In international business, everybody is a minority
Javier Teruel
Issue date: 10/9/06 Section: Features
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This week, the MSJ talked with Professor Linda Lim. Or better said, Linda Lim talked to MSJ (she can talk!). Professor Lim teaches the World Economy core class (Strategy 503) and Business in Asia (Strategy 584), an elective. During our interview, she basically taught me both courses in a nutshell. Can I waive out, Dean?
A Passion for Southeast Asia
Linda Lim earned her BA in economics from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, and then finished her MA at Yale, specializing in development economics, now better known as the study of emerging markets. She started her academic career as an economics professor at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia.
Professor Lim came to Ann Arbor to complete her economics Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, principally because of the University's Southeast Asian Studies curriculum (see Page 15 for "A History of the Relationship between University of Michigan and Asia"). Since then she has dedicated her research to the study of business and economic development in Southeast Asia.
During her Ph.D. program, Professor Lim studied the Indonesian language (at Michigan!) in order to do field work in Malaysia (the Malay language is very similar to Indonesian). While writing up her dissertation on international outsourcing by the multinational electronics industry, she was invited to speak at a conference on Southeast Asia in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she met her future husband.
The Lim Family
The Lim family is originally (four generations ago) from China, and belongs to the Hokkien dialect, which is spoken by 80 million people in China's Fujian province, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. The family migrated to Singapore where Lim Yuen Ching (or Linda Lim, her 'English' name) was born and raised. Professor Lim speaks five languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, the Cantonese and Hokkien Chinese 'dialects' and Indonesian/Malay, though she speaks none of them fluently except for English.
A Passion for Southeast Asia
Linda Lim earned her BA in economics from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, and then finished her MA at Yale, specializing in development economics, now better known as the study of emerging markets. She started her academic career as an economics professor at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia.
Professor Lim came to Ann Arbor to complete her economics Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, principally because of the University's Southeast Asian Studies curriculum (see Page 15 for "A History of the Relationship between University of Michigan and Asia"). Since then she has dedicated her research to the study of business and economic development in Southeast Asia.
During her Ph.D. program, Professor Lim studied the Indonesian language (at Michigan!) in order to do field work in Malaysia (the Malay language is very similar to Indonesian). While writing up her dissertation on international outsourcing by the multinational electronics industry, she was invited to speak at a conference on Southeast Asia in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she met her future husband.
The Lim Family
The Lim family is originally (four generations ago) from China, and belongs to the Hokkien dialect, which is spoken by 80 million people in China's Fujian province, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. The family migrated to Singapore where Lim Yuen Ching (or Linda Lim, her 'English' name) was born and raised. Professor Lim speaks five languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, the Cantonese and Hokkien Chinese 'dialects' and Indonesian/Malay, though she speaks none of them fluently except for English.
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