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Abstract
Since its inception, affirmative action has been one of the most controversial of all employment practices. Many individuals oppose affirmative action, as they view it as a direct offense to equality of opportunity - one of the strongest threads in the fabric of America; while others have a distorted view of its purpose believing it allows incompetent and unqualified minorities to be hired over more qualified majority group members (Thomas, Mack, & Montagliani, 2004). Thus, many "beneficiaries" of affirmative action are often stigmatized when hired or promoted to certain positions. While affirmative action stigma is not a new stream of research, this particular study reveals the influence of racial and gender identity, as well as, the impact of relational demography, tokenism, and the newly coined, "pioneerism", on perceptions of affirmative action stigma among ethnic and gender minorities in management. More specifically, this research sheds light upon the impact these variables have on the organizational attachment and personal well-being of these minority managers.