Rotman School Of Management: East Asians

Jennifer Berdahl Dept: Researchers at the Rotman School of Management say certain prescriptive stereotypes push workers of Chinese, Korean and Japanese heritage to stay in their place, as they have been expected to do through North American history, according to The Star. People don t want dominant co-workers, but they really don t want to work with a dominant East Asian co-worker, said professor Jennifer Berdahl, co-author of the study with graduate student Ji-A Min and university of Toronto researchers may have discovered why the bamboo ceiling is so hard to crack for people sometimes dubbed model minorities hardworking and competent East Asians. While being assertive, outspoken, motivated and dominant are valued in Western society, East Asians who show these leadership qualities are instead punished because they defy expectations of being weak, quiet and subordinate, says a new study in the current issue of the Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology Journal . (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.