Indian V Chinese bosses in America Inc.
美國企業中，印度裔和華裔管理者的“較量”
In“Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling”, a tome by Jane Hyun published in 2005, Asian- Americans were seen as a model minority. Despite this, they rarely rose to the top of companies. A mix of individual,cultural and organisational barriers seemed to halt their rise.
玄簡在她2005年出版的著作《打破竹子天花板》中，將亞裔美國人視為少數族裔中的模範。儘管如此，只有極少數亞裔能夠升入公司最高層。來自個人、文化和企業層面的多重阻礙似乎成了亞裔升遷的“攔路虎”。
Fifteen years later Asians are still under-represented. In technology Asians make up over 30% of the workers but less than 15% of bosses.
十五年過去，亞裔管理者仍然有些“懷才不遇”。在科技行業，亞裔員工的佔比超過30%，但他們佔管理
者的比重卻不到15%。
Some prominent Asians run big companies. Satya Nadella runs Microsoft and Sundar Pichai leads Alphabet. But few other Asians have joined their ranks - and, revealingly, these stars all have Indian roots. There are fewer South Asians in America than East Asians, but they still made up 13 of all 16 Asian S&P 500 CEOs.
的確有少數亞裔擔任了大公司的最高層。薩蒂亞. 納德拉統領著微軟，桑達爾.皮查伊則是Alphabet的掌門人。但躋身這一行列的亞裔屈指可數，而且更耐人尋味的是，這些商界大腕都是印度裔。在美國，雖然南亞血統的人比東亞族裔更少，但在標普500強企業總共16位亞裔總裁當中，南亞人卻佔據了13席。
Why are there so few Asians among America's business elite? And if a bamboo ceiling is to blame,why do South Asians break through more easily?These questions are the focus of a study by Jackson Lu of MIT Sloan School of Management and colleagues, who surveyed hundreds of senior executives and business- school students.
為什麼美國商界精英中亞裔如此之少?如果真的要歸咎於“竹子天花板”，為什麼南亞人更容易突破它的限制呢?來自麻省理工學院斯隆管理學院的傑克遜.盧和同事，在一份調查報告中關注了.上述問題。該團隊調研了數百名高層管理人員和商學院學生。
The researchers conclude that South Asians tend to be more assertive than East Asians in how they communicate at work, which fits Western notions of how a leader should behave. The samepropensity for confident discourse featured in“The Argumentative Indian”, a book by Amartya Sen, a Nobel-prizewinning economist. The researchers attribute East Asians' reticence to Confucian values of modesty and respect for hierarchy. Sometimes boldness and bombast are needed to breakbamboo.
研究人員的結論是，南亞人在職場上的溝通方式往往比東亞人更直率、更主動，這一點迎合了西方文化對於領導者行為的觀念。曾獲諾貝爾獎的經濟學家阿馬蒂亞.森所著的《慣於爭鳴的印度人》中，著重提到了這種充滿自信的交流習慣。另-方面，研究人員將東亞人的沉默寡言歸因於儒家文化所推崇的謙遜和恭敬。有時候，打破“竹子”更需要的是魄力和聲勢。
閱讀更多 思否20191212 的文章
