While many American leaders seek to emulate the tightly ordered economic systems of Japan and some European countries, people in those and other nations see in America's entrepreneurial system the presager of the economic future. Faced with rapidly contracting product-development cycles, growing competition from other Asian nations, and the burgeoning of niche markets, Japan -- according to a 1986 Ministry of International Trade and Industry report -- must move away from a reliance on the "organization man" and toward individuals with such entrepreneurial characteristics as "adventurousness and strong individualistic leadership." Similar realizations have sparked radical decentralization and privatization of economic activities in Europe and even China -- and, in the future, perhaps the Soviet Union will follow.
In the coming competition, the edge will belong to those nations and companies strong enough to nurture individual initiative, creativity, and quick decision making. With the explosion of entrepreneurial vitality in the past decade, the United States -- which provided the role model for the mass-production methods and giant companies of the past -- could again forge the next great economic paradigm.
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The entrepreneurial culture is a vital ingredient of America's economic future. But success in this new Pacific era also will require new attitudes from businesspeople and policymakers. The changes this country will undergo during the next 50 years will challenge racial stereotypes and expand our concept of America as the great melting pot.
As if it weren't enough for the economy to reposition itself to Asia, American society itself is also going through a similar process of de-Europeanization. Today the Pacific Basin countries constitute the largest source of new legal immigrants, with Europeans accounting for barely one in 10 newcomers. The object of the greatest wave of immigration since the turn of the century, the United States is no longer simply a melting pot of various European peoples, but an emerging "world nation" with ethnic ties to virtually every race and region on the planet. By the end of the third century, an absolute majority of Americans may be descended from people who came from somewhere other than Europe.
For many, these changes threaten long-cherished ideas about the nation's racial identity, its traditional Atlantic ties, and its ways of doing business. Identifying with the fate of Europe, some Americans see the rise of Asia as an omen of national decline. Yet the United States need not be imprisoned by its prior associations. Through the openness of its culture and its political system, its racial diversity and the entrepreneurial dynamism of its economy, America can assume a pivotal, indeed dominant, position in the emerging post-European international order.
Regions such as southern and northern California, southern Florida, greater New York, and Texas are all likely to experience unprecedented entrepreneurial activity and market growth, thanks to the impact of the new Americans. In 1982, for instance, Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian-owned businesses in California alone accounted for more than $10 billion in sales.
This trend could not have come at a better time for American business. Like its European cousins, white America is aging rapidly; in contrast, U.S. Asian and Hispanic populations remain young and vigorous.
The new non-European America constitutes not only tomorrow's customer base, but increasingly a most crucial portion of the nation's work force. Nearly all the most rapidly expanding manufacturing areas -- from California and Texas to Florida -- rely heavily on immigrant labor. Equally important, these groups account for a growing percentage of the nation's skilled work force. By 1984, nonwhites accounted for more than 40% of all entering freshmen at the University of California at Berkeley, with a majority of them Asian and a large percent of them Chinese. Across the continent, 14% of all new entrants at Harvard University in 1987 were Asian-Americans.
What's more, Asians account for nearly 70% of all foreign engineering doctorate recipients, many of whom choose to stay after graduation, enriching America's technology companies. Taiwan, for instance, has sent nearly 100,000 students to the United States for graduate degrees. Of the 10,000 who earned Ph.Ds, 85%, including several eventual Nobel Prize winners, have remained in America.
But recruiting this new ethnic brain power will not be enough. American business, accustomed to stereotypical views of nonwhites, must learn to better work with the new Americans. Asian-Americans, for instance, are well known for their technical skills, but are often overlooked for management and sales positions. Asians fill nearly a third of the technical staff at Intel Corp., but "very few," according to Albert Yu, a corporate vice-president, are employed in top management positions.
As these Asians acculturate more into American society, Yu believes, American managers should take advantage of their potential for leadership in management and marketing, particularly given the growing technological importance of Asia. Complains Silicon Valley electronics entrepreneur David Lam, president of the Asian-American Manufacturers Association, "Americans think just because they have a slight accent, Asians can only be workhorses. They haven't realized that some of us can be racehorses.'
American companies must also realign their thinking about the most promising area for future trade. They have tended to write Asia off as a potential marketplace, preferring instead to do business exclusively at home or in familiar European markets.
