Leadership for Tomorrow: Taiwanese Youth, Ethnic Identity and Social Networking

This paper is an examination of how Taiwanese youth use professional and ethnic social organizations to develop knowledge and career-building networks, and to seek out mentoring relationships which are helpful in gaining a leadership role. It is based on a three-year transnational ethnographic study of how Taiwanese professionals, entrepreneurs and students use their identities, ethnic and otherwise, for the construction of transnational knowledge networks. Using interviews with Taiwanese youth and the leaders of social and professional networking organizations, and participant-observation data, I examine the way in which recent graduates and young professionals and entrepreneurs use their identities, ethnic, professional and otherwise (e.g. university alumni) to prepare for global leadership roles and to construct useful professional relationships. I conclude by considering the complex role that ethnic and professional identity play in developing boundary-spanning leaders, and the role of educational, ethnic, social and professional organizations in the careers of today’s new global leaders.