"Asians still not rising to the heights of Silicon Valley's corporate world" ( Archived) (11)

Wow! I was surprised to learn this. Interesting. Any thoughts?

Here is link and a good part of the article that I pasted:







In Silicon Valley, "Asian" and "success" often seem synonymous.
Asians lead all racial groups in levels of education and income, and they are a quarter or more of undergraduates at elite universities like Stanford and UC-Berkeley. Last week, the Census Bureau said Santa Clara County had the largest annual Asian population growth in the United States — for the third successive year.
But an eye-opening first-of-its-kind "census" of local executives shows that while Asians make up more than a third of the workforce at some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies, they are far less prominent in the boardroom or the highest executive offices: Asians represent about 6 percent of board members and about 10 percent of corporate officers of the Bay Area's 25 largest companies.
Among the 25 largest Bay Area companies by revenue, 12 had no Asian board members, and five had no Asian corporate officers, according to the new study. Despite the growing prominence of Asians at Silicon Valley tech companies — Asians are least 23 percent of the workforce at Cisco Systems, Intel, Sun Microsystems, eBay and AMD — they have made no gains in the share of seats on the boards of large tech companies since 1999.
"There is an underlying belief in the Asian community that there is a corporate glass ceiling," said Buck Gee, a retired Cisco Systems vice president and former Silicon Valley CEO who co-authored the study. He and Wes Hom, a
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retired IBM vice president who was also the senior chair of the company's Asian Diversity Task Force program, built their survey from company data on Web sites and SEC filings from the third quarter of 2008. "This has been talked about in the Asian community for a long time."
Gee began asking where all the Asian CEOs were back in 2006, when the resignation of two Chinese vice presidents caused him take a look around at Cisco. To his shock, he realized he was the only Chinese vice president in the San Jose networking giant's product development organization.
"I thought, 'That can't be right,' " Gee said. But it was.
Asians are better represented among the leadership of Bay Area companies compared to all Fortune 500 companies, Gee and Hom say, but the Bay Area also has the highest percentage Asian population among the nation's big metro areas. They place much of the blame for Asian non-advancement not on big companies, but on limiting factors within Asian culture and the failure of Asian executives to mentor talented younger colleagues.
"It's mostly our fault," Gee said of the small numbers of Asians at the helm of the Bay Area's biggest companies. "It's mostly up to us to figure out the skills we need to develop, and to get those skills." - Mercury News.com

From what I understand in that article, and now that I think about it from my time growing up in the Bay Area, is that Asians are not exactly the bossy type and would rather keep quiet instead of raising a fuss at that level, especially in public. Americans are more of the type to do that cause that just how we are

More from the ariticle to illustrate how I am actually not so surprised now:

The executive census and a related paper — "The Failure of Asian Success in the Bay Area" — say several social factors hold Asian managers back, including cultural deference to superiors, which U.S. managers may view as a worker lacking confidence or knowledge; a lack of strong English skills; and a failure of some Asian workers to invest enough effort in networking.
While East Asian cultures and educational systems tend to encourage technical excellence and respect for authority, they may not do as good a job developing leadership and communication skills, Gee and Hom say.
"The culture says you don't have to raise your hand — just do a good job," Hom said.

Given the high-profile successes of a few Asian entrepreneurs like Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, and with so many Asians who are mid-level managers, the lack of top executives is "a problem hidden in plain view," the study says.
"Everybody agrees this is the case, but very few Asians are willing to come out and make a stink about it," said Jane Hyun, an executive coach and multicultural leadership strategist, and the author of "The Bamboo Ceiling," a 2005 book about the limits on Asian career advancement. "You don't see an Asian Al Sharpton-type figure out there. You don't see people making waves that we haven't really reached these positions."

Having lived in Asia for 7 years, including 4 years in Japan, a year in Taiwan, a year in Indonesia, and shorter stays in Korea and Shanghai, it is totally understandable that Asians are under-represented in the leadership of American hi-tech companies.

Asian leadership in an American firm would be like trying to use Nissan parts to repair a Ford.

An Asian boss could only work with an Asian workforce. And the Asian workforce would require an Asian environment, isolated from western ideas.

The same is true in the reverse sense.
An American boss would not be able to run a company in Japan.
He wouldn't understand the workers or the rules of conduct in business.

A lot of these Asians are first or second generation Asian-Americans. I think the ensuing generations will represent more.

What? I'm talking about Americans...Asian-Americans born and raised in America. Would you like to back up your post with more bite please...and not just a thinking out loud opinion. You're kinda off the mark Tater. Nothing personal...