Abstract

This article presents a study on the American overseas executives. A questionnaire survey was conducted from October 1963 to April 1964. To compare the overseas executive's background with that of the United States domestic executive. Altogether, 2,391 questionnaires were mailed in forty countries around the world. A total of 1,161 were completed and returned. Of these, 893 are of the United States born executives. 243 are of executives of other nationalities and 25 are of executives born to American parents in foreign countries. Some two-thirds of these executives began their careers as white-collar workers. This includes a clerk, supervisor, salesman, minor executive, lawyer, engineer and major executive. Some 23 per cent of the executives, however, started as wage earners, while 11 per cent began their careers in the military. In the succeeding five and ten year periods, a large majority of these executives moved up occupationally. For example, during the subsequent five-year period, the proportion of wage-earners denied from 23 per cent to 6 per cent. Such occupations as supervisors and minor executives gained considerably. Within the ten-year period, some 84 per cent of these executives were holding either supervisory or executive positions.