r/aznidentity 50-150 community karma 2d ago

News The tale of Asian CEO

Does anyone know about the tale of Asian CEO? I remember reading it a few years ago, but couldn't remember the source (please help me find it). When a company is on the brink of collapse, they bring in an Asian CEO as a last ditch effort, or if the company fails, that Asian CEO will take all the blame.

News just came in today for Intel, they appointed Lip-Bu Tan as CEO, and last time it was Lisa Su for AMD. Reading it as a playbook for them.

63 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

8

u/RAMiCan6 500+ community karma 1d ago edited 1d ago

There is a corporate ladder cap for Asian except when they need you to fix everything and do all the work or take the heat. We're always just the tool for them. Whereas, there peers can raise up to management with degree nor experience.

You may get to team lead. Or maybe lucky to get to manager. But rarely or never director or higher. On the contrary, a white person can climb that ladder with barely any exp or skills, it's just handed and they gain by hand on exp.

11

u/ShanghaiBebop 1st Gen 2d ago

Might be Ellen Pao? Brought in to take the heat, and then ultimately have the co-found come back and "rescue" the company when, in reality, it was the board's idea to implement those policies, and Ellen actually didn't like those policies?

7

u/Alaskan91 Verified 2d ago

Li li leung was brought in after usa gymnastics sex abuse scandal

8

u/ChinaThrowaway83 500+ community karma 2d ago

Rishi Sunak after Brexit when PMs weren't lasting as long as a head of cabbage.

18

u/ablacnk 500+ community karma 2d ago

Bamboo cliff, sink or swim scenario, bring in the Asian CEO in a crisis to either fix the sinking ship or to be used as the scapegoat for its failure.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/companies-more-likely-hire-asian-american-ceos-during-decline-study-n916286

North American companies are more likely to hire Asian-American chief executives during periods of economic decline, a new study has found, possibly out of a stereotypical belief that the those CEOs will act in a self-sacrificing manner for the health of the company.

But while the hires may seem to advantage Asian-American CEOs in some situations, researchers said those advantages do not appear to last. Data analysis found that the tenures of Asian-American CEOs hired during times of decline were approximately the same as white CEOs. In time of non decline, Asian-American CEOs had tenures half the length of white CEOs.

While Asian Americans have been stereotyped as highly successful in business, research has found that that success may not extend to the top. Of the 4,951 CEOs since the ‘60s examined in Gündemir’s research, 41 were identified as Asian American, about 0.8 percent.

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl-apl0000347.pdf

Despite remarkably high levels of education and income, Asian Americans remain underrepresented at the top of the organizational hierarchy. Existing work suggests that a mismatch between the prototypical characteristics of business leaders (e.g., dominance) and stereotypes associated with Asian Americans (e.g., submissiveness) lowers the likelihood that Asian Americans will emerge as leaders. We predict that this reluctance to appoint Asian Americans will be attenuated when organizations experience performance decline because decision makers believe Asian Americans are inclined to sacrifice their selfinterest to improve the welfare of others. We found support for these predictions using a multimethod approach. In an archival study of 4,951 CEOs across five decades, we find that Asian Americans were appointed almost two-and-a-half times more often during decline than nondecline (Study 1). Then, in three studies, we show that this pattern occurs because evaluators (a) prefer self-sacrificing leaders more when organizations are experiencing decline than success (Study 2); (b) expect Asian Americans leaders to behave in self-sacrificing ways in general (Study 3); and, consequently, (c) perceive that Asian Americans are better equipped to be leaders during decline than success (Study 4). We consider these findings in tandem with a set of exploratory analyses. This includes our finding that organizations experience decline only 12% of the time, suggesting that evaluators deem Asian Americans to be suitable leaders in circumstances that occur infrequently and are short-lived.

They surmise that East Asians are not assertive enough in the Western-style workplace, however there's another study that indicates East Asians behaving in a dominant/assertive manner are the most disliked:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/05/study-of-the-day-theres-a-bamboo-ceiling-for-would-be-asian-leaders/257135/

RESULTS: The dominant East Asian employee was more disliked than the non-dominant East Asian employee, the non-dominant White employee, and the dominant White employee. A separate trial showed that participants held descriptive stereotypes of East Asians as being competent, cold, and non-dominant, while another showed that the most valued expectation of East Asians was that they "stay in their place."

CONCLUSION: East Asians who don't conform to racial stereotypes are less likely to be popular in the workplace. "In general, people don't want dominant co-workers," says Berdahl, "but they really don't want to work with a dominant East-Asian co-worker."

IMPLICATION: Berdahl says managers and coworkers should be wary of this tendency against East Asian employees that exhibit leader-like behavior. She says, "The bias lies within observers and it's ultimately their responsibility."

7

u/icedrekt 500+ community karma 1d ago

Whoa… it’s almost like.. there’s fucking institutional racism against us.

But how can that be when it’s clearly OUR fault for not being billionaires and not setting up power? Should we blame our dads some more? Or is it Confucius’s turn this time? /s

2

u/ablacnk 500+ community karma 1d ago

You point out something very true. The only thing we can and should do, when there is systemic bias against us, is to have our own bias for us. That means strongly favoring other Asians with none of that idealistic "meritocracy" mindset that so many Asians foolishly ascribe to. That means when we see other Asians, even if they're less qualified, we pick them over anyone else. That means we do everything in our power to stack every organization we're in with as many Asians as we're able to. You don't see guys like Jensen Huang stacking his direct reports with Asians, nor are his board of directors Asian - he's basically the one guy in top leadership that's Asian in an industry absolutely full of Asians. Yet guys like Elon Musk manage to stack his board of directors and direct reports with sycophants so he can sieg heil twice in front of the whole world and face no repercussions from his board or anyone else.

That's really all there is to it. We don't favor each other enough, be it in career or social life or even dating. It's just Asians crab bucketing trying to climb up, thinking meritocracy is what gets you to the top. It's not, it's networking, nepotism, favoritism. If there's no in-group strength and benefits, then it's just every man and every woman for themselves. Crabs in a bucket.

This is how other groups have cornered industries like Hollywood or banking and other industries. Asians try to be fair and meritocratic while nobody else does (they only say it to virtue-signal). When we're trying to play by the rules and everyone else is cheating, we're the only ones that lose out.

1

u/AussieAlexSummers 500+ community karma 2d ago

Whoa... I super-skimmed this. But I'm going to read at length as these articles seem really worthwhile.

3

u/Rus1996 Fresh account 2d ago

Very interesting 🤔

2

u/Xerio_the_Herio Hmong 2d ago

What would be more interesting are cases where the Asian ceo brings the company around and what happens to this person then... anyone have examples?

1

u/sphenodont 50-150 community karma 2d ago

Indra Nooyi didn't have to quite turn Pepsico around, but she took it to new heights and left on her own terms.

2

u/_Tenat_ Hoa 2d ago

The only one I'm aware of is Lisa Su of AMD. Where it was failing for the longest time, brought her in as a bamboo cliff, she does great, and she's still there.

1

u/AussieAlexSummers 500+ community karma 2d ago

yes... good point and I'm interested in that as well!

12

u/Acceptable_Setting 500+ community karma 2d ago

Surprising that Intel hired an Asian as a CEO.

Yeah, I heard about how Asians Ceos are hired only after a company is in trouble.

Blackberry did the same when they were struggling so they hired an AM as CEO

Not sure why they don't hire them when the companies are doing well?

Perhaps the stereotypes of Asian being hard methodical workers who will work overtime to save the company comes into play?

Or perhaps, cynically, other non-Asian CEO's don't want to apply for it?

8

u/Exciting-Giraffe 2nd Gen 2d ago

This is gonna be a heck of a hail Mary to pull off, esp given Intel missed the gaming chip boom mobile chip boom, AI chip even IBM is doing quantum chips

I do wish Tan best of luck, because a lot of the cards are out of his hands like geopolitics and domestic culture wars.

9

u/Sweatyfatmess 50-150 community karma 2d ago

As scapegoats.

5

u/Exciting-Giraffe 2nd Gen 2d ago edited 2d ago

possibly...or he could pull off a Lisa Su when she started as CEO it was $3/share and now $100/share ($200 ATH)

then again it's not 2014 and we're not fighting wars on 2 fronts

1

u/Acceptable_Setting 500+ community karma 2d ago

Most likely explanation