Making use of Asian Diasporas: Asian business skills hiding in plain sight

If Australia wants to know how to do business in Asia, why aren’t we consulting our own residents?

A new study by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and partners PwC, Westpac, Telstra and The University of Sydney reveals an overwhelming Anglo-Celtic dominance in Australian leadership across business, politics, government and civil society.  

The report, Leading for Change, finds 77 per cent of ASX 200 CEOs are from Anglo-Celtic cultural backgrounds, 79 per cent of Federal parliament MPs and Senators, 86 per cent from Federal Ministry Ministers and Assistant Ministers, 82 per cent of Federal and state public service secretaries and heads of departments, and 85 per cent of universities Vice-Chancellors.  

This is despite 28 per cent of our population having been born overseas.

Another recent study by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) paints the same picture, revealing an alarming disparity between Australia’s demographic makeup and that of its corporate boardrooms.

ACOLA’s report, Australia’s Diaspora Advantage: Realising the potential for building transnational business networks with Asia cites Diversity Council estimates that 17 per cent of people living and working in Australia claim Asian origin. That’s about 4 million people.

Yet, it says, just 4 per cent of our Top 200 publicly listed companies have directors of Asian descent. That’s just eight companies.

If we are serious about the Asian century and Australia staking our place in it, we’re not expressing those aspirations in the leadership of our organisations.  

This is to our detriment. These studies show people with the connections, the capabilities and experience to take Australian business into Asia go unrecognised and underutilised. They want to contribute but they’re not being invited to the table.

More proof? Australia’s direct investment into New Zealand – a country of 4 million people and limited growth opportunities – is around $60 billion. We’ve spent barely two-thirds of that – $38 billion – investing in the entire ASEAN bloc with its population of approximately 625 million people.

There are many reasons we don’t invest what we should in Asia. To many, the business culture and bureaucracies of countries like China, Indonesia and India are a mystery. We perceive them as corruptible and unpredictable – altogether too much trouble. We fear what we don’t understand.

Focusing on the local Chinese and Indian business communities as case studies for a broader Asian community, it reveals highly motivated, well qualified ethnic Diasporas with deep, widespread business and cultural connections back in “the home country”.  Many circulate freely between Australia and their countries of origin.

ACOLA estimates the Chinese diaspora at about 1.2 million people and the Indian at about half that. These individuals are well-educated, particularly in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, and they’re forging a place in associated knowledge and high-tech industries. They’re a potent economic force for Australia, helping drive trade, investment, innovation and knowledge flows to and from their countries of origin.

Yet, despite keen business sensibilities and immense potential to open doors overseas, they face “serious impediments in realising their desire to make a greater contribution to the Australian economy”, it says. They are “under-represented in public life, industry councils, business associations, science and research collaborations and trade delegations.”

Much of this we can attribute to cultural misunderstanding. In a Western context, you get on in business by being articulate and outspoken. We place these attributes among what we call “people skills”. We judge Asian reserve and quiet deference to authority harshly, often without noticing the capabilities and work ethic accompanying them.

You can see this reflected in the Asian presence in the local workforce. Despite their clear value, Asian representation thins out as you scan up towards senior management – those strata requiring better “people skills”.

It also explains why the more enterprising decide it’s best to go it alone or go “in-house”, setting themselves up to use their networks for their own benefit.

China leads the world in e-commerce. Our local Chinese community knows how to tap into that market in ways that elude Australia’s wider business community.

When they detect a demand at one end for something freely available at the other, they set themselves up to meet it. Cheap transport and real-time connectivity ensure that’s never been easier.

Technological advances and these communities’ family, cultural and commercial networks give Australia a potential to do business across the globe in ways we couldn’t imagine just a couple of decades ago. The ACOLA report concludes that it’s time Australia developed a comprehensive, coherent policy acknowledging the economic contribution of all such ethnic Diasporas. We also need a plan for realising their potential to expand our links worldwide. This starts with a clear vision for our place in Asia.

How best to express that vision?  In a clear articulation of the opportunities on offer.  In a series of steps and policies with bipartisan political support, unaffected by election cycles.  We should start with our education system, helping to clear away the barriers of language and cultural ignorance.  We had an Asia Century whitepaper back in 2012.  That paper wasn’t perfect, but it was a call to arms for all Australians and got them thinking about the opportunities to our near North.  We need to dust it off and revisit it.  

We also need to look at the form and function of our international trade organisations and peak bodies. Organisations such as business councils and our soft-diplomacy institutions offer massive potential for networking and trust building. We need to fund and foster them accordingly.

These groups have in the open palm of their hands what Australia needs to truly realise our potential. To paraphrase the report, they have the linguistic skills, networks and cultural knowledge to anticipate and respond to emerging opportunities in Asia, “in culturally informed and strategic ways”.

If this is to be Australia’s Asian Century, perhaps it’s time we invited our own community to show us the way.