Diversity in Silicon Valley has become a big issue in the last few years, although the problem itself goes back decades. In 1999, during the dotcom boom, Fortune pointed out thatrace wasn’t even on corporate agendas.

    Things have changed in some ways, at least in terms of attention. Some industry giants have published diversity data. Fortune has ranked some tech companies on diversity. But the focus primarily has been on engineers and programmers.

    In general, Asian-Americans have made progress in representation up to a point, according to a new reportfrom Ascend, a Pan-Asian organization for business professionals. While they have some strength in technical roles, the progress hasn’t extended to the upper ranks.

    “If you step in the cafeteria of any of these five companies, you will see plenty of Asian talent around,” Denise Peck, a study co-author and former Cisco Systems executive, told Associated Press. “It’s only when you walk into the executive suites at these companies that you might see a problem.”

    The authors crunched previously unavailable EEOC data for 2013 released by Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo, which includes data for 139,370 professionals. They found that whites were overrepresented in management (72.2%) and executive (80.3%) roles compared to the 62.2% of professional technical staff they represented. And, they found that Asians were 27.2% of professionals, 18.8% of managers, and 13.9% of executives.

    Blacks, Hispanics, and individuals of other races were 10.7% of professionals, 7.3% of managers, and 5.8% of executives.

    The report also broke out representation by race and gender and then created an Executive Parity Index. The authors took each group and divided the percentage of professional workers they represented into their percentage of executives. The result would be 1 if the percentages were equal, greater than 1 if the percentage of executives was higher than the percentage of professionals, and less than 1 if the percentage of executives was lower. The lower the EPI, the less likely it was that someone would make it to the top.

    过去几年来，硅谷的种族多元化已经演变成了一个大问题，当然这个问题本身可以追溯到几十年以前。早在互联网热潮方兴未艾的1999年，《财富》就曾指出，很多硅谷企业甚至从来没有考虑过让其他族裔当领导的事儿。

    近年来，情况总算有了些变化，至少这个问题受到了更多的关注。有些行业巨头还发布了自己的多元化数据。《财富》也基于这项指标对一些科技巨头进行了排名，但关注的焦点还是工程师和编程人员。

    一家名叫Ascend的泛亚商业人士组织近日发布报告称，就总体而言，亚裔美国人的职场地位有所提高。不过，尽管他们占据了一些技术岗位，但这种进步还未扩展到高级职位上。

    该报告的执笔人之一，思科系统公司前高管丹尼斯•佩克指出：“如果你走进这5家公司的餐厅，你会发现那里有很多亚裔人才。但只有当你走进这些公司的高管办公室时，你才会发现问题所在。”

    该报告的作者们分析了此前仍然保密的谷歌、惠普、英特尔、LinkedIn和雅虎这5家公司的EEOC数据（译者注：EEOC意指美国均等就业机会委员会），这些数据涵盖了139,370名职场人士。他们发现，白人占据了管理层（72.2%）和高管层（80.3%）的绝大部分岗位；在专业技术人才中，白人所占的比重为62.2%。相比之下，亚裔占了技术人才的27.2%，管理层的18.8%，高管层的13.9%。

    黑人、西班牙裔和其他种族共占技术人才的10.7%、管理层的7.3%、高管层的5.8%。

    该报告还基于种族和性别等指标对相关数据进行分类，并建立了“高管平等指数”，然后分别用每个族群的高管比例除以普通专业职位比例。如果结果是1，那就证明比例相等；如果大于1，那就证明高管的比例要大于普通专业职位的比例；如果小于1，则证明高管的比例小于普通专业职位的比例。高管平等指数越低，就说明该族群的人越难升到企业最高层。

    Executives were far more likely to be white men than technical professionals were.

    Asian women, in particular, faced a “double whammy” of racial and sexual discrimination, according to the report. The study found there is only one Asian female executive for every 287 Asian women professional jobs at the five companies. By comparison, there was one white female executive for every 123 white women in professional jobs, Ascend said. The ratio for white men was one executive for every 87 professional jobs.

    The analysis focused primarily on Asian representation, at least in part because the total small executive representation of black and Hispanic men and women made an analysis of executive positions “highly sensitive to small changes.”

    The definition of parity can be misleading. For example, women are generally underrepresented in technology companies. Executive parity only means that they are in roughly the same percentage of executive roles as in technical roles. So, Asians aren’t at executive parity because the 13.9% in executive roles and 18.8% in management roles aren’t equal to the 27.2% in the professional workforce in these five companies.

    However, Asians make up only 5.3% of the total population, according to the Census Bureau, so in respect to the general population, they are overrepresented. Whites, who make up 77.7% of the general population, are 62.2% of the professional workforce, 72.7% of managers, and 80.3 percent of executives, according to the Ascend analysis.

    According to the authors, who note their lack of experience in social sciences, many Asians they have mentored or coached tend to “underappreciate the importance of personal and organizational leadership skills as requisites for higher management roles” and saw the root causes as “gaps in awareness and expectation rather than a failure of meritocracy.” At the same time, many non-Asian managers have an “implicit and often misguided expectation … that most Asians, by demonstrating technical excellence, prefer technical roles and do not aspire to leadership levels.”

    To be sure, there are Asians who have scaled the top of Silicon Valley companies, including Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s CEO, and Lisa T. Su, AMD’s CEO.

    Fortune asked each of the five companies for an interview or statement. Here are their responses:

    •Google: Referred to a blog post from yesterday addressing some steps it was taking to increase diversity. A company spokesperson also told Fortune “that we’re committing $150 Million to diversity in 2015″ but that “money alone won’t make the difference – it’s the strategy and plan that makes all the difference.”

    •Hewlett-Packard: Did not respond.

    •Intel: Sent a statement that said, in part, “Intel is committed to diversity and inclusion throughout our entire workforce” and that the company created a “$300 million diversity in technology fund” to help increase the number of under-represented minorities and women by the year 2020.

    •LinkedIn: A company statement called “[w]orkforce diversity and inclusion … a critically important issue for LinkedIn.” The company said it was making progress and that, while not having released its most recent diversity numbers yet, has “seen improvement specifically in the Asian leadership category.”

    •Yahoo: The company referred to its Workforce Diversity at Yahoo webpage.

    相比之下，企业高管中的白人比例，要远高于技术人员中的白人比例。

    该报告显示，亚裔女性尤其面临着种族歧视和性别歧视的“双重打击”。在这5家公司，每287名亚裔职场女性中，才会出现一名女性高管。相比之下，每123名白人职场女性中就会诞生一名女性高管。而对于白人男性来说，每87人中就会诞生一名高管。

    该分析主要针对亚裔族群所占的比重，部分原因是黑人和西班牙裔在高管层所占的比例很小，这使得这样一份针对高管职位的研究“对微小变化非常敏感”。

    “平等”有时也是个会误导人的词。比如女性在科技公司往往代表性不足。“高管平等指数”只意味着各族群在高管职位和技术职位中所占的比例大致相等。因此，亚裔的平等指数之所以没有达到1，是因为亚裔在高管层的13.9%和管理层的18.8%，均达不到亚裔普通员工在这5家公司中的比例（27.2%）。

    然而，根据美国人口统计局的数据，亚裔占美国总人口的比例只有5.3%。所以相对于总人口的比例来说，他们的代表性不是过低，而是过高。白人虽然占了美国总人口的77.7%，但在硅谷却只占了普通职业人士的62.2%、管理层的72.%和高管层的80.3%。

    该报告的作者也承认他们缺乏社会科学的经验，同时他们认为，许多亚裔倾向于“忽视个人领导与组织能力对于获得更高职位的重要性”。他们认为，这种现象的根本原因是“认知与预期的差异，而不是精英教育的失败”。同时，很多非亚裔管理者存在着“盲目甚至错误的预期……由于大多数亚裔员工展示了出色的技术水平，因而以为他们更喜欢技术职位，而不热衷于追求领导层职位。”

    当然，有些亚裔也已经成功登上了硅谷企业的最高层，如微软CEO萨塔亚•纳德拉、Adobe公司CEO山塔努•纳拉延、AMD公司CEO苏姿丰等等。

    《财富》对这5家公司均进行了采访，或请他们发表评论，以下是他们的回答：

    •谷歌在昨日发表博文称，该公司已经采取了几项旨在增加员工团队族群多元化的举措。一位发言人也对《财富》表示：“2015年，我们打算在多元化问题上投入1.5亿美元。但光靠钱本身解决不了问题——重要的是战略和计划。”

    •惠普没有回复。

    •英特尔在一份声明中表示：“英特尔致力于提升整个员工团队的多元化和包容性”，该公司还计划成立一个“3亿美元的科技行业多元化基金”，以帮助代表性不足的少数族裔和女性到2020年前获得更多工作机会。

    •LinkedIn在声明中称：“对LinkedIn来说，员工团队的多元化和包容性是一个至关重要的问题。”该公司表示正在这方面获得进步，尽管它没有公布近期的多元化数据，但“特别值得指出的是，领导层的亚裔人数有所增加。”

    •雅虎提到了它的“雅虎员工团队多元化”网页。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    审校：任文科