and
external validity.
Internal reliability is the extent to which researchers collect, analyze, and interpret data
consistently within a project, whereas external reliability is how other researchers can reproduce
a study and its results (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Salkind, 2014). To increase internal
reliability, the survey was anonymously administered to the members of two professional
engineering organizations. To increase external reliability, the questionnaire could be replicated
or administered in any setting or given to any engineering organization.
49

Credibility and Trustworthiness
As I have over 30 years of experience in the construction industry, using narrative
research as the design of inquiry for this study allowed me to use the coding process
(dependability) to generate a description of the participants and categories or inductive themes
for analysis (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). The participants’ detailed stories of lived experiences
informed (confirmability) the narrative chronology and my interpretation (transferability) of this
chronology as it related to the participants’ career progression and persistence (Elliot et al., 2018;
Walton et al., 2015) in comparison to each other and existing literature (credibility; Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Merriam and Tisdell (2016) argued that triangulation maximizes the credibility
and trustworthiness of qualitative data as it could capture data from multiple sources. By
explicitly acknowledging the elements of my positionality and identities concerning the
participants’ roles and interpretation of data, the presentation of the findings will help ensure
trustworthiness (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).

50

Chapter Four: Findings
The ASCE (2021) published its 2021 Report Card for America ’s Infrastructure and
assigned a grade of C- to the nation’s infrastructure. America needs CEs to design, build, rebuild,
and maintain its aging infrastructure (ASCE, 2021). While women represent only 10% of the CE
workforce (ASCE, 2021), they account for about 55.4% of the nation’s workforce (USCB,
2020). Women, and especially women of color, represent an untapped human capital and can
make the most significant positive impact on increasing the CE workforce. Despite the
underrepresentation of women in the CE profession, AA women are overrepresented in
bachelor’s degree programs in STEM (Jafari et al., 2020; USCB, 2020). However, they
continued to be in junior-level leadership positions in STEM professions. They were not
advancing to the C-suite level at the same pace as their male and White female counterparts (Min
& Jang, 2015).
This study explored the role of intersectional identities to understand immigrant AA
women PEs’ strategies to build resilience to navigate the CE profession and the influence of
leaders in supporting and implementing an inclusive culture in the construction industry. The
following research questions guided this study:
1. What strategies have been used by immigrant AA women PEs to successfully
navigate barriers to reach leadership positions in the civil engineering field?
2. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive their intersectional identities contribute
to their resilience in the construction industry?
3. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles of leaders in implementing an
inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry?

51

Participating Stakeholders
This mixed-methods approach began with a rigorous quantitative sampling consisting of
the memberships of two engineering associations, X and Y. Engineering association X has a
global membership of 150,000 across nine regions in North America. Engineering association Y
has a global membership of 40,000. I contacted the directors of R&D of Associations X and Y,
using a recruitment letter, to introduce the study and ask permission to invite the members to
take an online survey. All members of both professional associations held accredited degrees in
engineering and were aged 21 and older.
Survey Respondents
The online survey invited the members of two engineering associations, X and Y, to
participate in a survey, and 49 members responded (N = 49) between November 8 and December
20, 2021. There were several considerations made for the online survey. The survey was first
made available to Engineering Association X. It was then extended to allow access to the
members of Engineering Association Y, which required a 3-week research application process.
To avoid survey fatigue, both engineering associations did not allow the distribution of the
recruitment email using their membership listserv. Instead, posting the recruitment email was
only allowed on the social media sites of both associations (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Linked In,
and the engineering community forums). The online survey remained active until I received six
volunteers who met all qualifications to participate in the follow-up semi-structured interviews.
Table 2 lists the frequency table of the characteristics of the survey respondents. The data
in bold highlights the characteristics of the respondents (N = 49) that were common to the
smaller sample of interviewees (n = 6): 49% (n = 24) female, 25% (n = 6) of the females were
immigrant AA women PEs who participated in the follow-up semi-structured interviews, 57% (n
52

= 28) belonged to the 45–64 years age group (whereas all six interviewees belonged to the same
age group), 20.4% (n = 10) identified as first- or second-generation immigrants, 91.8% (n = 45)
practiced in CE, 38.8% (n = 19) have been practicing engineering for a range of 21–30 years, and
75.5% (n = 37) were licensed PEs.

Table 2
Frequency Table of Characteristics of Survey Respondents
Characteristics of respondents n %
(Q1) She/her 24 49.0%
(Q2) Age group
21–30 5 10.2%
31–40 7 14.3%
41–50 14 28.6%
51–65 14 28.6%
66 or older 9 18.4%
(Q3) Marital status
Single (never married) 11 22.5%
Married, or in a domestic partnership 34 69.4%
Divorced 4 8.2%
(Q4) Has children 30 61.2%
(Q5) Ethnicity
White 29 55.8%
Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin 1 1.9%
Black or African American 3 5.8%
Asian 11 21.2%
53

Characteristics of respondents n %
Other 5 10.2%
(Q6) Generational immigration status
First- or second-generation immigrant 10 20.4%
(Q7) CE practice 45 91.8%
(Q8) Years of engineering practice
1–10 years 7 14.3%
11–20 years 9 18.4%
21–30 years 19 38.8%
31–45 years 9 18.4%
45+ years 5 10.2%
(Q9) Licensed PE 37 75.5%
(Q10) Level of engineering management role
Frontline management 14 28.6%
Middle management 7 14.3%
Elite leadership 18 36.7%
Not in leadership capacity 10 20.4%

Note. N = 49. The data in bold highlights the characteristics of the respondents that were
common to the smaller sample of interviewees. Q# indicates the relevant survey question
number.

Interview Participants
This study’s target population for the interviews included the following five
characteristics: first- to second-generation immigrants, of Asian origin, women, practicing in the
CE branch, and registered PEs. Table 3 details the number of online survey respondents who
54

self-identified with each of the five characteristics of the target population. Only nine (18.4%) of
the 49 survey respondents met all qualifications to be interviewed.

Table 3
Survey Respondents and the Five Characteristics of the Target Population
Characteristics of the target population n %
Practicing in the civil engineering branch 45 91.8
Board registered professional (civil) engineer 37 75.5
Pronoun used: she/her 24 42.9
Asian ethnicity 11 21.2
First- to second-generation immigrants 9 18.4

Note. N = 49

55

Qualtrics displayed optional contact information for respondents meeting all five target
population characteristics (Table 3). Six of the nine qualified participants volunteered for the
interviews, and Qualtrics provided the link between the participants’ contact information and
responses to all survey questions. In addition, Qualtrics showed the geographic locations of the
six volunteers. These locations informed the research, allowing me to verify the volunteers’
active PE registrations in their states and confirm their qualifications for the interviews. I
conducted the six semi-structured interviews via Zoom between November 10 and December 20,
2021.
The duration of the interviews ranged from 25 to 110 minutes. The key to ethics is to
balance the harm (even minimal) that research might do against its benefits. Because qualitative
data are so detailed, there is always a danger that confidentiality may be breached, so
anonymization is especially important (Gibbs, 2018). For confidentiality, I assigned a
pseudonym and number for each of the six participants (e.g., P1 through P6); provided their
approximate geographical location; and listed their interval age group, the interval age group of
their dependents, and their years of engineering practice in a range (shown in Table 4). In
addition to the five characteristics of the target population (shown in Table 3), Table 4 indicates
that all six participants belong to the 45–64 years age group and have been practicing engineers
for 21–30 years. The participants had diversity in marital status, generational immigration status,
leadership position, and home state. Finally, there were two significant differences between each
participant: their Asian country of origin and the age groups of their dependents (P6 did not have
any dependents).

56

Table 4
Frequency Table of Characteristics of the Interview Participants (N = 6)
Characteristics of
the participants
Macie
(P1)
Norma
(P2)
Mariah
(P3)
Kira (P4) Nirhira
(P5)
Priscila
(P6)
Pronoun used:
She/her
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Age group 55–64 45–54 55–64 45–54 55–64 45–54
Marital status Divorced Divorced Married Married Divorced Single
Age groups of
dependents
25+ 13–17 6–24 6–12 18–24 None
Ethnicity: Asian Japanese Chinese Filipino Vietnamese Sri
Lankan
Asian
Indian
Immigration status 1.5 G 1st G 2nd G 1.5 G 1st G 2nd G
Civil engineering
practice
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Years of
engineering
practice
21–30 21–30 21–30 21–30 21–30 21–30
Board registered PE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Leadership position Elite Elite None Middle Frontline Frontline
Home state CA TX MA CA CA CA
Length of
interview,
minutes
36 50 44 25 39 110

Note. 1st-G = First-Generation (immigrated to the United States at age 13 and older)
1.5-G = 1.5-Generation (immigrated to the United States at age 12 and younger)
2nd-G = Second-Generation (children of first- and 1.5-generation immigrants)

57

The Otter.ai software provided the interview transcriptions, which I edited, to develop
detailed transcripts necessary for qualitative analysis (Gibbs, 2018). The clear transcripts created
in a Microsoft Word document allowed me to insert memos for coding and analysis. Due to the
given ethnicity and immigration status of the six participants, I recognized and acknowledged
that English was not the primary language of some participants. To avoid misinterpretation of the
specific words used by the participants, the focus of the analysis shifted to the more prominent
themes tied directly to the research questions. But there were several drawbacks. I actively
engaged in participant validations (Gibbs, 2018). However, the time-lapse between the
participant interviews and the confirmations ranged from a few days to a few weeks. The
interpretation of themes may have resulted differently in time.
Results for Research Questions
The following sections present the results of the data analysis. I used the online survey
data to address Research Question 3 and the interview data for all three research questions.
Findings under each research question include discussing factors shaping resilience and
presenting statements gathered from interviewees. Each research question section ends with a
summary of results and a synthesis of the findings.
Research Question 1
The first research question asked, “What strategies have been used by immigrant AA
women PEs to successfully navigate barriers to reach leadership positions in the CE field?” The
first research question was aimed at understanding the barriers to reaching leadership positions in
the CE field and focused on the strategies the participants used to reach these positions. The
following are the two key findings for this question: the participants seized opportunities and
optimized resources to build their CE careers, and they see barriers as learning opportunities and
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bridges to success. I discuss each finding and the factors that shaped the participants’ resilience
in the subsequent sections. Statements from the participants provide a deeper understanding of
their strategies and progression to get to their respective current leadership roles as licensed PEs
in CE.
Immigrant AA Women Seize Opportunities and Optimize Resources to Build Their CE
Careers
All six interviewees reported actively seeking and optimizing resources to reach their
goals. From pursuing a CE degree to navigating the profession, they remained vigilant when
searching for opportunities to build their careers. I asked each how they decided to go into the
CE field and shared their experiences as engineering students. Table 5 lists the highlights of their
responses.

59

Table 5
Highlights of Participants ’ Responses to Q2
Q2. Can you walk me through how you decided to go into the civil engineering field?
Q2a. Can you tell me more about when you were a student?
Macie (P1) And there weren’t really any programs for Asians, there were programs for
Black engineers, but not for Asians. So, here’s a fun story. I went to the
minority student services at the University of Oklahoma, and I was told I
was not a minority. So, I wasn’t eligible for scholarships. What world do not
consider me a minority, but I’m treated like a minority everywhere else?
Norma (P2) My graduate experience, in the beginning, was very tough because I had to
conquer the language barrier. I had the busiest two years of my life, but I
liked what I learned. And I liked all the professors, and all the experience I
had in school because it was kind of like, a dream, to be honest.
Kira (P4) I was a very heavy focus on academics, and just generally really loved the
experience. I made friends throughout school, I had academic clubs that I
was part of, like the ASCE, and participated in extracurricular activities
from that I took advantage of any kind of tutoring hours that was available.
Nirhira (P5) And the first year, I just did not study, I got C-minuses like nearly everything
... I had to go see this advisor. I had a 1.96 GPA. I mean, I went to summer
school for two sessions. And I took four classes, and I just got my act
together. So, my uncle was like, why don’t you try civil? It’s very broad.
And by the time I took civil engineering classes was 87, I would say 30% of
my class had to be women or girls. And I remember, there were some other
Asian girls, and they didn’t know what to do. And we just felt out of place,
but my mom always told me, you can do anything you want. So, I never
thought I couldn’t do this because I’m a female, I’m an Asian. I was going
to do whatever I want.
Priscila (P6) I’ve always had to work hard, persevere, and things didn’t come easily to me. I
applied for these A-tier colleges around the country. And [my dad] was very
supportive, and we looked at colleges, so I got into Illinois, Purdue, Texas,
at Austin, and I selected Illinois. It was the beginning of the women in
STEM movement. So, I’m pretty sure I got into Illinois because of
affirmative action.

Note. N = 6 (n = 5)

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Kira, who received an undergraduate degree from UCLA and a master’s degree from
MIT, stated that she “just generally really loved the experience.” Both Kira and Mariah reported
taking advantage of any available tutoring hours, joining academic clubs, and engaging in club
activities. Both women’s behaviors demonstrate that they optimized the tutoring resources and
were involved in club opportunities to thrive in top engineering schools in the nation.
Norma immigrated to the United States from mainland China to earn a graduate degree in
civil/structural engineering. She shared that her graduate school journey was problematic from
the start “because [she] had to conquer the language barrier. [She] had the busiest 2 years in [her]
life.” Despite this, she expressed enthusiasm toward the learning experience: “It was kind of like
a dream.” Her statement suggests that Norma shared Kira’s sentiment and appreciation for
learning opportunities in graduate studies. Norma also stated, “I like all the professors,” which
suggests that she had positive interactions and support from her professors, helping her overcome
her language barriers and other challenges.
Like Nora, Macie was also a first-generation engineering student and had significant
struggles initially. However, unlike Nora, Macie immigrated from Japan at a very young age,
when her stepfather, who served in the Navy, met and married her mother and adopted her. She
stated that she worked three jobs to put herself through college and expressed her disappointment
in equity:
There were not any programs for Asians. There were programs for Black engineers, but
not for Asians. I went to the minority student services at the University of Oklahoma, and
I was told I was not a minority. So, I was not eligible for scholarships. What world does
not consider me a minority, but I’m treated like a minority everywhere else?”
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As Macie struggled financially and worked three jobs, she reported that her grades
suffered, and she was miserable. She decided to take advantage of the Navy’s Civil Engineer
Corps collegiate program after hearing about it from a friend in school. According to Macie, the
accepted candidates were paid as enlisted members and received a paycheck, just like enlisted
members did. Students accrued and were treated as active-duty service members. Macie’s story
substantiates her vigilance in looking for opportunities to break down barriers to attain an
engineering degree.
Similar to Macie’s, Nirhira’s grades also suffered early in her undergraduate studies.
Still, the root cause was not a lack of financial resources or support from her immediate
environment. She claimed it was because
I just did not study. I got C-minuses like nearly everything.” Consequently, she received
a 1.96 GPA and recalled having gone “to see this advisor. I went to summer school for
two sessions. And I took four classes, and I just got my act together.
She said her uncle suggested, “Why don’t you try civil? It is comprehensive,” and so she
followed his advice and subsequently “took civil engineering classes” in 1987.
At the time, she recalled that “30% of my class had to be women” and felt that she and
the “other Asian girls” just felt “out of place.” However, she remembered “my mom always told
me, ‘You can do anything you want,’” so despite her minority identity as an AA woman, she
“was going to do whatever” she wanted. Nirhira’s actions and beliefs show that she trusted the
advice of her immediate support systems, such as her school advisor, her uncle, and her mother.
More importantly, she embraced the opportunity to improve her grades by taking full advantage
of the two summer classes.
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Priscila was in a situation similar to Nirhira’s, as she expressed, “I have always had to
work hard, persevere, and things did not come easily to me.” Likewise, Priscila and Nirhira both
received strong support from their family. Priscila remembered applying
for these A-tier colleges around the country. Moreover, he [my dad] was very supportive,
and we looked at colleges, so I got into Illinois, Purdue, Texas, and Austin. I selected
Illinois. It was the beginning of the women in STEM movement, so I am pretty sure I got
into Illinois because of affirmative action.
This quote demonstrates Priscila’s optimization of resources and support provided by her father
while pursuing more excellent opportunities to get accepted at some of the top engineering
schools in the country at the time.
Macie is in active service as a Navy civil engineer and manages construction contracts for
the federal government. Macie acknowledged that the “Navy Civil Engineer Corps is a great
program teaching people how to manage construction contracts.” She added, “I am still doing
this today.” Norma explained how she felt her education and experience were underutilized and
sought other employment opportunities: “I felt like I was back on track.” Similarly, after working
15 years for her previous employer, Mariah sought out other job opportunities and “eventually
found” her current employment “to be a good fit” for her. Kira also experienced working “in all
those aspects of environmental engineering” and found her “niche right now” in the
sustainability field. These statements provided evidence of immigrant AA women seizing
opportunities and optimizing resources to build their CE careers.
Immigrant AA Women PEs See Barriers As Learning Opportunities and Bridges to Success
Participants suggested that breaking down barriers yielded learning opportunities to
achieve their goals. I analyzed responses to interview questions Q5 and Q12 to understand the
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participants’ path to getting to where they are today. Question Q5 prompted the participant to
describe what a successful engineering leader is in the CE field, and the response reflected the
participant’s perceived value of a CE leader. Answers to Probing Question Q5a provided a
deeper understanding of the barriers the participants encountered or expected to resolve, whereas
responses to Question Q5b indicated the strategies they have used or expected to use to
overcome those barriers. Question Q12 was the last interview question. Each participant took a
few seconds (average of 5 seconds) pause to reflect on what advice she would give herself when
beginning her engineering career and what resources might have been helpful. The responses to
Q12 informed me of the most important strategies and lessons learned throughout their CE
journey. Table 6 enumerates participants’ responses to Q5 and Q12.

Table 6
Comparison Analysis of Participants ’ Responses to Q5 and Q12
Q5. How would you describe what a successful engineering leader in your civil engineering
field is? Q5a. What barriers or challenges might you expect to reach elite leadership roles?
Q5b. Describe a specific strategy you used to overcome this barrier(s)?
Q12. If you were to give yourself advice when beginning your
engineering career, what would it be? Q12a. What resources might have been helpful?
Macie
(P1)
Q5 (Researcher’s memo on 2/27/22: “First interview and first oversight…I
thought I had checked off all questions. Do a follow-up email.”)
Q12 I would tell myself to explore more opportunities. I think I had a very
limited window because I didn’t have role models because I was the first
generation. I didn’t know what college was about. I didn’t know that there
were other colleges out there. I would have told myself, to apply to
Stanford. Go out of state look at what other opportunities are there?
Norma
(P2)
Q5 To be a woman engineer is challenging especially if you have kids because
you have to keep your work and family-life balance. And sometimes you
go to the job site, you have some physical obstacles, compared to the
guys. But I think, overall, it’s pretty good. Because to be an engineer, you
will be respected. So, that’s a benefit of being a woman engineer. And
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second of all, you have your engineering work, where you see the
building structures you designed ... and you get this sense of pride. So, I
enjoy being an engineer, but I don’t have much desire to be in a
leadership position because I have a language barrier. I still feel that
communication with people to be with me is not easy for them to interact
with people whose native language is English. I feel this is my number
one barrier to becoming a leader. If I didn’t have a language barrier, I
think people will think naturally think that I am a leader because I have
more experience than them. So, they can use me, and I can be an
independent engineer. But I don’t want to talk to clients, interact with
people, and go to meetings.
Q12 Pass all the board exams before you have a baby or have babies. That’s very
detailed advice. Second, just keep learning. If you have more talent in
management, just go for it. Because we do need the good managers, you
know, to make engineers feel secure.
Mariah
(P3)
Q5 A successful engineer is able to look at problems in a way to understand the
root cause of things and focus on solving the underlying issues versus just
addressing the symptoms, but also being able to communicate that to the
other people that either are decision-makers or to the public. And I think a
lot of times when we think of an engineer, you think of somebody who
can do all the calculations but can’t necessarily do the communication
piece of it. So, you can have a brilliant idea. But if you’re not able to
communicate it to the people that need to know, then it’s not necessarily a
success, I think, right? So, I think there’s like twofold of what I think of
how you have to be successful as an engineer.
Q12 If you have found something you love to do and figure out, you stick with it.
I don’t know that I would give myself any different advice. Finding role
models and a support network that can help you through, because it’s not
always easy. And it’s not always fun. But if you believe in what you do,
or like what you do, I think it’s really worth it. And I always feel like
there’s something to learn from every person that you meet. Finding a
mentor, it doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who looks like you
even think of someone who’s been through it.
Kira
(P4)
Q5 I’d say the most consistent barrier, I feel is the imposter syndrome. The
strategy I use to overcome that is simply expecting it, expecting to feel it.
And when I feel it’s okay, I just lean into it and keep going. I don’t think
it’s mitigated by education, because I think that I have a lot of education.
Basically, it’s a realization that no matter how much you study, you’re
just not going to know everything. And that the more you do, and rise up,
the more uncertainty that there’s going to be, and the less you’ll know,
and acceptance of that.
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Q12 You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just take it one decision at a
time. And it meanders, and it’s fine.
Nirhira
(P5)
Q5 But I don’t really want to go up the ladder. So, I mean, I don’t know, 5
years from now. I might say something different. But I, I don’t want to go
up the ladder. So, I’m kind of satisfied where I am. So, I’m graduating,
and I was told I had to do the EIT, to get a job. So, I did. Everyone in my
group had either a master’s or Ph.D. and was very theoretical in
hydrodynamic and water quality modeling. I just sort of went with the
flow. And I had great mentors and people who wanted to develop [me], I
got lucky again. I think I could have been in a totally different
environment where people just use you and are not interested in your
development. But I got invited to pull off papers and present at
conferences. Now, I look back on my resume. Oh my god, what great
opportunities. Since then, I moved to consult for water systems. I’ve
probably had eight jobs. And I feel, the people who I started off with 30
years ago, have been at that same job forever. I’m so glad I got a variety
of experiences: blue-collar, white-collar, East Coast, West Coast. So, I
feel like with everything I’ve always experienced. It’s such a great place
right now. It’s been just fantastic.
Q12 I feel like every experience is necessary, whether it’s bad or good. I would
say, to my younger self I need to reach out to a sponsor, not as a mentor,
but a sponsor is someone at your workplace, who will clear the barriers.
Just have to have the bad and good experiences and learn from it.
Priscilla
(P6)
Q5 Every woman executive in civil engineering that I meet, tells me to take
more risk. And you need, to go where you’re supported. They say you
need these allies and sponsors. I’m happy when they just leave me alone.
But it’s better than being bullied every day. So, that’s the environment
I’m living in. I go to leadership classes, and they’re teaching me about
high-performing teams. We don’t work in high-performing teams. I work
in a toxic environment, like 60% of Americans. I need tools on how to
work in a toxic environment. This is civil engineering today. And this is
going to be civil engineering in 30 years unless people open their mouths,
but it comes at an incredible professional and personal cost. Nobody goes
into civil engineering to make money. They go into it to make a
difference. And if we are not harnessing that energy, they will leave. We
have a code of conduct, I’m supposed to be treated with courtesy respect.
We have zero-tolerance, harassment, anti-violence. But why aren’t any of
these policies being enforced. None of them are going to protect me; I
need to protect myself. And I need to run an operation where I warn the
young women that they need to protect themselves. They don’t want to
talk about it, but we have power in numbers. You need to stand up and
nip it in the bud the first time. I am a leader that has integrity and
empathy. That is the leader we need. Yet I am feeling like an “other”, a
misfit, and I’m broken, and I hid my strengths because there’s nobody
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else who has any of these strengths ... And it’s hard to be authentic. When
you’re the only one, I sit at the conference table and do my thing. And
they wonder why I’ve opened my mouth, because I’m an Asian female,
and I should be in the corner. But that is not who I am, like I am at the
table, doing the work. But then never getting the credit for it. Where my
coworker has a poster in the conference room with my work on it but
without my name on it. Even I had all those disappointments, I never
spoke up since. How many battles are you going to fight day today? You
keep your mouth shut because it’s tiring. And I don’t know, do people
really fight the battle every day? I think most people just leave? We still
live in a very patriarchal society. It is also the case here at work. And I
just wish I was more realistic because I hate when people say go for your
dreams, and don’t settle. Because there’s only so much, I’m in control of.
Q12 Because I wanted to be a civil engineer so bad, I didn’t acknowledge any of
the negative work environment. I developed coping mechanisms to
pretend they didn’t exist. I wish in university, I was told what the civil
engineering profession is, and what skills I would need to survive. So, I
could have made an educated decision if I wanted to do it or not. For
example, now people tell me, I need to form my own company because
I’m not going to find the work cultures that I want, where they treat me
like a human being. Why didn’t they tell me in college so I could have got
MBA classes, and had in my mind that I need to be an entrepreneur? I
would advise my younger self to fight the system, even when you’re told
not to rock the boat, engage in true mentorship, and don’t be embarrassed,
to tell the truth, you need leaders and mentors, who will be honest with
you, that you can tell them, honestly, what is happening in your career. I
would tell myself not to internalize because I did a lot of mental damage
to myself because there was no support.

Note. N = 6 (n = 5 for Q5; n = 6 for Q12)

The subsequent sections are organized to highlight the barriers to reaching leadership
positions and the strategies used to navigate challenges leading to success.
Barriers to Reach Leadership Positions
One similar characteristic of all six participants was that they had been practicing in the
CE profession for over 21 years. While they were all licensed PEs in at least one state, their
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respective practices varied in CE sub-fields, customer base, types of services, and market sectors.
They shared some of their memorable experiences and perceptions related to barriers faced.
Norma worked in a private structural engineering and consulting firm designing
structures for construction. She indicated that communication was essential in the profession and
felt that “communication for people to be with [her] was not easy for them” because she had
[still has] a “language barrier.” She felt that the language barrier was “her number one barrier to
becoming a leader.” She concluded that she did not “have that much desire to be in a leadership
position due to this barrier. Furthermore, she stated that “if [she] did not have a language barrier,
[she] thinks people would naturally think that (she) was a leader because [she had] more
experience than them.” Norma also stated that “to be a woman engineer [was] challenging if you
have kids because you have to keep your work and family-life balance.” She shared the
challenges and sacrifices she encountered while preparing for the PE board licensing
examinations and juggling her time between a full-time job, coming home to take care of her
first baby, and finding time to study. She recognized that to be respected in the field, one must
obtain a PE license to be promoted to leadership positions and move up the ladder.
Nirhira worked in government water systems engineering. Like Norma, Nirhira declared
she had no desire to “go up the ladder.” She recalled that her most significant barrier was passing
the PE board licensing examination, which she eventually passed after six attempts. She
remembered her peers sharing the same faith with a passing rate of 30% at the time. Like
Nirhira, Mariah also made multiple attempts to pass the PE exam. She attributed the challenge to
difficulty finding enough time in the day and balancing competing priorities due to work, being a
wife, and being a first-time mother. Kira worked in the sustainability field in environmental
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engineering within the private consulting sector. For Kira, the most consistent barrier was the
“imposter syndrome” due to self-doubt and the “feeling of uncertainty.”
Like Nirhira, Priscilla also worked in the water systems field within the public sector.
Priscilla expressed the strongest desire to be a woman executive in CE out of all the participants.
However, her intense drive to move up the ladder met equal opposition. She stated that she was
intentionally excluded from important meetings because she had an “assertive leadership style”
that was not expected from a stereotypically submissive AA woman. She felt strongly that she
was not given equitable access to career progression within a hostile culture, where “zero-
tolerance, harassment, anti-violence policies were not enforced,” and felt she did not learn the
“tools to work in a toxic environment.” She “applied for promotion 20 times” over 25 years with
the same employer and was convinced this was “overt discrimination.” “I had figured out by the
fourteenth time that it did not matter what I said because they were promoting people who have
been there two years,” Priscila added.
Though the participants encountered many obstacles to reaching leadership positions,
they were proud to share their perseverance. They highlighted the strategies they used to
navigate these challenges to celebrate milestones and successes along the way.
Strategies to Navigate Challenges Leading to Success As Respected Leaders
Mariah defined a successful engineer as someone who is “able to do all the calculations”
and “look at problems in a way to understand the root cause of things” and effectively
communicate their solutions to the audience. She acknowledged that the profession “is not
always easy, and it is not always fun” and recommended that “if you believe in what you do, or
like what you do, (then) it is worth it … and feel like there is always something to learn from
every person that you meet.” “I would tell myself to explore more opportunities,” stated Macie,
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who served as a Navy civil engineer during her over 20 years in management of federal
contracts. Macie recalled having to “assimilate” in her early-career stages because she perceived
it to be the only way to earn respect and reduce gender bias. However, as “(she) matured, (she)
found that authenticity made [her] feel more effective as an inclusive leader.”
A common piece of advice from Priscila, Mariah, and Nirhana was to “find role models
and a supportive network.” Mariah and Priscila advised looking for mentors who have “been
through it” and “who will be honest to you.” Nirhana recommended reaching out to sponsors
“who will clear the barriers” for you. For Kira, “You do not have to have it all figured out. Just
take it one decision at a time,” and it is okay for your path to “meander.” She attributed this
sentiment to experiencing consistent “imposter syndrome.” To overcome this barrier, the strategy
she used was “simply expecting it. Feel it is okay, lean into it, and keep going.”
Priscilla understood what it took for a woman to reach the executive level in CE because
she had met the executives and was told “to take more risk [and] go where you are supported.
You need these allies and sponsors.” Though her negative experiences stemmed from what she
perceived as a “toxic environment [and] being denied promotion to advance to the C-suite due to
overt discrimination,” Priscila considered this barrier an opportunity to learn. She pursued a
Master of Public Administration degree at USC to gain the tools, knowledge, and skillset to
become an effective and inclusive leader. “I go to leadership classes, and they are teaching me
about high-performing teams, but they [hiring teams] still will not give me the chance to make a
profound impact,” she said. Priscilla stated she was “determined to make a difference in the
profession.” She actively engaged in governance by serving multiple committees through the
ASCE and the SWE to strengthen advocacy for gender equity and inclusion and to promote
“psychological safety” in the workplace.
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The participants pursued multiple credentials to position themselves as leaders in their
respective CE fields. All six participants earned accredited degrees in CE. Five have an
accredited master’s degree in engineering, one has two master’s degrees, and one is currently in
a second master’s degree program. The participants conferred their bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in engineering from top CE programs in the nation. Table 7 details a comparison of
participants’ credentials and the top-ranking engineering schools they attended.

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Table 7
Comparison Analysis of Participants Educational and PE License Attainment
Civil engineering practice Credentials Colleges attended (ranking)
Macie
(P1)
Construction
management,
private
consulting
B.S. in civil engineering University of Oklahoma (101)
M.S. in civil engineering University of Oklahoma (101)
PE license in multiple states
Norma
(P2)
Structural
engineering,
private
consulting
B.S. in civil engineering (College in mainland China.
Not ranked.)
M.S. in structural engineering B.S. in civil engineering
PE license in multiple states
Mariah
(P3)
Air quality
control,
private
consulting
B.S. in civil engineering New York University (36)
M.S. in engineering Cornell University (11)
PE license in multiple states
Kira
(P4)
Sustainability,
private
consulting
B.S. in civil engineering University of California Los
Angeles (16)
M.S. in environmental
engineering
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (9)
Master of Business
Administration
University of Southern
California
PE license in multiple states
Nirhira
(P5)
Water systems,
government
B.S. in civil engineering University of California Davis
(11)
PE license in multiple states
Priscila
(P6)
Water systems,
government
B.S. in civil engineering University of Illinois Urbana
(2)
M.S. in civil engineering University of California
Berkeley (1)
Master of Public
Administration
University of Southern
California
PE license in multiple states

Note. N = 6 (n = 6); B.S. = Bachelor of Science. M.S. = Master of Science; PE = professional
engineer; Ranking is from U.S. News & World Report in 2021. The ranked number is specific to
the attained degree program. University of Oklahoma ranking is in Best Engineering School.

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A PE registration in any state is the hallmark of a successful practicing CE. Although
states vary in the minimum qualifications to attain a PE license, most provide credit for
equivalent extended years of qualified CE work experience in place of an accredited engineering
degree. All state licensing boards require a practicing CE to hold an active PE license. The
license entitles the practitioner to seal construction documents and be responsible (one with the
legal ability) for the infrastructure elements illustrated on the sealed documents (ASCE, 2022).
Kira stated that the PE licensure served her career in environmental consulting well since
“you have to have certain credentials to design soil and groundwater remediation systems.” She
also believed that having a PE license meant “you have a certain level of expertise in very
technical work.” For Macie, “licensed professional civil engineer levels the playing field with
others” and her colleagues. She said that “it shows [she] got here, that [she was] not a token…not
because [she’s] a minority or because [she is] a woman. It is a professional credibility.” Like
Macie, Norma believed that she earned respect in the field; however, she understood that a PE
licensure also “comes with responsibility and liability to the public.”
After failing the exams, the first time, Mariah “enrolled in a class and worked with [her]
boss so that they would pay for it.” Because she took a review class, she eventually passed all
three exams. Remembering the great sacrifices and building resilience by balancing “family,
work, and life,” Mariah and Norma recommended that women engineers pass all the state board
exams before having children because competing priorities would compound challenges. Table 8
shows a comparative analysis of the participants’ responses to question Q4 about their perceived
value of the PE licensure.

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Table 8
Comparison Analysis of Participants ’ Responses to Q4
Q4. What does it mean to be a licensed professional engineer?
Macie
(P1)
A licensed professional civil engineer levels the playing field with others and with
my colleagues. So, it shows I got there, that I’m not a token. This was not done
because I’m a minority or because I’m a woman. It’s a professional credibility.
Norma
(P2)
A PE licensure is a responsibility because once you seal or stamp the construction
drawings, you take all the responsibility. Once you become a licensed engineer,
you make your own judgments and decisions and it’s your responsibility to
research a threat and to find the answer and to seal your design. You even carry
that responsibility with you when you go home. Sometimes, your mind may feel
heavy during weekends thinking about problem you need to find a solution to. I
think, this is part of the engineering role you undertake. It’s not only the respect
we are getting as a licensed PE, but it also comes with responsibility and liability
to the public ... I would recommend for all the young graduates to pass the EIT,
and then the PE exams as soon as possible, because I waited till I had my first
baby and it was very tough. I had my full-time job, then I needed to take care of
the baby, and I needed to pass the exam. I was so overwhelmed. “
Mariah
(P3)
I don’t use my PE license professionally. Like, I don’t stamp drawings or anything,
but I understand as an engineer, it’s hard to get promoted, so it’s like a
credential. I think, for most of us in our group, we have a PE. It’s kind of like
another degree, right? Especially in CA, there are so many different tests you
need to take for it. It’s really respected because it’s really hard to get. And the PE
license is more for practicing geotech, civil, or structural, and it’s not really
geared towards environmental. So, even more so, it was that much harder to
study it because I had not been involved with those things for such a long time
after school. So, I take a lot of pride with it. When I wanted to get my PE, I sat
for the exam and did not pass it the first time. I had one child already, and I
wanted to get my PE and I knew I wanted a second child. I knew that having two
children was going to be way harder to pass the PE. So, I enrolled in a class and
worked with my boss so that they would pay for it. And then I sat for the PE.,
and I tried. I passed the first day, but not the second day test. So, I took the class
to pass those specific tests, and I passed them. So, just trying to work it out, to fit
all those things in, and to achieve that goal ... just to make that happen. So,
having really understanding, boss who understood what it involved and how to
support me was really great.
Kira
(P4)
To be a licensed PE is a very practical meaning for me. I spent my first part of my
career doing environmental consulting, so you have to have certain credentials in
order to design soil and groundwater remediation systems. And, so, that’s what
that credential means, you have a certain level of expertise in very technical
work. And then what it means beyond that field is that no matter what other work
you do you have this grounding in terms of your specialty. And then from there,
you branch out.
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Q4. What does it mean to be a licensed professional engineer?
Nirhira
(P5)
You know, that exam was hard. I hope I never forget to renew it because it will be
so hard to take the exam and pass it again. I don’t know if it is unreasonably
difficult. I remember the seismic, but I never did seismic before or after the
exam. So, in government, even if you don’t get that license, there’s opportunities
to go up the ladder So, if you want to get more money, you might be able to do it
without license. But, definitely, you get more money with the license. The
passing rate when I took it was like 30%, which was worse than the bar [exam
rate] for the lawyers. So, luckily, a lot of people took parts of it several times.
One part I took four times, the easiest part. Some people pass all three parts the
first time, so I felt weird. But then, some people took it more times than I. So,
hey, just keep at it. And, I guess, it’s the resilience that you built.”

Note. N = 6 (n = 5)

A common expression from all participants was the appreciation for their persistent
efforts, validation of accomplishments, and the exposure to the rigor of what the engineering-
learning environment has to offer. Nirhira said it well when she stated, “I am satisfied where I
am. I am so glad I got a variety of experience: blue-collar, white-collar, East Coast, West Coast.
It is such a great place right now. It has been just fantastic.”
Summary of Findings for Research Question 1
Research Question 1 focused on what strategies the participants used to navigate barriers
to reach leadership positions in the CE field. The findings presented for RQ1 suggested the
following themes: they seize opportunities and optimize resources to build their CE careers and
see barriers as learning opportunities and bridges to success. A comparative analysis of the
participants’ responses to the interview protocol questions was discussed as evidence of the
following sub-themes: barriers to reaching leadership positions and strategies to navigate
challenges leading to success as respected leaders.
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Research Question 2
The second research question asked, “How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive their
intersectional identities contribute to their resilience in the construction industry?” This question
focused on learning about the participants’ (or their parents’) Asian heritage, their journey as
immigrants, and how they perceive their intersectional identities to build their resilience in the
construction industry. There are two key findings for this question: participants attribute their grit
to their Asian upbringing, and they attribute their self-agency to their gender. The subsequent
sections discuss each finding and the factors that shaped the participants’ resilience. Statements
from the participants provide a deeper understanding of their family’s immigration journey, AA
identities, and being women in the male-dominant construction industry.
Immigrant AA Women PEs Attribute Their Grit to Their Asian Upbringing
Participants attributed their grit to their Asian upbringing. Their stories highlighted their
social capital as immigrants and their resilience to bridge their AA identities.
Social Capital as Immigrants. The participants’ generational immigration status,
defined according to their age when they entered the United States, shaped their social capital,
molding their values and beliefs, decisions, life experiences, high educational attainment, and
professional careers as women engineers. Coleman (1988) noted that social capital is a form of
capital that exists in the relationships between people: an individual’s ties to other people allow
her to gain access to a broad range of resources. Social capital can manifest in the form of
obligations and expectations, information channels, and social norms (Coleman, 1988; Kao,
2004). The participants were initially asked where they were born and raised (Q1). If the
participants were born in Asia, they were asked to describe their journey to immigrate to
America (Q1a) and how they adjusted to life in America (Q1b).
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Participants identified with six different Asian sub-ethnic groups and were born in six
different countries in Asia. Macie was born in Japan and adopted by an American father who met
and married her mother in Japan as an enlisted petty officer in the U.S. Navy. In 1971, her father
brought 2-year-old Macie and her mother to the States. She “did not have a particular home
necessarily, because [they] moved around so much.” Like Macie, Kira was 2 years old when her
family entered Stateside, and both women identified themselves as 1.5-generation immigrants
(entry at age 12 years or younger). Born in Vietnam, she came with her parents to the “States as
part of the post-Vietnam [war] mass exodus migration.” Kira remembered her family’s stories of
their “tough journey,” which took about a year. Her family anticipated the journey “to have taken
a few weeks at most but ended up taking a full year, including many months at sea, and many
months in a refugee camp.” Of the six participants, Kira entered as an immigrant with no social
capital, demonstrating her family’s high value and support in academic and career aspirations for
upward mobility. Like Kira, Macie received strong support from her mom and stated she “always
knew (she) had to go to college because my mom wished for me to go to college.”
Nirhira and Norma identified themselves as first-generation immigrants who immigrated
at ages 13 and older. Nirhira’s parents were born in Sri Lanka, and they immigrated to Ghana in
West Africa, where Nirhira was born. At 15, she entered Stateside with her family and settled in
Davis, California. She described her immediate surrounding as a “serious culture shock” because
“Ghana was an amiable place. People were amiable.” She remembered coming “in the middle of
the school year in 10th grade” and “nobody talked to [her] except for the teacher. [She thought]
they were all White” and felt it was due to her “clothing … was horrible … just horrible.” Unlike
Nirhira, Norma completed her schooling and undergraduate education in mainland China. After
working for 6 years as a PE in China, she “applied to come to America for [a] master’s degree,
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then got [her] working visa and Green Card.” Norma’s journey to America was nothing less than
enjoyable, “Now as a citizen, I like my journey to America very much: I wanted to explore new
things, new culture, and higher education.”
Unlike Macie, Kira, Nirhira, and Norma, Mariah and Priscilla identified as second-
generation immigrants (children of first-generation immigrants). Both participants’ parents came
to the States as young adults. “Both my parents came over from the Philippines on scholarships
to do graduate programs here,” recalled Mariah. Priscilla and Mariah had the most social capital
among the six participants due to their parents’ academic and career successes. According to
Mariah,
Both my parents have physics PhDs, and my dad taught in an all-women’s college his
whole career. I have an aunt who was a chemist Ph.D. My other aunt was in zoology, and
we have one other professor in the family, so I thought that [obtaining multiple degrees
and credentials] was completely normal.
Similarly, Priscilla’s father’s educational attainment and profession as a civil engineer
shaped Priscilla’s perceived value towards multiple degrees and credentials: “My dad is a civil
engineer and came to the States in the 60s to do his graduate work at UC Berkeley.” Priscilla was
born in Anchorage, Alaska, because her “dad worked on the Alaska pipeline.” She moved to
Orange County, California, when she was a year old and grew up in a neighborhood where she
was exposed to many resources. In addition, Priscilla’s Asian upbringing was influenced by her
dad “being more modern,” her mom, who was “a little more patriarchal,” and her “large Punjabi
family.”
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The generational immigration status of the participants influenced their social capital.
Consequently, the participants’ family’s social capital impacted how they bridged their AA
identities.
Bridging Asian American Identities. Participants shared their thoughts on bridging
their AA identities and drawing on these identities to shape their decisions. I asked them how
they felt their identities as immigrant AA women have shaped their professional careers (Q1) and
life experiences (Q1a). In addition, I asked them to describe what family influences have shaped
their professional engineering identity (Q8b). Macie noticed that the minoritized groups had a lot
more grit and perseverance:
I think of intersectionality because this grit that we have learned and been accustomed to
all, all of our life because we know how to get there, we know how to convince, we know
how to persuade, we know strategy, we know how to approach. Otherwise, non-
minoritized sheltered groups are frequently overwhelmed.
This quote illustrates Macie’s perceived high value in intersectional identities and how these
identities build resilience.
Mariah thought about her “parents and coming out of leaving the Philippines through
academics [scholarships]. How you can better yourself, and you can learn all these things or
expose yourself, so life can be interesting.” She also stated that she had “the mindset that [she
had] to prove [herself] or [had] to do well, to show that [she] was as good as those guys or gals.”
This reflection demonstrates that she attributed her beliefs and values to her “Asian upbringing”
inspired by her parents’ determination to seek better opportunities, achieve high academic goals,
and continue to improve to reach higher levels of success and happiness.
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For Kira, although she would say subconsciously that she did not know precisely how
elements of her Asian upbringing have shaped her experiences, “consciously, [she knows] that
[her] family played a significant influence in [her] life.” She elaborated, “I think about them on
the forefront of a lot that I do. And maybe that has to do with the immigrant background or [her]
family’s journey. Whatever it is, you keep going.” Kira shared an analogy she heard from one of
her professors in her current MBA program:
It is not going from point A to point B, but it is, going from, say, point A and having this
entrepreneurial mindset of okay from point A, if I am not satisfied, what are all the points
of the radius around me, that would improve upon my experience? And going from there
to the next intermediate point. And then, from that, if you are not satisfied, it might be a
zigzag line to get to, but it is just about the journey along the way.
Kira’s reference to this analogy shows her value in her determination to achieve challenging
goals, regardless of the path she took to get there. In addition, the analogy may be her
“subconscious” appreciation for building resilience, inspired by her family’s story of the “post-
Vietnam war mass exodus,” “tough journey to America including many months at sea,” and
“many months in refugee camps.” The participants who have faced adversities have persevered
and built resilience through their journey. They attributed their grit to their ethnic values, cultural
norms, and filial obligations from their Asian upbringing.
Immigrant AA Women PEs Attribute Their Self-Agency to Their Gender
There were unique challenges the participants encountered throughout their lives and
their CE careers, and they attributed their self-agency due to their gender. The male-dominant
construction industry compounded these challenges due to the participants’ intersectional
identities as immigrant AA women PEs. The literature review provided evidence of women’s
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underrepresentation in the male-dominated CE profession (Fouad et al., 2016; Johnson, 2013).
The participants were asked to share their thoughts about building resilience in the CE field (Q7)
and what they attribute their resiliency to (Q7a). The six participants claimed CE practice
between 21 to 30 years, civil engineering sub-fields, and market sectors.
Norma shared that she has been “in engineering for about 30 years, including [her] five to
six years in mainland China.” She started feeling comfortable with the work that she was doing
because “even when [she did not] know something, [she] can research.” She said, “I think these
are my assets: I am a woman civil, structural engineer; I have an undergraduate degree from
China; I have a graduate degree from the U.S. Both my experience helped me in my work and
helped me to be comfortable with my current position.” This statement suggests her attribution
of self-agency to her gender, in addition to her educational background
Macie explained that there are characteristics about her where she does not get sad, she
gets mad. She elaborated on this attribution of this character:
I think I had always had that even when high school counselors, teachers, and parents
told me I couldn’t make it in college, and I did not need to go to college, and I could find
a husband to take care of me. That made me mad. It did not make me sad. They told me I
did not have the math needed to be an engineer and switched my college education. It
didn’t make me sad; it made me mad. In the Navy, a senior officer, Navy Captain,
equivalent to a colonel, told me I’d have a hard time promoting because I’m female. It
did not make me sad. It made me mad So, that sense of getting mad just meant, I want to
prove you wrong, and I’m going to prove you wrong.
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With this statement, Macie perceived her self-agency “to prove [everyone] wrong” was
attributed to others’ expectations of her because of her gender. In addition, she shared her
perception of being a woman in a man’s field:
We are better negotiators. We understand how to persuade; we do not let our egos get in
the way because having an ego in a minoritized world can be detrimental to everything. It
comes with labeling, stereotypes, and all those kinds of things. Nevertheless, that
intersectionality of minoritized women, whatever else, makes us incredibly astute in
navigating very complex territories. It gives us a framework growing up, and through
college, it provides us with a framework of how we get things done; how we can achieve
things when the odds are against us.
Macie’s additional statement demonstrates her perception of women’s self-agency as a
contributing factor in building resilience in “a man’s field.”
Summary of Findings for Research Question 2
Research Question 2 focused on how immigrant AA women PEs perceive their
intersectional identities contribute to their resilience in the construction industry. The findings
presented for RQ2 suggested the participants attributed their grit to their Asian upbringing and
their self-agency to their gender. A comparative analysis of the participants’ responses to the
interview protocol questions was discussed as evidence of the following sub-themes: immigrants
and their social capital and bridging AA identities.
Research Question 3
The third research question asked, “How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles
of leaders in implementing an inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry?” This
study used the results from both the quantitative and qualitative data analysis to compare the
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perspectives of the larger sample of PE survey respondents with the purposive sample of
immigrant AA women PE interviewees on how they perceived the roles of leaders in
implementing an inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry.
Quantitative Analysis Results
The online survey (N = 49) data determined what relationships, if any, existed between
the respondents’ perceived value of Leadership Influence, the independent variable, and their
perceived value of Inclusive Culture, the dependent variable. Moreover, perceived values were
compared across three distinct groups: immigrant AA women PEs, women PEs, and men PEs.
The common characteristics of the three groups were licensure as PEs. Their different
characteristics included intersectional identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, and immigrant
status). Table 9 enumerates the interviews assigned to the two variables, the perceived value of
leadership influence and perceived value of inclusive culture, and the value assigned to Likert
scale type answer choices on the survey. Questions Q12, Q14, and Q17 were related to the
perceived value of Leadership Influence, the independent variable. Questions Q11 and Q13 were
related to the perceived value of Inclusive Culture, the dependent variable. The Likert scale type
choices on Q12, Q14, Q17, Q11. And Q13 used the following rating (values): strongly disagree
(1), somewhat disagree (2), neutral (3), somewhat agree (4), strongly agree (5).

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Table 9
Variables Assigned to Leadership Influence and Inclusive Culture
Variable
grouping
Leadership influence Likert scale type and values (1 to 5)
1 2 3 4 5
Q11 I work for a company
that takes active
measures to seek a
diverse candidate
pool when hiring
Strongly
disagree
Somewhat
disagree
Neutral Somewhat
agree
Strongly
agree
Q14 Racial, ethnic, sexual
and gender-based
jokes or slurs are
not tolerated at my
workplace.
Strongly
disagree
Somewhat
disagree
Neutral Somewhat
agree
Strongly
agree
Q17 Leaders in my
organization
support and
provide an
inclusive
engineering culture
Strongly
disagree
Somewhat
disagree
Neutral Somewhat
agree
Strongly
agree
Variable
grouping
Inclusive culture Likert scale type and values (1 to 5)
1 2 3 4 5
Q12 Employees of
different
backgrounds are
encouraged to
apply for
leadership
positions in my
organization
Strongly
disagree
Somewhat
disagree
Neutral Somewhat
agree
Strongly
agree
Q13 My employer has
done a good job
providing
educational
programs that
promote diversity,
equity, and
inclusion in our
workplace.
Strongly
disagree
Somewhat
disagree
Neutral Somewhat
agree
Strongly
agree

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Table 10 details the descriptive statistics data organized by demographic groupings under
immigrant AA women PEs in civil engineering practice (n = 6), women PEs in civil engineering
practice (n = 13), and men PEs in civil engineering practice (n = 22). The notes on Table 10
define the following: average, confidence interval of average, standard deviation, minimum, and
maximum.

Table 10
Descriptive Statistics for Respondents ’ Perceived Values of Leadership Influence and Inclusive
Culture
Survey
question
Grouped respondents’
perceived value of
leadership influence
Average
Confidence
interval of
average
SD Min Max
Q12, Q14, Q17 Immigrant AA women PEs
in civil engineering
practice (n = 6)
3.83 2.68 to 4.99 1.10 2.0 5.0
Q12, Q14, Q17 Women PEs in civil
engineering practice (n =
13)
4.15 3.58 to 4.73 0.95 2.0 5.0
Q12, Q14, Q17 Men PEs in civil
engineering practice (n =
22)
4.20 3.89 to 4.51 0.69 2.8 5.0
Q11 & Q13 Immigrant AA women PEs
in civil engineering
practice (n = 6)
3.00 1.71 to 4.29 1.22 1.0 4.0
Q11 & Q13 Women PEs in civil
engineering practice (n =
13)
3.58 2.91 to 4.24 1.10 1.0 4.5
Q11 & Q13 Men PEs in civil
engineering practice (n =
22)
3.82 3.45 to 4.19 0.84 2.0 5.0

Note. Likert Scale Rating (Value) = Strongly Disagree (1), Somewhat Disagree (2), Neutral (3),
Somewhat Agree (4), Strongly Agree (5); Average = averaging perceived value on interview
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protocol listed under survey question #; Confidence interval of average = For example, 95%
confidence interval means that, if we extract samples from the population and compute a
confidence interval for an average of them each time repeatedly (sample average differs each
time because samples are not the same), the average of the population would fall in these
intervals for the 95% of the time. Thus, we say that the confidence of the calculated confidence
interval for the average is 95%; SD = The standard deviation shows how scattered data are from
their average, and it becomes larger as the data scatter more; Min = the lowest perceived value
respondents selected; Max = the highest perceived value respondents selected.

Average. All three demographic groupings perceived values of leadership influence as
greater than their perceived values of an inclusive culture. Figure 4 illustrates a visual
comparison of the average values of an Inclusive Culture and Leadership Influence as perceived
by the three groups of respondents. The results indicated that men PEs perceived values of
Leadership Influence and Inclusive Culture were slightly higher than that of women PEs and
significantly higher than that of immigrant AA women PEs. Moreover, there was a bigger gap
between each group’s perceived value of an Inclusive Culture and that of Leadership Influence.
This is evidence of the exclusive male-dominated CE field, where the culture is inclusive of men
and challenging for women to achieve a sense of belonging (Ayre et al., 2013).

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Figure 4
Comparison of Average Values of Inclusive Culture and Leadership Influence

Note. Likert scale rating (value) = Strongly Disagree (1), Somewhat Disagree (2), Neutral (3),
Somewhat Agree (4), Strongly Agree (5)

Confidence Interval of Average. Salkind (2014) explained that a 95% confidence
interval means that if we extracted samples from the population and computed the confidence
interval for average each time repeatedly (sample average differed each time because samples
were not the same), the average of the population would fall in these intervals for the 95% of the
time. Therefore, the calculated confidence interval for the average is 95%. Examining the data
for perceived values of leadership influence, the men PEs’ confidence interval of average
indicated a value of 3.89 to 4.51 (shown in Table 10), suggesting responses tended to be neutral,
somewhat agree, and strongly agree, corresponding to an average response of 4.20 (shown in
Table 10 and Figure 4). In comparison, the immigrant AA women PEs’ confidence interval of
average indicated a value of 2.68 to 4.99 (see Table 10), suggesting responses covered a wider
range of neutral, somewhat agree, and strongly agree, corresponding to an average response of
3.82
3.58
3
4.2
4.15
3.83
0 1 2 3 4 5
Men PEs
Women PEs
Immigrant AA Women PEs
Average Perceived Value of Leadership
Influence
Average Perceived Value of Inclusive
Culture
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3.83 (see Table 10 and Figure 4), which is lower than the men PEs average response of 4.2 (see
Table 10 and Figure 4).
A similar trend is evident in examining the data on the three groups’ perceived values of
an inclusive culture. This trend demonstrates the compounding effect of intersectional identities
where the male-dominant host culture (CE) catered to the men PEs’ expectations of leadership
influence and inclusive culture, and their collective perception is less diverse (smaller range of
confidence interval of average) than the women PEs’ perception. The diversity of perception
increases with intersectional identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, generational immigrant status)
inherent to immigrant AA women PEs.
Correlation Between Perceived Value of Leadership Influence and Inclusive
Culture. Qualtrics Stats iQ recommended Pearson’s r as a valid correlation measure when the
following assumptions about the given data are met: there are no outliers in the continuous-
discrete data, and the relationship between the variables is linear. Table 11 shows the correlation
between engineers’ leadership influence and inclusive culture perceptions organized under three
groups: immigrant AA women PEs, women PEs, and men PEs.

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Table 11
Correlation for Engineers ’ Perceived Values of Leadership Influence and Inclusive Culture
Respondent sub-groupings Average SD 1 2
(A) Immigrant AA women PEs in civil
engineering (N = 6)

1. Perceived value of inclusive culture 3 1.22 1.00
2. Perceived value of leadership influence 3.83 1.1 0.962* 1.00
(B) Women PEs in civil engineering (n = 13)
1. Perceived value of inclusive culture 3.58 1.1 1.00
2. Perceived value of leadership influence 4.15 0.95 0.90* 1.00
(C) Men PEs in civil engineering (n = 22)
1. Perceived value of inclusive culture 3.82 0.84 1.00
2. Perceived value of leadership influence 4.2 0.69 0.58* 1.00

Note. Leadership Influence aggregate variables were calculated by averaging engineers’
responses to Q12, Q14, AND Q17. Inclusive Culture aggregate variables were calculated by
averaging engineers’ responses to Q11 and Q13. (N = 49 engineers). Numbers in bold represent
the highest value for mean, standard deviation, and correlation effect size (Pearson’s r). * p <
0.05.

Immigrant AA Women PEs. The immigrant AA women PEs’ perceived value of
leadership influence was strongly positively correlated with their perceived value of inclusive
culture. Using Pearson’s Correlation method of statistical analysis (Salkind, 2014), the effect size
(Person’s r) was 0.96; a large value greater than 0.5 indicated that the relationship between the
two variables was highly impactful, suggesting that the immigrant AA women PEs’ perceptions
of leadership’ influence positively impacted the implementation of an inclusive culture. The
statistical significance was measured in terms of a p-value (Salkind, 2014). The calculated p-
value was 0.002, a value less than 0.05, which meant that the correlation between the perceived
89

values of leadership influence and inclusive culture was consistent enough that it is improbable
to be a coincidence.
Figure 5 shows the correlation scatter plot between the value of immigrant AA women
PEs’ perceived value of Leadership Influence, the independent variable along the y-axis, and the
perceived value of Inclusive Culture, the dependent variable along the x-axis. The relationship
between these two variables was linear with a positive slope, indicative of a direct positive
correlation between the two variables.

Figure 5
Correlation Between the Immigrant AA Women PEs ’ Perceived Value of Leadership Influence
and Inclusive Culture

Note. Each dot may represent more than one participant. Numeral values represent the
participants’ perceived value ranging from a value of 1, as strongly disagree, to a value of 5, as
strongly agree. (n = 6 immigrant AA women PEs).

0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Immigrant AA Women PEs’
Perceived Value of Leadership
Influence
Immigrant AA Women PEs Perceived Value of Inclusive Culture
90

The scatter plot demonstrates that the greater the immigrant AA women PEs’ perceived
value of the leadership influence, the greater the immigrant AA women PEs’ perceived value of
inclusive work culture was. Therefore, the immigrant AA women PEs’ perceived value of
leadership influence was strongly positively correlated with their perceived value of an inclusive
culture.
Women PEs. Like immigrant AA women PEs, the larger collective group of women
PEs’ perceived value of leadership influence was strongly positively correlated with their
perceived value of inclusive culture. The resulting effect size (Pearson’s r) was 0.90 (> 0.5),
indicating that the relationship between the two variables was highly impactful, suggesting that
the women PEs’ perceptions of leadership’s influence positively impacted the implementation of
an inclusive culture. The calculated p-value was 0.00002 (< 0.05), which means that the
correlation between the perceived values of leadership influence and inclusive culture is
consistent enough that it is improbable to be a coincidence.
Figure 6 shows the correlation scatter plot between the value of women PEs’ perceived
value of Leadership Influence, the independent variable along the y-axis, and the perceived value
of Inclusive Culture, the dependent variable along the x-axis. The relationship between these two
variables is linear with a positive slope, indicative of a direct positive correlation between the
two variables.

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Figure 6
Correlation Between the Women PEs ’ Perceived Value of Leadership Influence and Inclusive
Culture

Note. Each dot may represent more than one participant. Numeral values represent the
participants’ perceived value ranging from a value of 1, as strongly disagree, to a value of 5, as
strongly agree. (n = 13 women PEs).

The results indicate that the greater the women PEs’ perceived value of the leadership
influence, the greater the women PEs’ perceived value of inclusive culture was. Therefore, the
women PEs’ perceived value of Leadership Influence was strongly positively correlated with
their perceived value of an inclusive culture.
Men PEs. Like all other groups, Men PEs’ perceived value of leadership influence was
strongly positively correlated with their perceived value of inclusive culture. Although not nearly
as high as the results from the other two groups, the resulting effect size (Pearson’s r) was 0.64
(> 0.5), indicating that the relationship between the two variables is highly impactful, suggesting
that the men PEs’ perceptions of leadership’ influence positively impacted the implementation of
an inclusive culture. The calculated p-value was 0.001 (< 0.05), which means that the correlation
0
1
2
3
4
5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Women PE’s Perceived
Value of
Leadership Influence
Women PE’s Perceived Value of Inclusive Culture
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between the perceived values of leadership influence and inclusive culture was consistent enough
that it is improbable to be a coincidence.
Figure 7 shows the correlation scatter plot between the value of men PEs’ perceived
value of Leadership Influence, the independent variable along the y-axis, and the perceived value
of Inclusive Culture, the dependent variable along the x-axis. The relationship between these two
variables is linear with a positive slope, indicative of a direct positive correlation between the
two variables.

Figure 7
Correlation Between the Men PEs ’ Perceived Value of Leadership Influence and Inclusive
Culture

Note. Each dot may represent more than one participant. Numeral values represent the
participants’ perceived value ranging from a value of 1, as strongly disagree, to a value of 5, as
strongly agree. (n = 22 men PEs).

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Men’s Perceived Value of
Leadership Influence
Men PE’s Perceived Value of Inclusive Culture
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The results indicate that the greater the men PEs perceived value of the leadership
influence, the greater their perceived value of inclusive work culture was. Therefore, the men
PEs’ perceived value of leadership influence was strongly positively correlated with their
perceived value of an inclusive culture.
The Pearson’s Correlation analysis provided a statistical test yielding the following
results: all three groups’ perceived value of Leadership Influence was strongly positively
correlated with their perceived value of an Inclusive Culture. The immigrant AA women PEs and
the men PEs correlation (Pearson’s r) values of 0.96 and 0.64, respectively, demonstrate the
greater impact the immigrant AA women’s perceived value of leadership influence has on
implementing an inclusive culture. These resulting gaps were impacted and compounded by
intersectional identities. The more intersectional identities they identified with, the larger the gap
between their perceived values of leadership influence and inclusive culture.
Qualitative Analysis Results
The interview data provided a deeper understanding of how the interviewees perceived
the roles of influential leaders in implementing inclusive cultures in the construction industry.
The results of the data analysis found that influential leaders create psychological safety at work
for the immigrant AA women PEs. The following sections detail how the study participants
perceive influential leaders creating a sense of belonging, fostering diverse collaborative teams,
and providing allyship to AA women PEs.
Influential Leaders Create Psychological Safety for the Immigrant AA Women PEs.
Influential leaders create psychological safety in the workplace by providing a sense of
belonging, fostering diverse collaborative teams, and allyship to immigrant AA women PEs.
This section highlights the positive emotions resulting from leaders’ actions that created
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psychological safety for the immigrant AA women PEs in the workplace. When leaders enforced
zero-tolerance in the workplace for sexism, sexual harassment, microaggressions, and racial
discrimination, they created a safe place for everyone and supported immigrant AA women PEs’
sense of belonging.
Four of the six participants claimed their line managers made them feel valued and
supported and that they had not seen nor experienced any incidents of sexual harassment or overt
discrimination. All participants admitted to being recipients of some form of microaggressions
throughout their careers. They acknowledged that they have built coping mechanisms and
recognized their leaders’ proactive engagement in implementing employee training and
workshops to reinforce awareness of human resources (HR) policies and disciplinary actions for
misconduct.
Leaders who actively promoted team collaboration were perceived to influence inclusive
practices in the engineering culture positively. As an elite leader in her field, Macie strongly
encouraged “authenticity” (allowing people to express and be themselves) in the workplace.
Allowing employees to “feel they were able to be their whole selves at work” and exhibit their
intersectional identities without fear of judgment. This authenticity fostered respect and trust
among employees, fostering team collaboration and high-performing teams. With respect and
trust, employees also feel safe to take risks, ask other team members for help, and more easily
discuss complex problems and issues, thus creating psychological safety at work.
Macie “assimilated” early in her career to blend in with the host culture and eventually
chose authenticity to receive respect. Remembering her early career, Macie explained her
strategy to meet the general expectations in her workplace, “it started as assimilation. And in the
end, as I matured, it is being [my] authentic self.” Macie’s strategy demonstrates she did not
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have to conform to the dominant culture to be respected. Her authentic self-allowed her to thrive
as an inclusive leader: “I like to be in an environment where I feel supported, and I can be a girl
in a hardhat and a safety vest, and I am perfectly well.” Norma shared the same sentiments and
talked about appreciating her boss because “he [was] a gentleman.” Norma also believed in
bringing her authentic self to work: “I also like to be a [woman] engineer because most of my
coworkers are men. I can learn from them, and for me, if I am good, they will recognize me. [I
am] always true to [my] own work.”
The participants believed that women PEs needed to find a supportive working
environment where their bosses were their sponsors and allies, advocating for their psychological
safety. Both Mariah and Kira also acknowledged that their working environment had an
unusually high representation of females. Both also recognized how they appreciated the support
from their female leaders and peers and knew that their managers were always accessible and
approachable. Mariah expressed how her perceived value of fostering a supportive and
collaborative environment for women PEs was influenced by female peers, leaders, and role
models.
Five of the six participants stated having very supportive bosses. Macie remembered how
her boss had “a very macho ego, but for some reason, he recognized the good work that I did. He
wrote a letter on my behalf to the selection board and then went on to talk about how special I
was.” Her boss’s actions and statements propelled Macie’s career. This situation demonstrates an
example of how allies advocate and remove barriers so that women PEs can have equitable
access to leadership roles. Kira claimed not having a mentor who was “someone consistent, and
that has been [her] guiding post.” However, she remembered her “previous boss found
interesting projects that [she] could be part of, even after [she] was no longer part of the
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organization.” Like Macie, Kira’s recollections also suggested how she perceived the value of
relationship-building with her boss and how her boss acknowledged her contributions and
technical expertise.
Norma also remembered how “her boss made [her] feel like [she was] the number one
priority.” Norma said, “whenever I have a question, my boss will stop whatever he is working
on.” Mariah recalled her difficulty passing the PE licensing board exams and the support
provided by her boss:
When I wanted to get my PE, I sat for the exam and did not pass it the first time. I had
one child already, and I wanted to get my PE, and I knew I wanted a second child, and I
knew that having two children would be way harder to pass the PE. I enrolled in a class
and worked with my boss to pay for it. I took the class to pass those specific tests, and I
passed. So, just trying to work it out, fit all those things in, and achieve that goal, to make
that happen, having understanding, a boss who understood what it involved and how to
support me was great.
This quote demonstrates Mariah’s boss removed barriers that helped her achieve her PE license.
Like Macie, Kira, Norma, and Mariah, Nirhira talked about how she “had great mentors and
people who developed [her] and invited [her] to pull off papers and present at conferences.”
Nirhira’s statement suggests that a leader’s strong support for the career development of women
PEs is an important component of creating an inclusive organizational culture.
Additional Work Is Needed by Leaders to Build an Inclusive Culture. Two
participants shared how leaders can destroy trust through their actions and behaviors, resulting in
compounded negative effects. Nirhira found “that most guys have been so respectful (her) whole
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career,” but admits “there have been a few times” where she experienced “hardcore” incidents.
She detailed her encounter with her former boss, herself, and another guy in a meeting”:
My boss said, “You know, I have been having a difficult time getting this data from the
supplier for the water systems. Why don’t you wear a shorter skirt, Nirhira?” And he
says, laughing. And then there was another incident; I was evaluating someone’s work.
And my boss, who is White, says again, “Oh, why are you wary of that work? Why are
you criticizing that work? Is that because the guy is Indian? And you are Sri Lankan?”
Although these incidents “bugged [her] and thought about it the whole night,” she chose to let it
go. Nirhira’s sample “incidents” were many, and she reflected on her decision to remain silent.
These quotes dictate that Nirhira, over the years, has experienced sexual harassment but
described them as “hardcore” incidents of “discrimination,” not because of her ethnicity but
gender.
Priscilla shared her perception of non-inclusive leadership as multi-faceted, acceptance of
workplace incivility, and why women leave. She provided narratives of how a leader cultivated a
hostile environment that jeopardized the workplace’s psychological safety and well-being.
Priscilla stated that the compounding effect of persistent negative experiences caused her to take
an eight-month medical leave to recover from emotional trauma. Her partial narratives are shared
to provide a deeper level of perspective discourse surrounding the issues of sexism, sexual
harassment, microaggressions, and racial discrimination. When she reported these incidents, her
manager ignored them and neglected to file them with the HR manager. These actions, or lack
thereof, were perceived as purposeful oppression and a breach of her psychological safety at
work, causing her to take an eight-month paid medical leave. “I have experienced all four of
them. I got sick 2 years ago and had to take 8 months off.”
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Nirhira also felt she could not “dress too girly” because she did not want to draw
attention to the “girly parts” and wanted “everything to be focused” on her brain. Nirhira’s quote
indicates that she worked in a non-inclusive environment where she felt it was safe to show pride
in her gender. Mariah could not recall a time when she experienced sexism but claimed she “was
sure (she has) been the recipient of some microaggressions.” “I would think many times that
when someone would say something, I would just try and give them the benefit of the doubt,”
Mariah added. Like Mariah, Kira erred on the side of grace and humanity: “I mean, it is certainly
microaggressions, but I cannot even keep track of those. Sometimes they register, and sometimes
they do not.”
Macie “can honestly say that [she] was not sexually harassed,” but acknowledged that
“microaggressions [were] always there. There was a lot of bias, but not overt discrimination.”
Norma said, “I do admit we had a couple of designers that gave me a hard time occasionally. I
did have one or two bosses that always give you a hard time, making you feel you do not deserve
anything. I only worked with them for 18 months.” Consequently, Norma stated she left that
employment, which demonstrates that she left employment when people around her did not value
her contributions.
Priscilla’s experience in a CE culture was the opposite of all other participants. She
collected herself and shared her reflections on not bringing her whole self to work because her
manager did not value equity and inclusion, which further damaged her psychological safety.
She expressed that the general expectations in her place of employment for 25 years did not
match her authentic self. In addition, the hostile working climate took a toll on her emotional
well-being and mental health.
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Priscilla asserted that “because civil engineering is the oldest profession, it has really old
school problems. Workplace incivility is why women leave.” She elaborated on what a “non-
inclusive leadership” is:
It actively demeans you from growing yourself. It is actively trying to make you fail.
Inclusion is a feeling of belonging. And I don’t feel like I belong. There is no mentorship
and no psychological safety. The work environment is toxic So, until women like us and
minorities open their mouths and talk about life experiences, nothing will change for the
new-gen. Why do I have to prove myself every day when I have the same qualifications
they have. We have to work three times harder. And even then, we are not going to
achieve it because people want to promote people that look like them.
This quote demonstrates what can go wrong in a work culture led by “non-inclusive leaders.”
Summary of Findings for Research Question 3
Research Question 3 focused on how immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles of
leaders in implementing an inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry. The
finding presented for RQ3 suggested that influential leaders create psychological safety at work
for immigrant AA women PEs. A comparative analysis of the participants’ responses to the
interview protocol questions was discussed as evidence of sense of belonging, fostering diverse
collaborative teams, and allyship to AA women PEs.
Summary of Results and Findings
The study aimed to understand the strategies used by immigrant AA women PEs as they
built resilience while navigating the CE profession and identify the perceived role of influential
leaders in implementing an inclusive organizational culture. Using a mixed-method approach,
the study began with an online survey accessible to two engineering associations. There were 49
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survey respondents and nine survey participants met all five criteria for participation in an
interview. Six of the eligible participants volunteered for the follow-up semi-structured
interview. I interviewed six immigrant AA women licensed PEs in the CE field. Though they
shared varied life and professional engineering experiences, the findings indicated that common
themes and factors shaped the participants’ resilience.
Table 12 provides a summary table of the research questions, findings (themes), and sub-
themes. The first research question was aimed at understanding the barriers to reaching
leadership positions in the CE field and focused on the strategies used by immigrant AA women
PEs. This study found that immigrant AA women proactively searched for opportunities and
took advantage of available resources to build their CE careers. Moreover, the participants
navigated barriers by treating them as learning opportunities that led them to their achievements.
The second research question focused on learning about the participants’ Asian heritage, their
journey as immigrants, and how they perceive their intersectional identities to build their
resilience in the construction industry. The participants’ statements demonstrated that they
attributed self-agency to their gender, being women in the male-dominated CE field, and grit to
their Asian upbringing, reflecting on their resilience through adversities along their immigration
journey. The third research question explored the participants’ organizations and how they
perceived the roles of leaders in implementing inclusive cultures in the construction industry.
The results of the data analysis found that influential leaders create psychological safety at work
for the immigrant AA women PEs; however, practices need to be improved by influential leaders
to build an inclusive engineering culture.

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Table 12
Summary Table of Research Questions, Findings (Themes) and Sub-Themes
Research questions Themes Sub-themes
What strategies have
been used by
immigrant AA
women PEs to
successfully
navigate barriers to
reach leadership
positions in the
civil engineering
field?
Immigrant AA women seize
opportunities and optimize resources
to build their civil engineering
careers.

Immigrant AA women PEs see barriers
as learning opportunities and bridges
to success.
Barriers to reach leadership
positions

Strategies to navigate
challenges leading to
success as respected
leaders

How do immigrant
AA women PEs
perceive their
intersectional
identities
contribute to their
resilience in the
construction
industry?
Immigrant AA women PEs attribute
their grit to their Asian upbringing.
Immigrants and their social
capital

Bridging AA identities

Immigrant AA women PEs attribute
their self-agency to their gender.

How do immigrant
AA women PEs
perceive the roles
of leaders in
implementing an
inclusive
organizational
culture in the
construction
industry?

Influential leaders create psychological
safety at work for the immigrant AA
women PEs.

Additional work is needed by leaders to
build an inclusive culture

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Chapter Five: Recommendations
This study explored the role of intersectional identities to understand the strategies used
by immigrant AA women PEs in building resilience to navigate the CE profession and the
influence of leaders in supporting and implementing an inclusive organizational culture in the
construction industry. The following research questions guided this study.
1. What strategies have been used by immigrant AA women PEs to successfully navigate
barriers to reach leadership positions in the civil engineering field?
2. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive their intersectional identities contribute to
their resilience in the construction industry?
2. How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles of leaders in implementing an
inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry?
This chapter provides a discussion of the findings related to the theoretical framework and
existing literature. Based on these discussions, the chapter presents recommendations and
implementation plans for the metal building industry. The chapter concludes with limitations and
delimitations of the study and suggestions for future research.
Discussion of Findings
Critically approaching data analysis involved recognizing and addressing the power
differentials within data analysis as an ethical and methodological concern (Ravitch & Carl,
2019). Ravitch and Carl (2019) suggested that the researcher actively engage in validity
strategies such as theory and data triangulation, participant validation, strategic sequencing of
methods, thick description, dialogic engagement, and structured reflexivity practices. I
intentionally structured dialogic engagement into all the data analysis processes. I actively
sought out peers who would challenge the assumptions, biases, preconceived notions, and how
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these elements shaped how I interpreted the data. The first section of Chapter Five discusses the
theoretical framework and existing literature. The second section of Chapter Five discusses the
findings and themes (covered in Chapter Four) as categorized by the research questions that
guided this study and their direct link to the theoretical framework and existing literature (the
organization of discussion of findings is shown in Table 13). The application of
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1974) and the intersectionality theory
(Crenshaw, 1989) guided the findings and themes to answer the three research questions.

Table 13
Overview of Discussion of Findings and Links to Theoretical Framework and Existing Literature
Research
questions
Themes Sub-themes Link to theoretical framework Citations
What strategies
have been
used by
immigrant
AA women
PEs to
successfully
navigate
barriers to
reach
leadership
positions in
the civil
engineering
field?
Immigrant AA
women seize
opportunities and
optimize
resources to build
their civil
engineering
careers.
Participants’ homogeneous
intersectional identities influenced
the strategies they used to
overcome barriers
(intersectionality theory) as they
transitioned between major
engineering career milestones
(Bronfenbrenner’s chronosystem
ecological systems theory).
Kitano, 1997; Paat, 2013;
Roy, 2018

Immigrant AA
women PEs see
barriers as
learning
opportunities and
bridges to
success.
Barriers to reach
leadership roles

Strategies to
reach
leadership roles
How do
immigrant
AA women
PEs perceive
their
intersectional
identities
contribute to
their
resilience in
the
Immigrant AA
women PEs
attribute their grit
to their Asian
upbringing.
Immigrants and
their social
capital
Participants’ attribution of their
intersectional identities, in building
resilience through interlocking
systems of oppression
(intersectionality theory), played a
role in building resilience within
the larger cultural and social
contexts (Bronfenbrenner’s
macrosystem ecological systems
model) of the construction
industry.
Beddoes, 2022; Kitano,
1997: Onwuegbuzie et
al., 2013

Bridging AA
identities

Immigrant AA
women PEs
attribute their
self-agency to
their gender.

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Research
questions
Themes Sub-themes Link to theoretical framework Citations
construction
industry?
How do
immigrant
AA women
PEs perceive
the roles of
influential
organizationa
l leaders in
implementing
an inclusive
organizationa
l culture in
the
construction
industry?
Influential leaders
create
psychological
safety at work for
the immigrant
AA women PEs.

Additional work is
needed by
leaders to build
an inclusive
culture
Participants’ intersectionality
(intersectionality theory) and the
social systems that surround them
affected their perceived value of
leaders’ influence in implementing
inclusive engineering cultures
(Bronfenbrenner’s exosystem
ecological systems theory).
Fernando et al., 2018;
Kitano, 1997;
Onwuegbuzie, 2013;
Paat, 2013; Verma,
2018

105
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Research Question 1
The first research question asked, “What strategies have been used by immigrant AA
women PEs to successfully navigate barriers to reach leadership positions in the CE field?
Participants’ homogeneous intersectional identities influenced their strategies to overcome
barriers (intersectionality theory) as they transitioned between major engineering career
milestones (Bronfenbrenner’s chronosystem ecological systems theory; Kitano, 1997; Paat,
2013; Roy, 2018).
Finding 1: Immigrant AA Women Seize Opportunities and Optimize Resources to Build Their
Civil Engineering Careers
The participants in this study adapted to life changes and transitions by proactively
pursuing opportunities to build their careers and utilizing resources. In working with immigrant
children and their families, Paat (2013) found that the transition from adolescents to young adults
constitutes crucial elements that significantly impact immigrant children’s assimilation
trajectories. However, in general, immigrant children making healthy transitions throughout their
passage into adolescence were more capable of adapting to changes.
The participants optimized tutoring resources and were involved in club opportunities to
thrive in top engineering schools in the nation. Waters et al. (2010) asserted that young adult
immigrants could also sustain any adaptations-associated adversity. They were trying to establish
a sense of independence and acquire the competency necessary for a successful transition to
early adulthood (Waters et al., 2010). The participants in this study shared their appreciation for
learning opportunities in graduate studies. They reported having positive interactions and support
from their professors to overcome challenges. When they encountered barriers, they turned to
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friends and family for support and advice in some instances. Two of the participants struggled in
their academic performance but quickly learned their lessons, sought help, and got back on track.
During their career span (ranged between 21and 30 years), five of the participants
embraced moving across the country to seek better career opportunities, explore the practice in
different sectors, or find the employment of their dreams. As Bronfenbrenner (1974, 1979, 1986)
explained, the chronosystem consists of all the environmental changes that occur over the
participants’ lifetime, which directly influenced their major life transitions and personal changes
through their CE profession. Moreover, their strategies, decisions, and outcomes are influenced
by the historical period and the era in which they developed and matured (Bronfenbrenner, 1974,
1979, 1986). These influences include the immigrant children’s social transformations based on
their family’s cross-national migration, migration timing, and assimilation into the host society
(Paat, 2013: Roy, 2018). The cited literature supported the immigrant AA women PEs’
versatility influenced by their resilience through their immigration and assimilation trajectories.
Hence, the participants gravitated toward opportunities and optimized resources to advance their
CE careers.
Finding 2: Immigrant AA Women PEs See Barriers As Learning Opportunities and Bridges to
Success
Participants found that workplace barriers presented learning opportunities to gain new
tools, reinforce their strengths, build resilience, and guide their paths to conquer their objectives.
Barriers to Reach Leadership Positions. Based on a study of lifetime achievements of
15 gifted AA women, Kitano (1997) highlighted that as gifted Asian American women entered
the workplace as adults, they found that hard work alone did not ensure advancement because of
personal (e.g., imposter syndrome) and structural (e.g., gender bias, stereotypes, and non-
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inclusive engineering culture) barriers. Nevertheless, gifted AA women found the workplace
highly satisfying, stimulating, and challenging (Kitano, 1997).
This study’s participants perceived barriers to reaching leadership positions included the
following: meeting all requirements for PE licensure while attending to familial obligations and
keeping work-family-life balance, gender norms and expectations and lack of influential
communication networks, unavailability of female role models, and non-equitable access to
career progression, and a hostile working environment. Many studies support the participants’
perceived barriers to reaching leadership positions.
Meeting All PE Licensure Requirements While Attending to Familial Obligations and
Keeping Work-Family-Life Balance. In a study exploring leadership representation and
perceptions of workplace equality, job satisfaction, and work-life balance in the landscape of
high-tech and biomedical engineering professions, Denend et al. (2020) found that men
perceived the significant barrier to leadership roles for women as work-family-life balance.
Moreover, for immigrant Asian women raised with a traditional Asian upbringing, the addition
of American culture caused conflicting feelings of dissonance and discord (Samanta, 2018;
Sharma et al., 2020). Furthermore, when negotiating their gender, ethnic, and professional
identity within the host culture, Witenstein (2020) argued that immigrant South Asian American
women in STEM were expected to achieve in the competitive professional setting while also
attending to familial obligations. The participants, who raised young children during their early
careers, mentioned their spousal and maternal obligations competed with full-time careers and
preparing to pass several state board examinations for PE licensure, which was a requirement for
leadership positions.
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Gender Norms and Expectations and Lack of Influential Communication Networks.
The women in male-dominated occupations perceived a less meritocratic and inclusive
workplace, exclusion from influential communication networks, and gender norms and
expectations hindered their ability to rise to leadership positions (Denend et al., 2020; Torre,
2017). Two participants felt excluded from influential communication networks. One stated that
she had a language barrier as an English learner. She perceived that the people around her had
difficulty communicating with her; as a result, she found it challenging to communicate in most
settings and chose not to attend meetings where critical decisions were made. Because of the
language barrier, she felt she could not attain top leadership positions. Another participant felt
horrible when purposely excluded from “sitting at the table” because her “assertive leadership
style” was not expected from an AA woman. This participant’s desire to move up the elite
leadership ladder was met with opposition. It motivated her to pursue a master’s degree in public
administration, only to realize that after being denied promotion 20 times during her 25-year
career with the same organization that there was nothing she could say or do that would convince
the hiring panel that she was qualified based on her leadership experience and education.
Unavailability of Female Role Models and Non-equitable Access to Career
Progression. Nevertheless, Denend et al. (2020) indicated that both men and women perceived
those inequalities existed in the availability of role models, access to career progression, and
compensation. Without role models to demonstrate that women could rise to the top, the
researchers argued that upward mobility could feel unattainable to female engineers (Denend et
al., 2020). Siemiatycki (2019) examined women and visible minorities in senior leadership
positions among 2,800 business executives in engineering, construction, and infrastructure
industries. Siemiatycki’s findings were consistent with the existing literature that placed women
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into lower status roles and the amplified barriers to professional advancement that visible
minorities faced, which had resulted in their near-complete exclusion as top leaders in CE and
construction industries (Yun et al., 2020). Two participants expressed no desire to move up the
leadership ladder in their current employment. Both participants reported not having the
opportunity to serve a female boss their entire careers. The unavailability of female engineering
leaders gave the participants the perception that elite leadership was unattainable.
Hostile Work Environment. Other studies supported evidence that women CEs who
lacked informal peer networks, mentors, and female engineer role models were also vulnerable
to a hostile work environment and to working within an organizational climate where the male-
dominant leadership stance on inclusion was often nonexistent and needed to contend with social
marginalization (Johnson, 2013; Kossek & Buzzanell, 2018). Two participants who worked in
the water systems field served under male bosses for most of their careers. They shared their
numerous experiences with sexism, sexual harassment, microaggressions, and racial
discrimination.
The perception that East Asians were competent (model minority stereotype) and low in
warmth and dominance (yellow peril stereotype) were likely to help perpetuate the idea that East
Asians were ideal as subordinate employees and suited for technical competence positions, but
were unqualified to be leaders and managers, reinforcing the glass ceiling (Berdahl & Min,
2012). This stereotype can prevent immigrant women PEs’ equitable access to leadership roles.
One participant who worked in the water systems field stated that she did not want to move up
the ladder in her current employment. However, she mentioned a female mentor (a current chief
executive officer and general manager for one of the top water systems organizations in the
nation) she reached out to for help so she could provide inclusive leadership in diversifying the
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water systems industry. The other participant who worked for another water systems
organization stated that she applied for leadership positions 20 times, was denied promotions and
received “overt gender stereotype and discrimination” through these processes over her 25 years
of employment with the same organization.
Though the participants encountered many obstacles to reaching leadership positions, as
supported by the literature, based on their statements, they felt it was important to speak up on
the injustices, support each other (females supporting female engineers and leaders), and
remember to celebrate all milestones and successes along the way. They proudly shared their
perseverance and vulnerability, highlighting their strategies to navigate these challenges.
Strategies to Navigate Challenges Leading to Success As Respected Leaders. Based
on the participants’ recollection of their most significant barriers and successes, they offered the
following top strategies to navigate the many challenges as immigrant AA women PEs:
1. Pass all the state board examinations and obtain PE licensures before having children
2. Pursue a master’s degree in a CE specialized field or in leadership
3. Find role models and a supportive network to be an advocate for gender equity and
inclusion
4. Explore more opportunities and take more risks to be an authentic leader in the CE
field
Past studies noted these strategies where highly achieving AA women developed talents because
of adversity (Kitano, 1997; Mun & Hertzog, 2019; Paik et al., 2018).
Pass All the State Board Exams and Obtain PE Licensures Before Having Children.
All participants acknowledged that a PE licensure was necessary to earn respect and advance
their careers. Most stated that they had difficulty balancing family-life-work obligations, which
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competed with their time studying for board exams. Although not all participants were required
to be licensed to practice in their CE sub-fields, all six obtained active PE licenses in at least one
state. Three participants mentioned and recognized their parents’ immigration journey as
sacrifices of leaving family behind in their native countries to provide better opportunities for
their children. Filial piety and their desire to make their parents proud motivated AA women to
achieve and placed undue pressure on them (Mun & Hertzog, 2019). Most of the participants in
this study mentioned that a PE licensure was a problematic credential to obtain but was their top
priority because a PE licensure is the main gateway to advancing to technical leadership
positions. Their statements demonstrate recognizing all the barriers as challenges to solve and
learning opportunities that lead to success, just as their parents modeled how they navigated the
barriers to “make it” to America to pursue better opportunities leading to success for their
families.
Pursue a Master ’s Degree in a CE Specialized Field or in Leadership-Based Programs.
Five of the participants earned master’s degrees in a CE specialized field, and two obtained
second master’s degrees in leadership programs. In nine accounts of the educational aspirations
and experiences of a diverse group of AA women undergraduate students, Samanta (2018)
presented the group’s personal motivation in selecting programs of study leading to practical
careers that their families perceived to yield financial returns. Based on a study of an extensive
data set from the combined 2009–2011 ACS, the U.S. immigration law gave preference to those
in STEM fields, likely increasing AA women’s participation in the STEM workforce (Min &
Jang, 2015).
Mun and Hertzog (2019) argued that AA women perceived their parents’ expectations as
influences in their academic and career decision-making. All six interviewees stated that
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attaining a college degree was expected and not an option. They attributed their educational
attainment to their parents’ values that higher education was the gateway to upward mobility and
expectations that STEM careers provide financial security. In addition, all six participants
acknowledged their parents’ sacrifices to provide unconditional support for their educational
attainment and career decisions. Their statements demonstrate that they wanted to meet their
parents’ expectations, but they also wanted to exceed society’s expectations. As this
marginalized group experienced a threefold disadvantage in the workforce (i.e., being an
immigrant, being Asian, and being a woman), they chose to persist in the STEM fields to offset
these disadvantages and to capitalize on their overall academic performance in math and science
(Min & Jang, 2015).
Find Female Role Models and Supportive Network to Be an Advocate for Gender
Equity and Inclusion. Researchers have found that immigrant AA women who persisted in
engineering professions drew on their sense of agency and resilience to manage the oppressive
cultures in their work organizations (Kachchaf et al., 2015; Song et al., 2020). All participants
admitted that they were recipients of gender bias and microaggressions throughout more than
two decades of their CE careers. The critical absence of women of color in the STEM work
environments and executive leadership positions in business and industry exacerbated and
intensified their negative experiences (Alfred et al., 2019).
In many studies, the participants’ subordinate identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity,
immigration status) intersected to compound these negative experiences, which eventually
derailed women’s aspirations and interests in engineering careers, resulting in withdrawal from
the profession (Alfred et al., 2019; Johnson, 2013; Shrestha et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2013). Two
participants recognized the importance of leading to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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These participants volunteered their time to research and lead committees that advocate for these
causes. Five participants were actively engaged as members of the SWE, an organization
dedicated to supporting female engineers around the globe and advocating for gender equity and
inclusion in the male-dominant engineering fields.
Explore More Opportunities and Take More Risks to Be an Authentic Leader in the
CE Field. All participants took varying risks to be a leader in the CE field. Most took risks of
leaving previous employments to seek better opportunities and working conditions. They all
recognized the importance of being authentic to be respected as leaders in their fields. When met
with gender bias, stereotypes, and discrimination, most left employment to allow themselves to
be authentic and be valued as leaders with intersectional identities. They found organizations
where they felt belongingness due to the diversity and inclusive practices and a higher
representation of female peers and leaders. Siemiatycki’s (2019) findings supported other studies
that indicated organizations with higher levels of diversity in their top management teams tended
to have the following: better financial and organizational performance, higher employee job
satisfaction, were more creative and innovative, had superior risk management approaches, had
more excellent local and global connectivity, and created role models for future generations of
leaders within the sectors (Faccio et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2015; Stainback et al., 2016; Tanaka,
2014).
One participant talked about an immigrant AA women PE who served as a chief
operations officer and general manager (GM) for one of the top water systems in the country.
The GM’s leadership inspired the participant, but she stated how impressed she was with how
the GM presented herself; she dressed “girly” as the keynote speaker at a water systems
convention. The participant’s statement demonstrates her perceived risks of “showing up in a
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girly fashion” in the male-dominant engineering environment and realized that it took courage
and authenticity for “someone who looks like her” to make it to the top. Stainback et al. (2016)
found that women in top management roles often served as change agents to dismantle the
gender-segregated organization, create opportunities, and empower other female leaders,
generating a virtuous cycle that encouraged greater workforce diversity in the future. Similarly,
Siemiatycki’s (2019) findings were consistent with the existing literature that placed women into
lower status roles and the amplified barriers to professional advancement that visible minorities
faced, which had resulted in their near-complete exclusion as top leaders in the CE and
construction industries (Yun et al., 2020).
Research Question 2
The second research question asked, “How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive their
intersectional identities contribute to their resilience in the construction industry? Participants’
attribution of their intersectional identities in building resilience through interlocking systems of
oppression (intersectionality theory) played a role in building resilience within the larger cultural
and social contexts (Bronfenbrenner’s macrosystem ecological systems model) of the
construction industry (Beddoes, 2022; Bronfenbrenner, 1974; Kitano, 1997: Onwuegbuzie et al.,
2013).
Finding 3: Immigrant AA Women PEs Attribute Their Grit to Their Asian Upbringing
Participants’ stories highlighted their social capital as immigrants and their resilience in
bridging their AA identities. The application of ecology as a holistic theoretical approach is
crucial as immigrant AA women PEs do not exist in isolation but are embedded with their social
institutions and social domains (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Paat, 2013).
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Immigrants and Their Social Capital. The participants’ generational immigration
status, defined according to their age when they entered the United States, shaped their social
capital and molded their values, beliefs, decisions, life experiences, high educational attainment,
and professional careers as women engineers. Many researchers have suggested that immigration
generational status might impact immigrant children’s patterns of adaptation to the new culture
(Paat, 2013; Yoon et al., 2017; Zhou & Bankston, 2020). Native-born immigrant children
(second-generation immigrants) and those immigrants under the age of 12 who came with their
foreign-born parents (1.5 generation) are likely to experience acculturation differently since
learning a new culture or language was more manageable for younger children (Paat, 2013).
Each participant shared their stories of their families’ unique challenges encountered on
their immigration journey. Their stories were like previous research that the race and the social
context of immigrant adaptation could affect the occupational trajectories of the different Asian
ethnic groups. Through their experiences at home, in school, and at their workplaces, with
immigrant Asian upbringing, the participants faced familial expectations influenced by their
social capital (emotional and material aid). Moreover, they confronted social pressures that value
the pursuit of engineering careers as a safe and practical choice, yielding financial rewards. The
participants’ statements demonstrate that their families’ social capital influenced their Asian
upbringing, which helped them develop their grit.
Bridging Asian American Identities. The participants recognized the values and beliefs
taught by their parents attributed to their Asian heritage. The macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner,
1986) affects immigrant families’ acculturation in the host country (Paat, 2013). Acculturation is
the process by which human beings adapt to or borrow traits from another culture as a result of
prolonged contact (Teske & Nelson, 1974). The first-generation immigrant participants
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experienced culture shock and acculturation stress as they navigated the mainstream culture.
Hirsch (1942) suggested that assimilation is the process of becoming a member of a community;
becoming a member of a community, then, is correlative to acceptance by that community
(Hirsch, 1942). The 1.5-generation immigrant participants recognized their parents’ journey to
America and remembered their parents’ sacrifices and struggles to raise them. Like the 1.5-
generation immigrant participants, the second-generation immigrant participants acknowledged
their parents’ sacrifices to leave their friends and families; to seek better opportunities in
graduate studies in the United States; they recognized their solitude, determination, and
aspirations for upward mobility. The participants stated that their parents unconditionally
supported them in their pursuit of engineering careers because these were practical careers
yielding high financial returns.
Based on a large-scale survey completed by engineering college students (immigrant
Asian women), Verdin et al. (2019) found that engineering identity directly affected students’
sense of belongingness; both engineering identity and belongingness had a positive direct effect
on grit and persistence. Their study highlighted supporting grit and persistence development in
engineering college students among first-generation Asian women immigrants (Verdin et al.,
2019). Moreover, scholars have reported that grit and persistence influenced immigrant AA
women’s resilience in STEM (Hatmaker, 2013; Verdin et al., 2019). The participants’ stories
demonstrate that they capitalized on their families’ support and Asian upbringing to build their
professional engineering identities, which helped participants develop more grit and persistence
in the CE field.
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Finding 4: Immigrant AA Women PEs Attribute Their Self-Agency to Their Gender
All participants validated their attribution of self-agency to their gender. Bandura (2006)
argued that individuals possessed the agentic ability “to influence intentionally one’s functioning
and circumstances” (p. 164). This perceived self-efficacy is related to forethought (Bandura,
2006) and influences human behavior by its impact on goals, aspirations, and expectations
(Bandura, 2000). Individuals high in goal-adherence are future-directed, set clear goals that
motivate their efforts, and are more persistent in pursuing them (Besta et al., 2016). The
participants perceived that their self-agency started as early as they could remember. At home,
their parents expected the daughters to carry more responsibilities than their sons: they were
expected to be more caring and responsible for their younger siblings, they had to do more
household chores than their brothers, they had to learn how to cook for the family, and they had
to earn better grades in school than their brothers. The participants also stated that their parents
told them “They could do and be whatever they want.” The participants’ statements demonstrate
that they were led to believe that they developed their self-agency because of their parents’
natural high expectations of girls and how to survive as girls in society.
In this study, personal agency is characterized by the participants’ perception of
themselves as able to construct appropriate courses of action and as efficient, resourceful women
able to influence gender norms and social expectations within the male-dominant CE industry.
The participants had commonalities and differences in their experiences of being women PEs in
an overall male-dominant CE field. Most participants perceived their negative experiences were
not due to their AA identities but because they were females in a male-dominant culture. The
general expectations of a successful CE made it challenging for women due to society’s gender
norms, biases, and stereotypes. The literature supported the two most perceived norms and
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expectations that only women had to learn and adapt: working harder and continuing to prove
their competence because they were not seen as engineers and that people of their gender were
not in the leadership positions and not being groomed for positions of power (Beddoes, 2022;
Roy, 2018; Yoon et al., 2017; Zhou & Bankston, 2020).
She Had to Work Harder and Continue to Prove Her Competence Because She Was
Not Seen As the Engineer. Progress had been slow for the AA women PEs who collected at
least 21 years of CE practice. Through their journey, the participants expressed having to work
harder than their male counterparts to prove their value and earn the respect of the engineering
community. Five of six participants earned advanced degrees in CE to prove that they had the
knowledge and education required to be engineers. Ayre et al. (2013) found that women in CE
exerted more effort than their male counterparts to achieve a sense of belonging (Ayre et al.,
2013). The participants all obtained PE licensure in their states of practice to prove that they
were competent engineers and had the credentials to succeed in their careers. Carlone and
Johnson (2007) also argued women of color in engineering had personal agency and drive as
they often used their dual subordinate status to empower themselves despite marginalization. By
state board laws, rules, and regulations, the PE licensure provided the participants the power and
authority to supervise design engineers (engineers who did not have licenses). However, this
supervisory position could only take these participants a few steps up the ladder.
She Was Not in a High-Level Leadership Position and Is Not Being Groomed for
Those Positions. Although all the participants interviewed were in different levels of leadership
roles, only one achieved an elite leadership position in her 30-year career as a CE. This
participant felt her male boss strongly supported her and advocated on her behalf to earn a high-
level promotion. She mentioned that she “assimilated” into the male-dominated U.S. Navy and
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the cultures at the beginning of her career. As she matured, she began to bring her “authentic
self” and noticed she gained more trust and built stronger relationships with her male peers. Her
statements demonstrate that agentic self-directed acts also influence people’s perception of the
person. Researchers have found that immigrant AA women who persisted in engineering
professions drew on their sense of agency and resilience to manage the oppressive cultures in
their work organizations (Kachchaf et al., 2015; Song et al., 2020).
However, most of the participants perceived the path to elite leadership positions was
served to their male counterparts on a “golden platter.” They recognized that their path was not
linear, hard work was not enough, and they could only get there if they were surrounded by
influential leaders who could lead, mentor, and advocate for their advancement. Alfred et al.
(2019) recommended that organizations ensure that strategic planning for inclusive engineering
culture must include meaningful and goal-oriented mentoring and opportunities for equitable
access to leadership positions. Moreover, Stainback et al. (2016) found that women in top
management roles often led changes within their organizations to value diversity, create
opportunities, and empower other female leaders, generating a virtuous cycle that encouraged
inclusive organizational culture.
Research Question 3
The third research question asked, “How do immigrant AA women PEs perceive the roles
of leaders in implementing an inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry?
Individuals’ intersectionality (intersectionality theory) and the social systems that surround them
affected their perceived value of leaders’ influence in implementing inclusive engineering
cultures (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Fernando et al., 2018; Kitano, 1997; Onwuegbuzie, 2013; Paat,
2013; Verma, 2018). Using the online survey data, the Pearson’s Correlation analysis provided a
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statistical test yielding the following results: all three groups’ perceived value of leadership
influence was strongly positively correlated with their perceived value of an inclusive culture.
The immigrant AA women PEs and the men PEs correlation (Pearson’s r) values of 0.96 and
0.64, respectively, demonstrate that the immigrant AA women’s perceived value of leadership
influence has a greater impact on implementing an inclusive culture. These perceived gaps were
impacted and compounded by intersectional identities. Hence, the more intersectional identities
they identified with, the larger the gap between their perceived values of leadership influence
and inclusive culture.
Finding 5: Influential Leaders Create Psychological Safety at Work for the Immigrant AA
Women PEs
All six participants expressed that inclusive leadership influenced psychological safety at
work. The pioneering studies by Edmondson (1999, 2002, 2003, 2004) on learning suggested
that leadership practices play an essential role in shaping perceptions of team psychological
safety. Carmeli et al. (2010) found that when leaders were open, accessible, and available to
discuss new ideas with employees, they cultivated a social context in which people felt that they
were psychologically safe to voice opinions and question, speak up, and come up with novel
solutions (Edmondson, 2004). The participants shared events where their bosses took the time to
listen and made them feel like their boss’s number one priority because their leaders were
accessible and invested in their development.
In its most sophisticated articulations, intersectionality acknowledges the plurality and
diversity of identities that comprise any group and the common concerns that create aggregate
identities. Without intersectionality, group unity threatens to degenerate into a compulsory
uniformity that benefits the dominant group at the expense of others (Chun et al., 2013), hence
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damaging the perceived psychological safety in the workplace (Debebe et al., 2016). The higher
representation of female peers, leaders, and role models influenced the participants’ perceived
value of fostering a supportive and collaborative work environment. Debebe et al. (2016) argued
that women achieved psychological safety for when other women surrounded them because it
was an invitation to share aspects of their experience that they might otherwise hide for fear of
judgment. The participants believed that women PEs needed to find a supportive working
environment where their leaders served as sponsors and allies. Identity scholars argue that in
engineering fields, the construction of professional identity (Hatmaker, 2013) is crucial to
engagement and building resilience; however, structural barriers in the workplace and
intersectional identities often threaten women’s resilience (Hatmaker, 2013; Johnson et al., 2011;
Ong & Viernes, 2012; Ross et al., 2021).
The participants had more equitable access to development opportunities and leadership
roles when sponsors and allies advocated for them and removed barriers to achieving goals. The
importance of influential leaders as sponsors and allies to create psychological safety at work is
similar to what Burns (1978) and Bass (1985) described as transformational leadership. The
leaders become moral agents (creating psychological safety) responsible for the personal and
professional development of followers into leaders in their own right (sponsorship and allyship)
(Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). The participants’ perceived value of inclusive leaders also included
strong support for the career development of women PEs, directly creating psychological safety
in the workplace. Buse et al. (2013) argued that organizations and managers provide
opportunities to develop the leadership skills within the professional domain, as well as
challenge, novelty, and learning in work assignments, and those that are supportive of the family
circumstances of women are more likely to retain women in engineering (Buse et al., 2013).
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Finding 6: Additional Work Is Needed by Leaders to Build an Inclusive Culture
The participants perceived those influential leaders created psychological safety at work
to feel a strong sense of belonging. Ayre et al. (2013) found that employers successfully attracted
and retained female CEs when their immediate managers strongly supported an inclusive
workplace. Four of six participants claimed they were not subjected to sexual harassment and
overt discrimination. However, they all admitted to being recipients of gender bias and
microaggressions throughout their careers.
Moreover, they had heard other women experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
A participant had experienced multiple incidents of sexual harassment but claimed she learned to
handle these situations by speaking up and confronting the oppressors. Another participant
suffered emotional trauma and illness from over 25 years of surviving sexism, sexual
harassment, microaggressions, and overt discrimination based on gender and race. The
participants’ negative experiences of an oppressive male-dominant engineering culture also
reflected existing literature. In a quantitative survey of 700 women engineers who worked in a
management capacity, Servon and Visser (2011) found that 32% of the respondents received
unwanted attention due to their feminine appearance, and 69% experienced sexual harassment.
The participants felt that leaders need to promptly address issues of hostile behaviors that
lead to emotional trauma and distress for any engineers. One participant, who served as an elite
leader in her field, stated that leadership needs to build trust and respect, resulting in an inclusive
culture. In a longitudinal study of 405 nurses during the COVID-19 outbreak, Hassan et al.
(2019) found a significant inverse causal relationship between perceived inclusive leadership and
psychological distress and a positive causal relationship between inclusive leadership and
psychological safety. The most important results of inclusive leadership are mutual trust between
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leaders and subordinates and a feeling of respect that makes them psychologically safe (Hassan
et al., 2019).
The level of leadership support and team collaboration influenced the participants’
perceptions of the general expectations for a successful engineer in their practice and whether
they met those expectations. Consequently, team collaboration, or lack thereof, reflected their
perceived relationships with their coworkers. All participants agreed that leaders need to improve
inclusive practices by promoting diversity, allowing individuals with intersectional identities to
be authentic by “bringing themselves to work” without fear of judgment or being different. In
their study, Powell and Sang (2015) highlighted the continued dominance of White men in
engineering and construction and how the sector reproduced societal gender norms and relations.
This perceived gender bias and expectations influenced the participants’ degree of
assimilation into the male-dominant work climate. Two participants experienced sexual
harassment in the workplace and felt compelled to assimilate to “blend in.” Their experiences
directly connected to their previous bosses, who were the perpetrator of the hostile environment.
When the participants filed complaints to the leadership they worked under, the complaints were
never filed and left unresolved. Leaders need to acknowledge perceptions of gender bias
expectations and resolve issues promptly to create the trust that builds inclusive cultures.
Denissen (2010) found in a qualitative study of 51 women in the CE field in Southern
California that women in leadership roles identified themselves with masculinity and suppressed
feminine identities to demonstrate competence, confidence, and capability (Denissen, 2010).
This finding suggested that female leaders were only accepted when they assimilated to the
masculine culture. Industry leaders need to improve on creating an inclusive culture where
assimilation is not expected, and authenticity is celebrated. All participants wished to be in an
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environment where they could be authentic and supported based on how they wished to bring
themselves to work.
Recommendations for Practice
Based on the key findings of this study, this section presented recommendations on ways
to attract immigrant AA women CE graduates to enter the construction field, help build their
strategies and resilience to reach leadership positions in the CE industry, and help organizations
promote the type of leadership needed to support them. Table 14 shows an overview of findings
and recommendations.

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Table 14
Overview of Findings and Recommendations
Research questions Findings Recommendations Citations
What strategies have
been used by
immigrant AA
women PEs to
successfully
navigate barriers
to reach leadership
positions in the
civil engineering
field?
1. Immigrant AA
women seize
opportunities and
optimize resources to
build their civil
engineering careers.
1. Form eight-year
structured
partnerships
between
engineering
schools and the
construction
industry to support
multiple career
tracks.
Kitano, 1997;
Roy, 2018;
Paat, 2013

2. Immigrant AA
women PEs see
barriers as learning
opportunities and
bridges to success.

How do immigrant
AA women PEs
perceive their
intersectional
identities
contribute to their
resilience in the
construction
industry?
3. Immigrant AA
women PEs attribute
their grit to their
Asian upbringing.
2. Develop ERGs that
support
intersectional
identities.
Beddoes, 2022;
Kitano, 1997:
Onwuegbuzi
e et al., 2013)

4. Immigrant AA
women PEs attribute
their self-agency to
their Gender.

How do immigrant
AA women PEs
perceive the roles
of leaders in
implementing an
inclusive
organizational
culture in the
construction
industry?
5. Influential leaders
create psychological
safety at work for the
immigrant AA
women PEs.
___________________
6. Additional work is
needed by leaders to
build an inclusive
culture

3. Implement HR
policies and
programs that
promote
psychological
safety at work.
Fernando et al.,
2018; Kitano,
1997;
Onwuegbuzi
e et al. 2013;
Paat, 2013;
Verma, 2018

Recommendation 1
The first recommendation is to form 8-Year structured partnerships between engineering
schools and the construction industry to support multiple career tracks for the immigrant AA
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women CE students, beginning with their college entrance. Engineering schools and construction
industry leaders need a structured, consistent, proactive, and long-term partnership to engage
immigrant AA women in multi-faceted career track programs throughout their planned four-year
engineering programs and subsequent first-year engineering job placement. Poon (2014) posited
that immigrant AA women face challenges in their college years transitioning into adulthood and
away from their protective home environment. This transition allowed exposure to personally
and socially relevant content, and intellectual challenges that demand critical thinking, mentors,
and opportunities to identify potential career paths (Poon, 2014).
First-Year Partnership: Early-Career Advising
During the first-year partnership programs, immigrant AA women may benefit from
engineering career guidance and exposure. The engineering schools shall invite AA women CE
professionals from various CE sub-fields to present at career information sessions and offer
strategies for increasing career opportunities, such as finding mentors, sponsors, and allies.
Immigrant AA women students need to see themselves as engineers (Fernando et al., 2018). The
AA women PE presenters can serve as role models and aspirations for the immigrant AA women
students (Roy, 2018).
These sessions can also integrate topics on social issues related to ethnicity and gender,
such as racial and gender bias, stereotyping, ethnic identity, and assertiveness, which may help
support the immigrant AA women students’ development (Nguyen et al., 2018). These topics
might also extend discussions on general expectations in the male-dominant CE profession.
Teaching women AA students about these social issues could minimize the frequency of hostile
behaviors in male-dominated workplaces; help better prepare students for possible negative
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encounters; and help students better see their self-agency and privileges operating (Beddoes,
2022).
The goal is to provide these AA women the opportunity to develop effective coping
strategies for what appear to be inevitable encounters with discrimination. These topics can also
help young women recognize Asian heritage values and mainstream values, develop strategies
for making knowledgeable choices when AA values conflict, and integrate their values in
authentic ways. Inviting the Asian community and family participation in these sessions (Paat,
2013) will help increase awareness of what the CE profession can offer.
Second-Year Partnership: Career Workshops
The second-year partnership between engineering schools and engineering organizations
could help the immigrant AA women focus their school achievement and attach their interest in
social concerns to various CE infrastructure projects (e.g., dams, waterways, buildings, bridges,
highways, wastewater, and air quality systems). Schools might invite practicing AA women PEs
to deliver hands-on workshops on campus. The practicing PEs might also arrange job site visits
to provide the students the opportunity to see the critical CEs serve in holding public safety
paramount while constructing and maintaining America’s infrastructure (ASCE, 2021).
Third- and 4th-year Partnership: Cooperative Education and Internships
Engineering schools can partner with more engineering leaders in the construction
industry to have a cooperative education (co-op) and internship CE program to increase
participation and provide equitable access specifically to immigrant AA women. The co-op and
internships program was founded by Dean Herman Schneider, a professor of civil engineering at
the University of Cincinnati, in 1906, as structured methods of combining academic education
and practical work experience (CEIA, 2022). Raelin et al. (2014) found that work self-efficacy
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developed by female students and higher retention were strongly linked to the students’
participation in co-op programs.
In a 3-year longitudinal quantitative study of over 278 undergraduate engineering
students on attitudinal beliefs (AA women accounted for 12.9%), Andrews and Borrego (2021)
recommended that upper-level engineering students need more exposure to the types of design
problems, problem contexts, and examples. Exposure to PEs to continue to send messages about
how engineering helps society. Similarly, experiences in projects, research, internships, and
vicarious experiences through role models remain essential for upper-division AA women
engineering students (Marra et al., 2009).
Fifth- and 6th-year Partnership: Entry to a CE Career and Program for PE Licensure
Immigrant AA women PEs often need a family-work-life balance, especially during their
commitment to obtaining a PE license in any state. Participants expressed that obtaining a PE
license in CE is a significant barrier to career advancement and promotion to leadership roles.
They must rely on their support system at school, home, and workplace to comply with these
requirements. The State of California Department of Consumer Affairs Board for Professional
Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists (BPELSG, 2022) provides a qualification flowchart
outlining the qualifying experience requirements for a PE licensure applicant. Figure 1’s
flowchart depicts these requirements indicating the multiple pathways to qualify to apply for the
PE license.
In addition to an engineering degree, each applicant must pass an 8-hr Fundamental of
Engineering (FE) examination to obtain their EIT certificate. Students can qualify to take the FE
exam as soon as they complete engineering courses, while still in college, or after they complete
their degree program. After obtaining an EIT certification, PE applicants need to provide
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evidence of 2 to 6 years (depending on pathway) of qualifying work experience in CE. Once the
state board approves the application, the candidates begin their journey in preparation for the
three examinations:
1. An eight-hour national PE examination
2. A two-and-a-half-hour California state-specific examination in seismic
3. A two-and-a-half-hour California state-specific examination in land surveying
Due to gender norms and expectations (i.e., family obligations, household duties), women
applicants tend to delay this process or choose not to apply for their PE licensure (Cech et al.,
2011). Employers can provide incentives, financial support, and paid time off to attend PE
license review courses, purchase review materials, and all licensing fees. The partnerships can
include engineering schools hosting these courses, university faculty delivering lectures on
review of CE courses, and employers providing subject-matter practical problem-solving
workshops.
Industry leaders can promote that they are invested in helping women obtain PE licensure
as part of the development culture. In a survey from global financial recruitment firm Robert
Half Finance & Accounting (2022), the results indicated that 95% of more than 1,100 Chief
Financial Officers (CFOs) said they pay for some or all the costs associated with employees’
professional certifications. Most of the participants mentioned the difficulty of passing the board
exams the first time. To heighten the perceived value of the PE credential, organizations can
offer monetary incentives for those who pass their exams the first time. However, employers can
also commit to covering the costs of taking the exam multiple times to encourage and celebrate
continuing education and PE licensure. Obtaining their first PE licensure in any state can be tied
to the next engineering-level promotion and an opportunity to apply for team leadership roles.
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Seventh-Year Partnership: Support for Professional Development Hours
Immigrant AA women PEs need to complete the required minimum continuing
education, between 12 to 15 PDHs, to renew their PE licenses in any state, which requires
financial resources and time commitment. Employers can cover the cost of the state board
requirements to renew PE licenses and offer paid time off to complete these requirements. The
Robert Half survey (Robert Half, 2022) found that most of the 1,100 CFOs reported providing
full or partial support for their professional employees to maintain credentialing. Moreover, a
partnership between engineering schools and employers can mutually benefit all parties. First,
employers can send their immigrant AA women PEs to provide expert presentations on industry
knowledge (adds branding strategy for employers). Second, immigrant AA women PEs can gain
important socialization and presentation skills (Beddoes, 2022) and earn equivalent PDHs for the
activity. Engineering schools can receive revenue for hosting the seminars virtually or on
campus.
Eighth-Year Partnership: Business and Entrepreneurial Classes for Leadership Development
Industry leaders and engineering schools can partner in providing business and
entrepreneurial classes and leadership workshops for immigrant AA women student groups.
Immigrant AA women need to become confident, effective, and likable leaders, according to
Forbes (2022). The business and entrepreneurial classes provided by engineering schools might
provide the immigrant AA women with the confidence and mindset that they are equipped to
lead inclusively in the CE field (Byers et al., 2013). Schools can invite AA women PEs, who are
in elite leadership roles, as special speakers to give AA women PE attendees an opportunity to
see someone who looks like them purposely serving as prominent leaders in the construction
field.
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Summary of Recommendation 1
Table 15 presents a summary of Recommendation 1.

Table 15
Summary of Recommendation 1
Recommendation 1: Form eight-year structured partnerships between
engineering schools and the construction industry to support multiple
career tracks
Citations
First-year
partnership:
Early-career
advising
Immigrant AA women would benefit from
receiving engineering career guidance and
exposure beginning their first year in the
program.
Fernando et al.,
2018; Nguyen
et al., 2018;
Paat, 2013;
Roy, 2018
Second-year
partnership:
Career
workshops
Help the immigrant AA women focus their school
achievement and attach their interest in social
concerns to a variety of CE infrastructure
projects (e.g., dams, waterways, buildings,
bridges, highways, wastewater, and air quality
systems).
ASCE, 2021;
Beddoes,
2022; Nguyen
et al., 2018
Third- and fourth-
year partnership:
cooperative
education (co-op)
and internships
Engineering schools can partner with more
engineering leaders in the construction industry
to have a co-op and internships CE program to
increase participation and provide equitable
access specifically to immigrant AA women.
Andrews &
Borrego,
2021; CEIA,
2022; Marra
et al., 2006;
Raelin et al.,
2014
Fifth- and sixth-
year partnership:
Entry to a CE
career and
program for PE
licensure
Immigrant AA women PEs need family-work-life
balance, especially during the period
commitment dedicated to obtaining a PE license
in any state.
BPELSG, 2022;
Cech et al.,
2011
Seventh-year
partnership:
support for PDHs
Immigrant AA women PEs need to complete the
required minimum continuing education,
between 12 to 15 PDHs, to renew their PE
licenses in any state, which requires financial
resources and time commitment.
Beddoes, 2022;
Robert Half,
2022
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Recommendation 1: Form eight-year structured partnerships between
engineering schools and the construction industry to support multiple
career tracks
Citations
Eighth-year
partnership:
Business and
entrepreneurial
classes for
leadership
development
Industry leaders and engineering schools can
partner in providing business and entrepreneurial
classes and leadership workshops for the
immigrant AA women student groups.
Byers et al.,
2013; Forbes,
2022

Recommendation 2: Develop Employee Resource Groups That Support Intersectional
Identities
Organizations can develop and form ERGs that serve the intersectional identities of
immigrant AA women PEs. In line with the literature on organizational socialization (Cooper-
Thomas et al., 2014), reaching out for support and resources mattered most to incumbents in
their early careers. Significantly, the outcomes of support and resources were not mutually
exclusive but linked to each other in dynamic ways—often reinforcing each other. Fernando et
al. (2018) argued that organizational socialization reflected the heavily gendered organizational
culture of CE and the potential of support and resources to buffer the adverse effects of the
culture by developing a favorable organizational climate. Organizations can form ERGs in the
form of personalized resources, care and peer support (Chesler et al., 2003), enabling women
PEs to feel valued (Ayre et al., 2013) and supported.
Increasingly, companies are establishing internal organizational structures to address the
unique needs and issues of America’s minority population (Ernst Kossek et al., 2010). These
structures, known as Employee Networks, Affinity Groups, or ERGs, are found in 90% of
Fortune 500 companies and are gaining additional business support throughout the country (The
Viscardi Center, 2022). The following section enumerates the steps and recommendations (The
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Viscardi Center) for engineering organizations to implement ERGs to support immigrant AA
women engineers.
Step 1: Start at the Top, Gain the Support of Corporate Executives
Although employees typically initiate these groups, it is critical to make a case for ERG,
gain top management support, and identify an executive sponsor (Welbourne et al., 2017). From
the beginning, interested employees should reach out to top-level management or other corporate
leaders who may have a specific interest in the group’s mission. Organizations can utilize
different strategies for assigning executive champions:
1. The ERG chooses champions,
2. Companies can assign executive champions to ERGs and rotate them every three
years to ensure exposure to as many employees as possible, and
3. Companies can make it a point to designate an executive champion who is not a
member of that interest group.
Step 2: Create Partnerships With the Organization ’s Diversity Teams
The new ERG should network and partner with internal diversity groups already in place
at the organization, request permission to attend meetings, and meet with the executive sponsor
and group representatives to share their ideas, obtain feedback, and build relationships
(Kozlowski, 2018).
Step 3: Get Employees Involved
Leaders of the ERGs should draw up a plan and work with their team to develop outreach
strategies and generate interest in joining the group. Organizations need to be specific that the
ERG initiative will serve a purpose in highlighting the need for organizational adaptation to
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address two main organizational challenges: structural (flexible job design, human resource
policies) and cultural (supportive supervisors, climate) factors (Ernst Kossek et al., 2010).
Step 4: Develop Budget and Secure Funding
Once the goals of the ERG are established and agreed upon, members need to prepare a
budget (Levin et al., 2017) that would support implementation and submit it to the executive
sponsor. Since the executive sponsor represents upper management, they may be in the best
position to advocate for the group and secure the funding needed to carry out its stated mission
and goals. For the group to be perceived as part of the organization, it is critical to obtain
financial support.
Step 5: Name the Group
The name of the ERG should reflect the group’s mission and values and should be
decided upon collaboratively (e.g., AA Women Engineers).
Step 6: Set Mission and Goal
The mission and goals should be established in collaboration with all ERG members and
be linked to specific business goals, such as retaining marginalized groups (Glen, 2006). They
should communicate the organization and its core values and common interests. While the
mission defines the overarching purpose for which the group was established, the goals should
clearly articulate specific activities and timelines.
Step 7: Design a Structure
The group should decide the structure (Kozlowski, 2018) and meeting schedule with the
input and support of the executive sponsor.
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Step 8: Create an Innovative Business Solution
Identifying a unique feature for the program is critical to generating interest, fostering
participation, and enhancing attendance (Glen, 2006). Defining this unique feature in a business
solution creates added value and increases support and recognition for the group. For example, it
aims to establish a cadre of mentors to guide newly hired women engineering graduates or
women PEs transferring from other organizations.
Community involvement is another goal with high visibility that may enhance the
company’s external image with diverse groups and organizations. Serving on Boards or
participating in special events promotes widespread brand recognition while establishing the
company as an employer of choice, with the former contributing to increased market share and
the latter to talent acquisition. Brainstorming with group members will help generate ideas that
will give a unique focus and purpose for all to work.
Step 9: Overcome Challenges
If faced with challenges during development, implementation, or maintenance, identify
the root causes and then take steps to reduce or eliminate them (Posavac, 2010).
Step 10: Maintain Momentum
Ongoing company and member support are vital to success. The ownership for
maintaining the momentum (HRO Today, 2022) resides with the entire group, including the
executive sponsor.
Step 11: Leverage Relationships With Other Internal Resource Groups
Employee resource groups are internal networks that represent a community of team
members who share a common interest relating to such characteristics as ethnicity, gender,
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nationality, culture, disability, or sexual orientation. These groups may form relationships to gain
additional visibility and increase impact (Fernando et al., 2018).
Step 12: Monitor, Measure, and Celebrate Success
The group must establish goals and success criteria (benchmarking; ASQ, 2022). These
will ultimately define how the group has done and what it has delivered. The most basic form of
program evaluation is an examination of the program itself, its activities, the population it serves,
how it functions, and the condition of its participants (Posavac, 2010).
This study recommends that personalized support and resources need to lead to primary
and secondary outcomes for immigrant AA women PEs, which can aid the development of an
engineering habitus that enables them to stay in the career pipeline (Fernando et al., 2018). ERGs
can monitor how the support and resources provided to the immigrant AA women PEs have
helped attract and retain this population, strengthening the CE pipeline.
Summary of Recommendation 2
Table 16 presents a summary of Recommendation 2.

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Table 16
Summary of Recommendation Two
Recommendation 2: Develop employee resource group that
support intersectional identities
Citations
Step 1 Start at the top, gain the support of corporate
executives.
The Viscardi Center, 2022;
Welbourne et al., 2017
Step 2 Create partnerships with the organization’s
diversity teams.
Kozlowski, 2018; The
Viscardi Center, 2022
Step 3 Get employees involved. Ernst Kossek et al., 2010;
The Viscardi Center, 2022
Step 4 Develop budget and secure funding. Levin et al., 2017: The
Viscardi Center, 2022
Step 5 Name the group. The Viscardi Center, 2022
Step 6 Set mission and goal. Glen, 2006; The Viscardi
Center, 2022
Step 7 Design a structure. Kozlowski, 2018; The
Viscardi Center, 2022
Step 8 Create an innovative business solution. Glen, 2006; The Viscardi
Center, 2022
Step 9 Overcome challenges. Posavac, 2010; The Viscardi
Center, 2022
Step 10 Maintain momentum. HRO Today, 2022; The
Viscardi Center, 2022
Step 11 Leverage relationships with other internal resource
groups.
Fernando et al., 2018; The
Viscardi Center, 2022
Step 12 Measure and celebrate success. ASQ, 2022; Posavac, 2010;
The Viscardi Center, 2022

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Recommendation 3: Implement HR Policies and Programs that Promote Psychological
Safety at Work
Asian sub-ethnic group differences exist within interactions among personal (ability,
motivation, socialization (culture, family, school), and structural factors (discrimination; Kitano,
1997). I recommend HR practices that cater to the needs of immigrant AA women but are also
good inclusive practices that promote equity and inclusion for other marginalized PEs.
Because of their apparent success, organizations often ignore AA women when diversity
officers and trainers consider the negative impact of bias on women’s ability to advance in
careers (Forbes, 2022). Moreover, even though AA women are the demographic group most
likely to have graduate degrees in corporate America, they are the least likely to hold positions
within three reporting levels of the CEO or to have supervisory responsibilities. Opportunities to
do higher-level tasks and assume higher-level responsibilities enable them to develop the
confidence to earn a promotion (Fernando et al., 2018). Feedback about performance enabled
women to develop confidence in their engineering competence (Plett et al., 2011) and confidence
to go for promotion, consecutively aspiring for a future for themselves in engineering. Role
models enabled women to feel that they can combine work with out-of-work responsibilities,
again leading to them envisaging a future in engineering (Buse et al., 2013).
Fernando et al. (2018) suggested how help from others buffers the harmful effects of
deeply gendered organizational cultures and facilitates women engineers’ persistence in chilly
work settings that many women choose to leave. Based on their findings, the support should be
personalized and dependent on the people one works for and with (Fernando et al., 2018). All
employees should have equal access to support in their organizations and enjoy the benefits of
supportive relationships with superiors and co‐workers. Support is vital for both male and female
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early careerists who are often unsure what to do, which path to take, and their place in the
context (Tomlinson, 2017).
Organizations can implement the following human resource management (HRM)
practices that may facilitate supportive relationships and foster psychological safety in the
workplace:
1. Raise the visibility of female role models (Hatmaker, 2012) to project a positive
image of female engineers within the organization and potentially challenge powerful
stereotypes (Beddoes, 2022).
2. Emphasize support at the center of organizations’ training initiatives: provided
through mechanisms such as ensuring that personalized feedback (Morello et al.,
2018) is given, particularly to early-career engineers (Cech et al., 2011), encouraging
people to assume leadership positions (Kossek & Buzzanell, 2018), making
colleagues feel valued (Ross et al., 2021), and providing support in a way that
nurtures independence (Malone & Issa, 2014).
3. Introduce a buddy scheme for early careerists assigning them to a sympathetic
incumbent (Fernando et al., 2018): who can provide information, introduce them to
other colleagues who are essential to their role (Buse et al., 2013), and help them
understand the organization’s culture (Fouad & Singh, 2011), together with helping
them to settle in and establish themselves (Cech et al., 2011; Regis et al., 2019).
4. Organizations’ reward systems can facilitate informal support by recognizing and
rewarding employees (Paik et al., 2018) who demonstrate supportive behaviors
(Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008), thus maximizing the instrumental value of proactive
helping (Fernando et al., 2018).
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Providing employees with the motivation, knowledge, and opportunity to perform
supportive behaviors is extremely important in male‐dominated CE culture. Even when the
organizational culture is unwelcoming to women workers, the climate created by co‐workers and
managers can make a difference and facilitate retention. When more people engage in supportive
behaviors, there will be a spillover effect for the organization as a whole (Chiaburu & Harrisson,
2008; Organ et al., 2006).
Summary of Recommendation 3
Table 17 presents a summary of Recommendation 3.

Table 17
Summary of Recommendation 3
Recommendation 3: Implement HR policies and programs that
promote psychological safety at work
Citations
Raise the visibility of female role models to project a positive
image of female engineers within the organization and
potentially challenge powerful stereotypes.
Hatmaker, 2012; Beddoes,
2022
Emphasize support at the center of organizations’ training
initiatives: provided through mechanisms such as ensuring
that personalized feedback is given, particularly to early-
career engineers, encouraging people to assume leadership
positions, making colleagues feel valued, and providing
support in a way that nurtures independence.
Morello et al., 2018; Cech et
al., 2011; Kossek &
Buzzanell, 2018; Ross et
al., 2021; Malone & Issa,
2014
Introduce a “buddy scheme” for early careerists assigning
them to a sympathetic incumbent: who can provide
information, introduce them to other colleagues who are
essential to their role, and help them understand the
organization’s culture, together with helping them to settle
in and establish themselves.
Fernando et al., 2018; Buse
et al., 2013; Fouad &
Singh, 2011; Cech et al.,
2011; Regis et al., 2019
Organizations’ reward systems can facilitate informal support
by recognizing and rewarding employees who demonstrate
supportive behaviors, thus maximizing the instrumental
value of proactive helping.
Paik et al., 2018; Chriaburu
& Harrison, 2008;
Fernando et al., 2018

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Limitations and Delimitations
This study considered the limitations of online surveys and interviews. The data
collection was beyond my control (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). One of the limitations of the
data collected through surveys was that I had no control over the respondents’ accuracy and
honesty in their responses. Another limitation was that I often had little or no ability to clarify or
confirm the information captured. Further, although some of the survey questions aimed to
measure behavior, they could not directly measure behavior (Salkind, 2014). In addition, while
the survey had three open-ended questions to elicit written responses, respondents of the self-
administered online surveys were often unwilling to provide lengthy or detailed responses.
Robinson and Leonard (2018) argue that a written response takes time to organize thoughts and
write them eloquently without fear of the respondent’s willingness to expose one’s writing
ability to researchers. Finally, an online survey did not allow me to capture the respondent’s
nonverbal cues (e.g., facial expressions or body language).
This study used the online survey as a recruitment tool to select qualified participants for
in-depth interviews to elicit deeper conversations. Like the online survey, I had no control over
the participants’ accuracy and honesty in their responses due to some aspects of qualitative
research (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), including participants’
comprehension, the rapport between them and me, and distortion of responses. Since participants
varied in immigration status and ethnicity, another limitation was the language barrier, which
may have led to misinterpretation of the questions, producing unintended responses. It was
essential to consider how I could establish a safe environment to reduce self-reporting of my
worldview and minimize bias. Moreover, some immigrant participants may have chosen not to
respond or to fabricate their responses if their beliefs and worldview were not socially accepted
143

in the dominant culture. My positionality and identities (first-generation AA woman professional
civil engineer in a leadership role) also influenced the interpretation of the data. Employing
constant reflective practices throughout the research process raised my awareness of this
influence on interpreting participants’ lived experiences (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Delimitations refer to the boundaries of the study based on the researcher’s decision on
what to include and exclude to make the study more manageable and relevant to the problem of
practice (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Due to time limitations and restricted access to a small
population of women CEs, the online survey reached only two professional engineering societies
in which I had a membership. I selected engineering associations X and Y, both recognized in
the United States and worldwide. From the survey respondents, I chose to interview only a small
population sample, which limited the result’s generalizability.
Recommendations for Future Research
Given larger sample sizes, future work can investigate generational issues across diverse
immigrant AA women, which would provide additional insights into the role of opportunity for
individual and generational group success. Although this study found interesting patterns and
themes on college experiences and navigating the CE profession among the immigrant AA
women, caution must be taken when interpreting the results due to the diversity in Asian
American sub-ethnic groups’ demographics. Further research can focus on early-career
development based on non-licensed CEs. The study was also limited to the CE profession within
the construction industry. Follow-up studies can be extended to other engineering branches and
geographical regions.
Nevertheless, the current study provided a unique voice and perspective on a neglected
research immigrant AA women PE population. More studies need to be conducted to support the
144

growing and diverse immigrant AA women population in the United States. This study also
offered a perspective on contextual and alterable factors for this population. However,
implications can also be offered to other racial and ethnic groups where intersectional identities
can help inform the role of opportunity and individual development.
Finally, HRM scholars can take this study as a point of departure to examine the
following extensions: HRM policies and practices that encourage supportive relationships in the
workplace that include traditionally marginalized groups, such as that of immigrant AA women
PEs in the construction industry, how this happens, and whether there are any significant
mediating factors or instances where support is paradoxically hindered through these practices.
These questions need to be answered to fully understand how HRM can influence informal
support structures in the male-dominant CE field.
Conclusion
For the first time in 20 years, the ASCE (2021) graded America’s aging infrastructure
higher than a D+. Since 1852, the Report Card (ASCE, 2021) had been given every few years by
ASCE, the country’s oldest national CE organization. The 2021 Report Card for America’s
Infrastructure revealed a C-. America needed CEs to rebuild its crumbling infrastructure (ASCE,
2021). One critical component of the United States’ response to this challenge was to invest in
the potential of all Americans by building a robust CE workforce (National Academy of
Engineering, 2019). Women and racial/ethnic minorities, especially women of color—African
American, Asian American, Chicano/Latina, and Native American groups—represented an
untapped human resource that could increase America’s infrastructure vitality (Ong et al., 2011).
The USCB (2020) reported that AA women accounted for 3.7% of the U.S. workforce,
and they received 5.35% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded. Immigrant AA women continue to
145

be in junior-level leadership positions in the STEM fields (Min & Jang, 2015). They are not
advancing to leadership positions at the same pace as their male and White female counterparts,
despite their overrepresentation in bachelor’s degree holder (USCB, 2020) and in engineering
and architecture professions (Jafari et al., 2020; Min & Jang, 2015; USCB, 2020). This study
explored the role of intersectional identities on the resilience of immigrant AA women PEs and
the strategies they used to navigate barriers while accessing equitable opportunities to reach
leadership roles within the construction industry.
The study began with an online survey accessible to two engineering associations. There
were 49 survey respondents, and nine participants met all five characteristics of the target
interview population. Six of the eligible participants volunteered for the follow-up semi-
structured interviews. I interviewed six immigrant AA women licensed PEs in the CE field.
Though the participants shared varied life and professional engineering experiences, the findings
indicated that common themes and factors shaped the participants’ resilience and insights into
three research questions.
The first research question aimed at understanding the barriers in reaching leadership
positions in the CE field focused on the strategies used by immigrant AA women PEs. The
following were the key findings for this question: the participants seized opportunities and
optimized resources to build their CE careers and saw barriers as learning opportunities and
bridges to success. The second research question focused on learning about the participants’ (or
their parents’) Asian heritage, their journey as immigrants, and how they perceived their
intersectional identities to build their resilience in the construction industry. The key findings for
this question were that participants attributed their self-agency to their gender, and they
attributed their grit to their Asian upbringing. The third research question explored the
146

participants’ organizations and how they perceived the roles of leaders in implementing inclusive
cultures in the construction industry. The results of the data analysis found that influential
leaders created psychological safety at work for the immigrant AA women PEs; however, there
was more work to be done.
This study’s approach included integrated recommendations. An eight-year structured
partnership between engineering schools and the construction industry could formalize the
recruitment of immigrant AA women students as they would begin their early pursuit of a
bachelor’s degree in CE. The partnership would begin in the immigrant AA women’s first year
of college and extend for 4 years after conferring their accredited CE degrees. In the workplace,
immigrant AA women PEs could continue with active participation in an ERG. Industry leaders
could also proactively implement HR policies and programs that promote psychological safety to
increase the retention rate of immigrant AA women PEs.
As the jobs for CEs were expected to increase substantially, likely the outcome of the
anticipated need to rebuild America’s infrastructure, the literature presented the stagnation of
women pursuing CE degrees and an even smaller pool of women persisting in the profession.
This study recognized the overrepresentation of immigrant AA women STEM professionals and
examined the lived experiences of a small sample of the population of immigrant AA women
PEs in the construction industry. The findings of this study offered the strategies the participants
shared regarding how they built resilience over the past 2 to 3 decades of experience leading to
their current leadership roles in the CE profession. Their stories could provide insights into how
influential leaders could create inclusive cultures that would help attract and retain minoritized
groups in the profession. More importantly, an inclusive culture created for immigrant AA
147

women PEs could capitalize on the Asian population, which is anticipated to reach 46 million by
2060 (Pew Research Center, 2021).

148

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Appendix A: Recruitment Email
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Rapunzel Amador-Lewis, P.E., and I am an active Professional member of (insert
name of engineering association X, Y). I am also a doctoral candidate in the Rossier School of
Education at the University of Southern California, conducting a research study as part of my
dissertation. I am examining the impact of intersectional identities (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity,
generational immigration status) on practicing engineers’ perceptions of barriers, strategies, and
leadership influences in implementing an inclusive engineering culture. This research has been
approved by the institutional review board (IRB).

You are cordially invited to participate in the study.

If you agree, you are invited to:

● Complete an anonymous online survey of questions anticipated to take about 10 minutes
to complete.
● Participate in a follow-up interview using the Zoom conferencing tool. The interview is
voluntary and is anticipated to last approximately 45 to 60 minutes. You may choose to
skip any questions that you do not want to answer; if you prefer the interview, not be
recorded, I will take handwritten notes instead.

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. Your identity as a participant will remain
confidential at all times during and after the study.

If you would like to participate in the survey, please begin the survey via the link below.

Suppose you would like to participate in the follow-up interview. In that case, there is an
opportunity to provide your contact information at the end of the survey. Or please feel free to
email or call me at the contact information below.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at amadorle@usc.edu or 209.300.3358

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Rapunzel Amador-Lewis, P.E.
Doctoral Candidate - Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California

169

Appendix B: Survey Protocol
Survey Instructions
The purpose of this anonymous survey is to examine the impact of intersectional
identities (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, generational immigration status) on engineers’ perceptions
of barriers, strategies, and influential leaders in inclusive engineering culture. You will be asked
to provide your opinion on 20 questions. The survey takes approximately five to 10 minutes to
complete.

Your participation in this research is entirely voluntary. If you have any questions
regarding the survey items, please feel free to contact the researcher, Rapunzel Amador-Lewis @
amadorle@usc.edu.

By beginning the survey, you acknowledge that your participation in this study is
voluntary, you are 21 years of age or older, you are a practicing engineer, and you are aware that
you may choose to terminate your participation at any time and for any reason.

Table C1
Survey
Instructions for Questions 1–10: These questions will only be used for analytical purposes.
They will not be used to try to identify any individual.
Q1. Pronouns: Why do we ask for this? Our study refers to users using the pronouns that you
select below. E.g., “This user updated her profile.”
a. She/Her
b. He//His
c. Prefer not to answer
Q2. What is your age group?
a. 21–30
b. 31–40
c. 41–50
d. 51–65
e. 65+
f. Prefer not to answer
Q3. What is your marital status?
a. Single (never married)
b. Married, or in a domestic partnership
c. Widowed
d. Divorced
e. Separated
170

f. Prefer not to answer
Q4. What are the age groups of your dependents? (Select all that apply)
a. 0–5 years old
b. 6–12 years old
c. 13–17 years old
d. 18–24 years old
e. 25 and older
f. I have no dependents
g. Prefer not to answer
Q5. Identify my ethnicity as:(Select all that apply)
a. White (For example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Polish, French)
b. Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (For example, Mexican or Mexican American,
Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Columbian)
c. Black or African American (For example, African American, Jamaican, Haitian,
Nigerian, Ethiopian, Somalian)
d. Asian (For example, Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese)
e. Middle Eastern or North African (For example, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian,
Moroccan, Algerian)
f. American Indian or Alaska Native (For example, Navajo Nation, Blackfeet Tribe,
Mayan, Aztec, Nome Eskimo Community)
g. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (For example, Native Hawaiian, Samoan,
Chamorro, Tongan, Fijian, Marshallese)
h. Prefer not to answer
i. Other (i.e. sub-ethnic or multiple ethnic identities)
Q6. Which generation of immigrants do you identify?
a. First-Generation (immigrated to the United States at age 13 and older)
b. 1.5-Generation (immigrated to the United States at age 12 and younger)
c. Second-Generation (children of first- and 1.5-generation immigrants)
d. Other (children of third generation and higher)
e. Non-immigrants (Native Americans)
f. Prefer not to answer
Q7. Which of the five main branches of engineering do you practice?
a. Chemical (Subfields may include biomedical, materials, molecular, petroleum, food,
metallurgical, cellular)
b. Civil (Subfields may include architectural, structural, geotechnical, environmental,
traffic, hydraulic, sanitary, highway)
a. Electrical (Subfields may include computer, electronics, nanoengineering,
mechatronics, information technology)
b. Industrial (Subfields may include safety, systems, supply chain, fire protection,
manufacturing, apparel)
c. Mechanical (Subfields may include aeronautical, aerospace, agricultural, robotics,
marine, sports, automotive)
d. Other _____________________
171

e. Prefer not to answer
Q8.How long have you been practicing in your engineering profession?
a. 1–10 years
b. 11–20 years
c. 21–30 years
d. 31–45 years
e. 45+ years
f. Prefer not to answer
Q9. Are you a registered professional engineer in one or more states?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Prefer not to answer
Q10. What level of engineering leadership position do you currently hold at your workplace?
a. Frontline management (e.g., supervisors, project manager, project engineer)
b. Middle management (e.g., chief design engineer, engineering services manager,
director of engineering)
c. Elite leadership (e.g., principal engineers, executive leadership)
d. not in leadership capacity
e. Prefer not to answer
Instructions for Questions 11–17: Please mark one answer for each question to indicate how
strongly you agree or disagree with each survey item (at your present working environment).
Q11. I work for a company that takes active measures to seek a diverse candidate pool when
hiring.
a. Strongly agree
a. Somewhat agree
b. Neutral
c. Somewhat disagree
d. Strongly disagree
Q12. Employees of different backgrounds are encouraged to apply for leadership positions in
my organization.
a. Strongly agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Q13. My employer has done a good job providing educational programs that promote
diversity, equity, and inclusion in our workplace.
a. Strongly agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral
172

d. Somewhat disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Q14. Racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender-based jokes or slurs are not tolerated in my place of
employment.
a. Strongly agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Q15. I believe that my intersectional identities (i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, immigration status)
contribute to building resilience in the civil engineering field.
a. Strongly agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Q16. I am aware of various strategies successfully used to navigate barriers to reach elite
leadership positions in the civil engineering field.
a. Strongly agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Q17. Leaders in my organization support and provide an inclusive engineering culture.
f. Strongly agree
g. Somewhat agree
h. Neutral
i. Somewhat disagree
j. Strongly disagree
Questions 18–20 are open-ended
Q18. Describe a barrier or challenge you faced during your professional engineering career and
what strategies you used to navigate this challenge or obstacle?
Q19. How do you feel your identities have shaped your engineering experiences (gender, race,
ethnicity, age, immigration status)?
Q20. Describe an example of an inclusive engineering culture influenced by your boss or
superior that has helped you achieve both personal and professional goals.

173

Appendix C: Interview Protocol
Respondent (Name): __________________________________________________________
Location of Interview:_________________________________________________________
Start Time / End Time: ________________________________________________________
Introduction
Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. I am conducting this interview as part of
my dissertation research with my doctoral program at the University of Southern California. I am
seeking your insight to understand better the lived experiences of marginalized practicing Civil
engineers on navigating barriers and your perceptions of leadership influences in supporting and
implementing an inclusive engineering culture. I anticipate this interview to take approximately
45 minutes and no more than 60 minutes of your time.

Your participation is entirely voluntary. We can skip any question you want, and you may stop
the interview at any time for any reason. Any identifiable information obtained in connection
with this study will remain confidential. Your responses will be coded with a false name
(pseudonym) and maintained separately from your answers.

I want to record our conversation and will destroy the recording after it is transcribed. May I
have your permission to video record our conversation?

Do you have any questions?

(Begin recording)

I would like to break the ice by first getting to know you…

1.Tell me about yourself, where were you born, where did you grow up?
Potential Probes:
a. Describe your journey to immigrate to America?
b. How did you adjust to life in America?

2.Can you walk me through how you decided to go into the civil engineering field?
Potential Probes:
a. Can you tell me more about when you were a student at [insert undergraduate
institution here]?

3.Tell me about your career in civil engineering leading up to the present.
Potential Probes:
a. Describe a barrier or challenge you faced unexpectedly, and what strategies did
you use to navigate that challenge?

174

4.What does it mean to be a licensed professional engineer?
Potential Probes:
a. What does it mean to be a professional in your field?

5. How would you describe what a successful engineering leader in your civil engineering field
is?
Potential Probes:
a. What barriers or challenges might you expect to reach elite leadership roles?
b. Describe a specific strategy you used to overcome this barrier(s)?

Now, I’m about to give you four big words: sexism, sexual harassment, microaggressions, and
racial discrimination. I will not define the meaning of these complex words. Instead, I would like
to ask you…

6. Based on your understanding of these words, can you describe an event that happened at work
where you may have experienced sexism, sexual harassment, microaggressions, or racial
discrimination?
Potential Probes:
a. Can you tell me more about barriers you have experienced navigating the CE
profession?
b. Describe a specific strategy you used to overcome this barrier(s)?

7. What are your thoughts about how you are building resilience in the CE field?
Potential Probes:
a. What do you attribute your resiliency to?

8. How do you feel your identities as an immigrant Asian American woman have shaped your
professional career experience?
Potential Probes:
a. How do you feel your identities as an immigrant Asian American woman have
shaped your life experience?
b. What are family influences that shaped your professional engineering identity?

9. Describe what the general expectations are for a successful engineer in your field?
Potential Probes:
a. Do you feel like you have been successful as an engineer?

10.Describe your work environment.
Potential Probes:
a. Describe your relationship with your *peers?
b. *your direct reports
c. *your boss

175

11.Describe an example of the support you receive from your boss that has helped you achieve
your goals.
Potential Probes:
a. How do you feel about the roles of influential organizational leaders in
implementing an inclusive engineering culture?

12.If you were to give yourself advice when beginning your
engineering career, what would it be?
Potential Probes:
a. What resources might have been helpful?

Closing Question
Is there anything else you would like to add before we end our conversation?
Conclusion to the Interview

I want to thank you very much for making this time and allowing me to ask very personal
questions. I really appreciate your willingness to participate in my study and support my
research. Would you mind a follow-up email if I have any additional questions? Thank you again
for your participation.

176

Appendix D: Ethics
Though I am not a supervisor or has direct authority, over any research participants, I
hold a professional grade membership of the engineering associations X and Y, which will be the
focus of the participant recruitment. I acknowledge that participants may feel apprehensive about
providing honest and forthcoming information about themselves and their opinions regarding
matters within the scope of the study. It is crucial to ensure the confidentiality of research
participants during and after the study to protect their identities. Protecting participants’
identities by ensuring confidentiality can help ease participant’s fear of providing candid and
honest answers, increasing credibility and trustworthiness of the study (Creswell & Creswell,
2018).
I will make careful attention to protect my field notes, Zoom conferencing audio, and
video recording collected during the qualitative interview process. Electronic records of
documents, files, and data collected will be stored on a password-protected computer or on third-
party servers utilizing two-factor authentication and encryption to protect the data. Moreover,
data will not be shared without consent from participants and a valid need to review the data.
Additional safety measures will be used to further protect the collected data in the event of
unauthorized access. I will use pseudonyms to identify interviewees. Furthermore, the audio and
video recording using the Zoom video conferencing tool will be deleted from the storage at the
conclusion of the study, to prevent any future breach of access by unauthorized parties.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The jobs for civil engineers are expected to increase substantially, with the anticipated need to rebuild America’s aging infrastructure. The literature presented the alarming stagnation of women pursuing civil engineering degrees and an even smaller pool of women persisting in the profession. The literature recognized the overrepresentation of Asian American (AA) women in STEM, but specific studies on the representation of immigrant AA women professional (civil) engineers (PEs) were nonexistent. This study sought to understand the strategies used by immigrant AA women PEs in navigating barriers to reach leadership positions in the field, how they perceived their intersectional identities contribute to their resilience, and how they perceived leaders’ roles in implementing inclusive organizational culture in the construction industry. This study used a mixed-methods approach consisting of online surveys and semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated the strategies used by the participants in successfully navigating systemic barriers and how they leveraged their intersectional identities to build resilience leading to leadership roles in the profession. Moreover, this study found that influential leaders created psychological safety at work for the immigrant AA women PEs, but more work could be done. By triangulation of mixed-methods data, the literature, and the conceptual framework, this study generated three recommendations for practice. The limitations and delimitations identified for this study informed the recommendations for future research. The participants’ lived experiences generated insights into how leaders could foster inclusive cultures to help attract and retain untapped human capital. A critical component of this challenge would be to invest in the potential of all Americans by building a robust workforce that includes those traditionally invisible in the field, such as the immigrant AA women PEs.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Amador-Lewis, Rapunzel Joan (author)

Core Title The resilience of immigrant Asian American women professional engineers in the construction industry

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Degree Conferral Date 2022-05

Publication Date 05/04/2022

Defense Date 04/13/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Asian American,Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems,Civil engineers,construction,immigrant,intersectional identities,leadership,OAI-PMH Harvest,organizational culture,professional engineers,resilience,Women

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Krop, Cathy Sloane (committee chair), Combs, Wayne (committee member), Moore, Ekaterina (committee member)

Creator Email amadorle@usc.edu,ramadorlewis@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111259019

Unique identifier UC111259019

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Amador-Lewis, Rapunzel Joan

Type texts

Source 20220506-usctheses-batch-938 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu