Despite an outsized share of Ivy League degrees, Asian-Americans are underrepresented in executive suites, according to a study expected to be released Monday.

Source from Wall Street Journal
By KYLE STOCK

Roughly 5% of U.S. residents identify themselves as Asian, but less than 2% of executive roles at Fortune 500 companies are held by Asian-American professionals, according to the report from the Center for Work-Life Policy, a New York-based nonprofit think tank.

Only eight Asian professionals currently lead Fortune 500 companies, including Vikram Pandit at Citigroup Inc. and Andrea Jung at Avon Products Inc. Yet Asians often hit the work force with highly coveted degrees. Asians and Asian Americans comprise 16% of undergraduates in the Ivy League, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and 35% of undergraduates at University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.

The Center for Work-Life Policy’s report surveyed 2,952 respondents of all ethnicities, including Asian-Americans (half born in the U.S.), and included follow-up interviews with respondents and with a number of companies that are building career development initiatives for Asian employees.

One-quarter of Asian respondents said they face work-place discrimination, while only 4% of Caucasians believe Asians are treated unfairly on the job, according to the report.

To date, few companies have had career development programs for Asian employees because they are seen as a “model minority,” according to the report. Ripa Rashid, one of the report’s co-authors said that the survey reveals something that she hears often from workers and managers: Asian-American employees are culturally uncomfortable with the type of swagger and self-promotion that often spells success in U.S. firms. “They just put their heads down and work and believe that’s all it takes to get to the top,” Ms. Rashid said.

The study also showed that Asian employees may be less comfortable sharing their personal lives with coworkers and less likely to enlist more senior coworkers as mentors or sponsors.

Merck & Co. started a program dubbed “the Art of Cultural Fluency” to help Asian employees fine-tune soft skills like presentation. “The ah-ha [moment] came quite a few years ago when we knew we needed a bold plan,” said Deborah Dagit, the pharmaceutical giant’s chief diversity officer. At the end of 2009, 6% of the U.S. work force at Merck claimed Asian heritage, but that demographic comprised only 4% of the company’s executives and senior managers.

In early 2010, AllianceBernstein started twice monthly voluntary seminars for its Asian employees with Toastmasters, a nonprofit public-speaking organization. The fund management firm now has its own Toastmasters chapters in New York, San Antonio, Texas, and the United Kingdom. “We didn’t want to do a training program, because they tend to be one-size fits all,” said Vicki Walia, director of talent management and diversity at AllianceBernstein.Jane Hyun, a corporate consultant and author of “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling,” said Asian-Americans face very subtle but strong cultural barriers at work. “In Asia, there’s a saying that the loudest duck gets shot; in America it’s: the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” said Ms. Hyun. “These things are totally different and at odds with each other.”

Ms. Hyun helped Merck craft its program. Critical to its success, she pointed out, was buy-in from 20 non-Asian senior managers. “In America, we tend to assume that we should simply treat people the same way,” she said. “But that’s not always the best way to handle very different cultural values.”

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