<sPROBLEMS IN REVIEW

The Ethnics of ExecutiveSelection

By LEWIS B. WARD

e American Jewish uommittee. . . is happy to bring you this report ona study by the Division of Research atHarvard Business School. The projectwas supported in part by funds allo-cated by the American Jewish Com-mittee from a grant of the Maurice andLaura Falk Foundation of Pittsburgh.

This study is one of a series ofpioneer researches, sponsored by theAmerican Jewish Committee at fouroutstanding universities, on variousaspects of religious discrimination inthe executive ranks of major U.S.corporations.

For further information, contact theAmerican Jewish Committee, 165 East56 Street, New York, N.Y. 10022.

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MARCH/APRIL 1965

VOL. 43, NO. 2

6 THE ETHNICS OF EXECUTIVE SELECTIONLewis B. Ward

40 MORE COMPANIES ARE BUYING BACK THEIR STOCKLeo A. Guthart

55 WAGES AND PRICES BY FORMULA?Arthur F. Burns

65 HOW TO ORGANIZE INFORMATION SYSTEMSJohn Dearden

74 TEAM AT THE TOPD. Ronald Daniel

83 GRASS ROOTS MARKET RESEARCHLouis W. Stern and J. L. Heskett

97 LEGAL PROTECTION OF COMPUTER PROGRAMSMilton R. Wessel

107 PHASING OUT WEAK PRODUCTSPhilip Kotler

119 IS THE CORPORATION ABOVE THE LAW?John F. A. Taylor

131 CLEAR COMMUNICATIONS FOR CHIEF EXECUTIVESRobert N. McMurry

148 LABOR RELATIONS IN THE COMMON MARKETClyde W. Summers

162 WATCH YOUR MINUTESRobert S. Holzman

PROBLEMS IN REVIEW

"American management generally has adeep sense of social responsibility. Toa degree, they are indoctrinated withthe Judeo-Christian ideals of our civil-ization, with its sense of communityamong all men of good will and its re-spect for the dignity of man."Richard Eells, The Meaning of Modern Business(New York, Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 34.

"Merit is the only qualification essential to success. . . . Here only anatural order of nobility is recognized, and its motto without coat of armsor boast of heraldry, is 'Intelligence and Integrity.'"

Henry Clews, Fifty Years in Wall Street (New York, Irving Publishing Company, 1908).

"As the [ex-]trainees go back to the campus [asrecruiters] to search for their own image, theygo back strengthened more than ever in their anti-intellectualism, and in a great Mendelian selec-tion process well-rounded men who were chosenby well-rounded men in turn chose more well-rounded men."Bettelheim and Janowitz, Social Change and Prejudice (NewYork, The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), p. 137.

"The business that is known mainly as stable,solid, and set in its ways will easily attractmore people than it needs of the kind who willkeep it in the groove. It will have trouble,however, in getting and holding men whohave the ability, the turn of mind, the deter-mination to pioneer."

Frederick R. Kappel, Vitality in a Business Enterprise(New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1960), p. 19.

"It is because of its stress on fair competition andequal opportunity that the business creed may becalled egalitarian or democratic. . . . [But] thecreed is certainly not 'egalitarian' in some sensesof the word. It defends differences in income, op-poses limitations on profits, and claims for business-men the rights and responsibilities of communityleadership. But it does insist on the fundamentalsof equal opportunity, and resists inequalities basedon ascribed status."

Sutton, Harris, Kaysen, and Tobin, The American Business Creed* (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 261.

The Ethnics ofExecutive Selection

Religious barriers to executive careers

is the subject of this study,reporting on attitudes of both companyrecruiters and management candidates. The

latter s descriptions of desirable

corporate and personal characteristics

reveal some striking differences in the way

those of different religious backgrounds

view the management environment.At the same time, recruiters' descriptions

indicate marked differences in the

corporate climate offered by firms having

different ethnic hiring patterns.The author is Lewis B. Ward,who is Professor of Business Research at

the Harvard Business School.

• T H E EDITORS

"The right to work without discrimination because of race, color, religiouscreed, national origin or ancestry is hereby declared to be a right andprivilege of the inhabitants of the commonwealth."

Chapter 36B of the Acts of 1946 of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Much has been written recent-ly about critical shortages in thesupply of business managers. Notonly is this apparent in the shortrun, but most observers of thebusiness scene expect a continu-ing shortage for the foreseeablefuture. American business spendsmany millions of dollars each yearin the training and developmentof prospective managers and ex-ecutives. Undergraduate and grad-uate training in business adminis-tration has grown by leaps andbounds. Yet we still seem to lackqualified managers. Robert AaronGordon and James Edwin Howell,in their well-known report, HigherEducation for Business, suggestedthat the need for college-trainedmen in management would in-crease to more than 150,000 peryear by 1965 and to even higherfigures by 1970, while the supplyavailable to business would con-tinue to lag behind demand.1

One might think that with allof the effort which has beenput into recruiting of managersand management development wewould now be well on the road tomeeting the needs of tomorrow'sbusiness leadership. Apparently,we are not. What is wrong, then?Two difficulties stand out whenone looks carefully at the businessscene.

The first is that business man-agement does not seem to get itsshare of the most capable youngpeople coming through our educa-tional system. This point is strong-ly emphasized in the recent re-port on business education put outby the Committee for EconomicDevelopment.2 There are of coursemany factors influencing the situ-ation, but one of the most impor-tant, certainly, is the fact that

many capable young people do nothave a high regard for a careerin business. Philip Sporn of Amer-ican Electric Power Company, Inc.,in a supplement to the CED re-port, refers directly to this factor:

"The judgment of some of our bestyoung talent is affected by a sense ofdistrust of business as a way of life,particularly as it may not permita concordance between the ethicalstandards of business and the ethicsof living. . . ." 3

The second difficulty is thatthere still are barriers standing inthe way of careers in managementin the case of members of variousspecial groups in our society^That any barrier which preventsthe entry into management of in-dividuals possessing the necessaryskills will result in waste of scarceresources hardly needs saying. In-telligent self-interest would sug-gest that business as a wholewould have much to gain by find-ing means for removing as manysuch barriers as possible. Indeed,for some years now many businessfirms have been trying to do thisvery thing. Many others — withsupport, encouragement, and ex-hortation by interested parties —are currently making strong ef-forts to remove any social barriersstill existing in their companies.Nevertheless, it is only too clearthat much remains to be done.Furthermore, even with the bestof intentions on the part of topmanagement, it is proving difficultto change social patterns of longstanding.

To be specific, even a cursorylook at the backgrounds of mem-bers of top management in variousindustries will show that certainminority groups are representedonly very rarely.

In the case of the Negro this isobvious and well-nigh universal.Furthermore, because of discrimi-nation with respect to cultural andeducational advantages that existfrom early childhood on, few adultNegroes have the necessary edu-cation and skills for managementjobs, even if all other barrierscould be removed immediately.Hence the prospects for placinglarge numbers of Negroes in high-er management are not very hope-ful for the near future.

Fully as obvious as the rare ap-pearance of Negroes is the under-representation of women in highermanagement ranks. The questionof the role of women in manage-ment is complicated by even morecomplex questions relating to therole of women in our society.Treatment of the issue of womenin management is beyond ourscope here; suffice it to say thatin many respects they representanother area of opportunity lossfor business.3

Race and sex, then, are two ofthe barriers that prevent fully ef-fective use of management talent.Religion is a third, particularly inthe case of those of Jewish back-ground. This analysis of religiousbarriers concentrates on differ-ences in views and opinions givenby company recruiters and by in-

1 New York, Columbia University Press,1959-

2 Committee for Economic Develop-ment, Educating Tomorrow's Managers:The Business Schools and the BusinessCommunity (New York, C.E.D., 1964).

3 Ibid., p. 41.4 See, for example, Garda W. Bow-

man, "What Helps or Harms Promot-ability?" (Problems in Review), HBRJanuary—February 1964, p. 6.

3 This subject will be covered in aforthcoming article in HBR by GardaW. Bowman, who wrote on "What Helpsor Harms Promotability?" (see fn. 4).

cipient junior managers, with par-ticular attention to comparisonsof the reactions of trainees hav-ing different religious backgroundsand to comparative descriptions ofcompanies showing differing reli-gious patterns in their hiring prac-tices.

Specifically, we examined theviews of some 550 young menwho had just accepted jobs withvarious companies and of about324 company recruiters who hadinterviewed these men.

Besides meriting study in andof itself (as would any other in-stances of the barrier phenome-non), the case of religious barriersin management affords certain ad-vantages as a subject of inquirycompared with the cases of bar-riers based on color and sex. Inthe cases of both Negroes andwomen, the barriers are so greatthat there is scarcely anything tostudy. In those cases, for exam-ple, it is difficult to contrast con-ditions associated with the pres-ence of the barrier with those as-sociated with its absence. Norcan one easily observe the processof breaking down the barriers,since this occurs so rarely at pres-ent. Such observations are pos-sible, however, in the case of re-ligious barriers. For example, de-spite impediments to managementcareers in some firms, substantialnumbers of Jews do attain highmanagement levels. In addition,substantial numbers of young Jewsgraduating from colleges and uni-versities desire and aspire to man-agement careers.

Focus ON RECRUITING

For a number of reasons recruit-ing provides a logical place to lookfor evidence on how prejudice be-comes effective in the face of itsdenial higher up in management.For one thing, the sorting processis especially visible at this point.Many of those directly involvedwith this process are relatively ac-cesssible to the researcher, sincesome of the steps in recruiting takeplace on the university campus.Furthermore, the elimination ofprejudice in the initial selectionof junior managers may prove tobe a major factor in its elimina-tion throughout the management

hierarchy. Certainly, if no mem-bers of a particular religious orethnic group are hired as juniormanagers, none of them will beavailable for promotion to highermanagement positions.

The focus in this research onrecruiting was on the process, andthe factors influencing it, wherebymany different individuals, all ofwhom were seeking managerialcareers, arrived at contracts ofemployment with many differentcompanies. (The study reportedhere is part of a broader researchproject which has the objective oflearning more about the wholetwo-way process in which youngmen desiring business careers ar-rive at decisions to work for par-ticular companies and companiesdecide to hire particular men. Thehope is thereby to improve the fitbetween company and man.0) Thepart of the research with whichwe are concerned here involvedan examination of two sets of per-ceptions — i.e., images or pictures— in the minds of those involvedin the recruiting process:

T One set consisted of the picturesof the desired jobs and companies inthe minds of the individuals seekingpositions as management trainees,together with the pictures they hadof themselves and their qualificationsfor the job. f

• The other set was made up ofthe pictures in the minds of recruit-ers as to the kinds of persons theywere seeking as management train-ees, and the pictures that they hadof their companies and the jobs tobe filled.

For the purpose of studyingthese mental pictures, a long anddetailed questionnaire was devel-oped by means of which both the550 would-be managers and the324 company recruiters could de-scribe the companies concernedand describe the kinds of personsbeing considered for the traineejobs.

The questionnaire representeda long and difficult task involvinganswers to over 200 questions cov-ering a wide range of characteris-tics of the company — its climate,company policies, members of topmanagement, the jobs entered bymanagement trainees, their supe-

riors, the departments where theywould work, their associates, andsome questions about expectationsfor advancement. In another sec-tion the trainee was asked to de-scribe himself by means of choicesbetween pairs of adjectives. Final-ly, he answered questions abouthis educational background, hisreligious background, and othersimilar information. The companyrecruiters filled in exactly the samequestionnaire except that in thesection dealing with personal char-acteristics, where the would-bemanagers described themselves,the recruiters described the kindof persons for whom they werelooking.

Because of the need to find ouryoung men before they settled intheir jobs, we had to be contentwith getting questionnaire returnswhere and when we could. To thisend we worked through the place-ment offices of a representativesample of colleges and universi-ties supplying young men for busi-ness. While we are reasonablysatisfied with our sampling of edu-cational institutions, we have littleknowledge as to how our sampleof individuals compares with allof those entering business fromthese and other colleges and uni-versities. However, we can saythat in some characteristics wherecomparisons with other, more ex-tensive studies are possible, oursample does not seem to be toomuch out of line.

For example, with respect to re-ligious background, slightly morethan half of our student respond-ents said they were Protestants(51% ); 10% said they were Jews;25% Catholics; and 14% atheistsor agnostics. Comparable figurescan be obtained from a 1961 Na-tional Opinion Research Centernationwide study of college se-niors planning careers in busi-

6 The Recruiting Study is a projectunder the Division of Research, Har-vard Business School. It has been sup-ported in part by funds from The Asso-ciates of the Harvard Business Schooland in part by an allocation of fundsby the American Jewish Committee outof a grant from the Maurice and LauraFalk Foundation of Pittsburgh. The au-thor was assisted in the research byAssociate Professor Anthony G. Athosof the University of Southern Californiaand Mrs. Jane Holtz of the HarvardBusiness School Research Staff.

ness.7 Of this group, 64% wereof Protestant origins, 9% Jewish,and 27% Catholic. If we assumethe family backgrounds of theatheists, agnostics, etc., in oursample are distributed among thethree major faiths in the sameproportion as the remainder of oursample, the revised figures for theproportions of Protestant, Jew,and Catholic become 59%, 12%,and 29% , respectively; these arevery close to the proportions re-ported in the NORC survey. Thus,by drawing our sample from arepresentative group of collegesand universities, we apparentlysucceeded in getting a group whichis reasonably representative of allcollege seniors planning businesscareers, at least as far as religiousaffiliation is concerned.

PARADOX OF VALUES

The gap between the ideal ofequal opportunity and the prac-tice of prejudice is hardly an un-known phenomenon. The exist-ence of the fruits of prejudice atthe level of top management inmany businesses suggests that ourmanagers and executives eitherdo not accept the ideal of equalopportunity for all or that mattersare so complex that the ideal some-how does not come into conso-nance with practice. Because thepersonal integrity and high stand-ards of many business leaders areso clearly in line with the ideal,its failure to appear in the out-come in some of their companiesis a puzzling paradox. To under-stand the paradox, one may wellhave to unravel the whole com-plex sorting process by which menrise to the higher levels of man-agement. The fact that discrimi-nation in hiring because of race,creed, color, or national origin isagainst the law in many statesonly intensifies the paradox, forseldom do overt examples of suchdiscrimination reach the point oflegal action.

A recent conversation with thedirector of personnel of a largecompany — one of the Fortunelist of the 500 largest — providesa good example of our paradox.The Carter Corporation (not itsreal name) carries on a large mul-

tiplant operation spread over thewhole nation. It owns some of itsraw material sources, and it sup-plies finished goods and productsboth to other companies and forretail sale either through distrib-utors and/or through field salesforces of its own. By any common-sense definition, its managers andexecutives number nearly a thou-sand, and each year the companyrecruits a substantial number ofmanagement trainees, visiting atleast 15 or 20 college and univer-sity campuses in the process.

The topic of discussion with thedirector of personnel was a pro-posed program of management de-velopment; he was describing thekinds of individuals who made upthe management group. In an-swer to the question whether therewere any Negroes in other thanhourly paid or clerical jobs, heobserved:

"About four years ago we tried outa couple of colored salesmen to sellto colored retail outlets, but this didn'twork out well. The colored retail out-lets apparently prefer to deal Withwhite salesmen."

When asked how many Jewsthere were in management, hewent on to say:

"It's funny that you should askthat because I don't feel we have everhad a problem with anti-Semitism.I suppose we must have two or threeJews somewhere in the field, but Ihonestly don't really know of a singleone. For some reason Jews rarelyapply for jobs with us, and those thatdo are usually not well qualified orelse they want more money than wecan pay or some special location wecan't give them. I don't know whyit is that we don't have more Jewishboys coming our way."

It happens that the Carter Cor-poration's former president andcurrent board chairman is a na-tionally known elder statesman inbusiness, a trustee of one of theprestige colleges, a man noted forhis courage and integrity, and aman who has spoken publiclyagain and again of the dignity ofthe individual and of the impor-tance of equality of opportunityfor all. The Carter Corporation il-lustrates only too well this para-dox of the failure of an ideal atthe top-management level to be

reflected in reality at lower levels.In the specific case of Jews, ex-

amination of the composition ofthe managements of many differ-ent companies in many differentindustries reveals that Jews areunderrepresented in many places.They are conspicuously absent inthe management teams of banks,public utilities, insurance compa-nies, and certain large companiesin heavy industry. That this is sois surprising when one considerstheir educational level.

For example, it has been esti-mated that less than 1% of theexecutive personnel in heavy in-dustry are Jews, while 8% of allcollege graduates and 25% of thegraduates of Ivy League collegesare Jewish. Publication of suchfigures as these often upsets mem-bers of top management in suchcompanies — especially those menresponsible for public relations!When particular companies are re-ferred to by name in reports ofsuch surveys, the common reactionis a pained "Why pick on us?"While such a reaction is all verynatural, it doesn't help the situ-ation. If nothing further happens,or if attempts to do somethingquickly end in frustration andfailure, considerable unhappinessresults with no improvement inthe basic situation.

In an effort to shed light on thereasons for the paradox discussedabove, let us now turn to some ofthe results of our recruiting study.Our observations are drawn from:

1. Comparisons between students'and recruiters' descriptions of thesame companies.

2. Comparisons between the de-scriptions of desired companies andcompanies actually chosen by stu-dents of different religious back-grounds.

3. Study of students' and recruit-ers' descriptions of favorable and un-favorable personal traits.

RECRUITERS' IMAGES

Probably the most importantcomparisons for understanding ourparadox are those relating to thecompany descriptions given bythe recruiters. In a sense we might

7 James A. Davis, Great Aspirations(Chicago, National Opinion ResearchCenter, September 1961).

regard the recruiters' descriptionsas the "official" company descrip-tions, for they were made (a) bypeople who had worked for thecompany for some time and (b)by members of management hav-ing some official connection withrecruiting of management train-ees. These descriptions are, ofcourse, not necessarily "true" rep-resentations of the companies; butbecause we are looking at the re-cruiting of management trainees,it seems appropriate to take theviews of the recruiters as the mostrelevant guide.

In looking at the company de-scriptions by the recruiters whointerviewed and hired our studentpopulation, we find a number ofinteresting things. For example,as might be expected, the recruit-ers clearly describe their compa-nies in much more favorable termsthan do the students. Another in-teresting thing is that the olderrecruiters (who have more experi-ence and seniority with their com-panies) tend to describe their com-panies more favorably than dothe younger recruiters, with thedescription tending to improvewith age. This continues up to apoint somewhere between the agesof 60 and 65 when suddenly thecompany descriptions take an un-favorable turn.8 Could retirementhave something to do with this?

For our present purpose, how-ever, the most interesting findingsin the descriptions made by re-cruiters relate to differences in thecompany characteristics reportedfor companies which hired onlyProtestants, only Catholics, onlyJews, or a mixed-ethnic group ofthe students whom we studied.(Note that these companies mayhave hired students, not in ourstudy sample, who had other re-ligious affiliations; many of themno doubt did. For our group ofstudents, though, we know theirreligious affiliations, and we alsoknow which recruiters hired whichstudents. Thus we can say thatin terms of our sample we canidentify those companies wherebarriers were most likely to existin the minds of students or re-cruiters such that hiring would belimited in the company to the par-

ticular ethnic group concerned.)When we sort out our recruiters

in terms of the ethnic backgroundsof the students that they (or, moreproperly, their companies) hired,we find there were 80 hiring onlyProtestant students, 41 hiring onlyCatholic students, and 14 hiringonly Jewish students. There were188 recruiters whose companieshired students from more than oneethnic background. The last groupof firms will be called the mixed-ethnic companies.

Given these groupings, we thenanalyzed the descriptions given byrecruiters, using two hypotheses:

1. Recruiters from the 80 Protes-tants-only companies would tendmost to reflect whatever religiousbarriers might exist, particularly forJews.

2. Recruiters from the 188 mixed-ethnic companies would tend leastto reflect such religious barriers.

While the most significant com-parisons reported here emergefrom study of the recruiters fromthe Protestants-only and mixed-ethnic companies, some interest-ing findings also come from analy-sis of the Catholics-only and Jews-only company recruiters' descrip-tions, although the smaller size ofthese latter groupings makes ourinterpretations more cautious.

EXHIBIT I shows a comparisonof company characteristics as re-ported by recruiters from compa-nies in each of the four hiringgroups. For discussion purposes,we have clustered the descriptivecharacteristics into four categories— large size, risk-taking orienta-tion, management style, and com-munity service.

1. Large Size. The first areashowing differences related to re-ligious background consists oflarge company size and associat-ed company characteristics suchas wide ownership of stock anddecentralized organization. Thosecompanies hiring trainees frommore than one type of background,i.e., our mixed-ethnic group, aremore often described by their ownrecruiters as large (85%) thanis the case for those companieshiring trainees from any single

ethnic background alone. TheCatholics-only group comes nextin frequency of large size with74% , followed by the Protestants-only (69% ) and the Jews-onlygroup (57% ).

Although most college gradu-ates entering business thus enterwhat are described as large com-panies, it would appear that whenJews do not take jobs with mixed-ethnic companies, they tend moreoften than other ethnic groups togo with companies self-describedas smaller. The other related char-acteristics — wide stock owner-ship and decentralized organiza-tion — show a similar pattern forthese four groups of companies,as described by the recruiters.

It should be noted that theseresults do not necessarily precludethe presence of barriers to manage-ment careers for Jews in somevery large companies. For exam-ple, 69% of the Protestants-onlycompanies are described as large.What the results do suggest canbest be seen by looking at the otherside of the coin. The groups ofcompanies hypothesized as mostlikely to contain barriers (Protes-tants-only companies, for exam-ple) have more small companiesamong them (31%) than is thecase with the mixed-ethnic group(where the corresponding figureis 15% ). This does seem to makesome sense in that one might ex-pect that smaller, closely knitmanagement groups would bemore likely to turn down traineeswith backgrounds very differentfrom their own. In the large, moreimpersonal organizations, on theother hand, these background fac-tors might well be less important.

2. Risk-Taking Orientation. Asecond area of special interest inour research has to do with risktaking. The key descriptive itemwas stated in the form "Taking ofrisks is discouraged." The resultsfor the different recruiter groupsare rather surprising. Only 38%of the mixed-ethnic group reportedthis was true in their companies,

8 See Anthony G. Athos, An Analysisof Recruiters' and Students' Descriptionsof Companies, unpublished dissertation,Harvard Business School, 1964.

EXHIBIT I. COMPANY CHARACTERISTICS REPORTED BY RECRUITERS FOR COM-PANIES HIRING DIFFERENT ETHNIC GROUPS

COMPANY CHARACTERISTICS

1. LARGE SIZE

LARGE SIZE

WIDE OWNERSHIP OF STOCK

DECENTRALIZED ORGANIZATION

2 . RISK-TAKING ORIENTATION

TAKING OF RISKSIS DISCOURAGED

TRAINEES MUST AVOIDSYMPATHY WITH UNIONS

3 . MANAGEMENT STYLE

COMMUNICATION OFPOLICIES TO ALL LEVELS

WELL-STRUCTUREDORGANIZATION

PRESSURE TO SUPPORTOTHER DEPARTMENTS

CONSISTENT SUPERVISION

PRESSURE FORQUICK DECISIONS

TRAINEES' ASSOCIATESWELL EDUCATED

MANY FRINGE BENEFITSFOR TRAINEES

4 . COMMUNITY SERVICE

EMPHASIS ONCOMMUNITY NEEDS

SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC

NOTE: The characteristics reported here represent those where the largest differ-ences were found. Many characteristics with smaller differences are not included.

PERCENT

(N = 188)

85%

72

82

38

27

75

86

71

65

69

91

97

80

78

REPORTING THE CHARACTERISTIC

(N = 80)

69%

59

76

65

65

65

69

61

56

40

74

49

7477

(N = 42)

74%

64

88

55

45

74

81

64

45

69

83

86

74

69

*$»(N = 14)

57%

50

57

57

26

71

86

57

43

57

93

76

57

57

in contrast with 65% of theProtestants-only group. The Jews-only and Catholics-only groups re-ported this characteristic 57%and 55% of the time, respectively.These results are especially strik-ing in view of the fact that themixed-ethnic group tends to repre-sent larger companies, where onewould expect a good deal of con-servatism. One is tempted to sug-gest that when recruiters believethat the taking of risks is discour-aged in their firms, they tend toavoid hiring members of minoritygroups.

Along a somewhat similar line,

the item, "Trainees must refrainfrom activities implying sympathywith unions," was rarely consid-ered true in the mixed-ethnic com-panies (27% ). On the other hand,65% of the recruiters for the Prot-estants-only companies reportedthis was true. In the Catholics-only group, 45% reported thischaracteristic, while only 26% ofthe Jews-only companies did so.This item has an obvious relation-ship to the over-all risk-taking ori-entation in a firm. It would ap-pear that there are fewer opera-tional and psychological restric-tions on trainee behavior in the

mixed-ethnic companies than inthe Protestants-only companies.

3. Management Style. A thirdgeneral factor running throughthe differing company descriptionsby recruiters of companies withdifferent ethnic hiring practicesmight be called "managementstyle." This area includes a num-ber of company characteristics,such as communication of policiesto all levels, well-structured organ-ization, pressure to support otherdepartments, consistent supervi-sion pressure for quick decisions,and well-educated associates oftrainees. Every one of these char-acteristics (see EXHIBIT 1) is re-ported more often for the mixed-ethnic group, where we have post-ulated fewer religious barriers tomanagement careers, than for theProtestants-only group.

The item, "Many fringe bene-fits for traineees," has also beenincluded under the heading of"Management Style" because theanswers show a similar patternamong our four hiring-practicegroups. The recruiters of themixed-ethnic group reported manyfringe benefits for trainees almostunanimously (97%), while theProtestants-only group reported itless than half of the time (49% ).When examined in light of ourinformation with respect to risk-taking orientation and companysize, this finding tends to reinforcethe image of the mixed-ethniccompanies as more open firms,with a bent toward giving traineesmore free rein.

4. Community Service. Thefourth area includes two similaritems — emphasis on communityneeds and service to the public.Here again the characteristics arereported most often in the mixed-ethnic group. However, a look atEXHIBIT I reveals that the responsepattern for these characteristics isvery similar to that for large com-pany size. Perhaps small compa-nies are less in the public eye andthus are less influenced by publicpressures. Therefore they feelless need to emphasize these mat-ters.

Finally, there are several com-pany characteristics (not detailed

in EXHIBIT I ) where Jews-only

companies seem to differ some-what from the other groups:

• Perhaps the most interesting ofthese is that company policies em-phasize profits more than anythingelse. The Jews-only group report thismore often than any other group(71% ), with the Catholics-only at64% , and Protestants-only and mixed-ethnic firms at 55% and 54%, re-spectively. These results undoubted-ly are related in a complex way toboth company size and concern forcommunity service; large companiesmay more often specify multiplegoals, while smaller firms are mainlyconcerned with profits.

• The Jews-only companies differwith respect to having imaginativemembers of top management —71% , as against 98% for the mixed-ethnic group companies, 96% forProtestants-only, and 90% for Cath-olics-only.

« Fewer Jews-only companies pro-vide social recognition for trainees intheir jobs — 36% as against 63% forthe mixed-ethnic companies.

• Also, the recruiters of the Jews-only companies claim more often(71% ) that trainees earn more than

they could elsewhere, in comparisonwith 65% for the mixed-ethnic com-panies, 60% for the Protestants-only,and 57% for the Catholics-only.

(Caution should be taken intreating this last group of findings,because of the very small numberof Jews-only companies (14) inthe sample.)

STUDENTS' IMAGES

Having looked at company char-acteristics through the eyes of therecruiters, let us now turn to com-pany characteristics as seen bythe trainees who went to work forthese companies.

A number of interesting differ-ences appear in comparisons ofstudents with different religiousbackgrounds, both as to the kindsof companies for which theywould like to work and as to thekinds of companies for which theywere actually going to work.While we are dealing with threedifferent sets of descriptions, eachconsisting of responses to morethan 200 questionnaire items, we

shall take up here only character-istics of companies with respectto which analysis of the differentstudent religious groups showedrelatively large differences.

As noted earlier, students wereclassified in four groups: Prot-estants, Catholics, Jews, and ag-nostics-atheists-etc. (the last cat-egory being referred to as "ag-nostics"). Thus we shall look on-ly at a few highlights bearing onthe main differences in the situ-ations faced by young men of dif-fering ethnic backgrounds in theirsearch for positions in businessmanagement. Again, as with ourrecruiter descriptions above, weclustered the items into four cate-gories — large size, profit orienta-tion, management style, and local-political concern. EXHIBIT II showsthe comparisons.

1. Large Size. With respect tothe over-all characteristic of largesize, a very clear pattern emerges.The proportions of students whodescribe the companies they areactually going to work for as large

EXHIBIT II. TRAINEES' DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR DESIRED AND ACTUAL COMPANIES

PERCENT OF TRAINEES REPORTING THE CHARACTERISTIC

COMPANY CHARACTERISTICS

1. LARGE SIZE

LARGE SIZE

STABILITY OF BUSINESS

2. PROFIT ORIENTATION

EMPHASIS ON PROFITS

TRAINEES EARN MORE THAN ELSEWHERE

3. MANAGEMENT STYLE

TAKING OF RISKS IS DISCOURAGED

HAVING TO PUT THINGS IN WRITING

CLARITY OF COMPANY POLICIES

ORGANIZATION IS WELL STRUCTURED

PRESSURE TO INCREASE OUTPUT

4. LOCAL POLITICAL CONCERN

CONCERN ABOUT LOCAL POLITICS

PROTESTANTS

(N = 159)

41%*

57

55

58

12

30

72

50

57

61

(N = 261)

75%*

78

51

51

66

73

77

74

54

51

CATHOLICS

;N=40)

49%

62

47

65

10

50

85

60

45

70

(N = 162)

79%

84

44

53

57

83

85

83

60

54

JEWS

28%

30

56

63

7

33

59

44

60

59

73%

77

41

41

57

75

80

75

59

37

AGNO

¥ N = 51)

39%

51

59

69

16

35

65

47

61

71

N = 65)

65%

74

55

40

46

69

69

66

58

46

* To be read, "Of those students who are Protestant, 41% described the company for which they desired to work as havingthe characteristic of 'large size'; 75% described the company which they actually chose as having that characteristic."

per se are relatively similar forthe different religious groups, al-though slightly more Catholics andsomewhat fewer agnostics seetheir companies as large than doProtestants and Jews. But whenit comes to describing the kind ofcompany they desire, the ethnicgroups show a wide divergence.Almost half the Catholics describetheir desired company as large,whereas only 28% of the Jews doso; Protestants and agnostics fallin between.

A similar dual pattern, not un-expectedly, exists with respect todescriptions of an associated char-acteristic, that the company's busi-ness is stable and steady. As isthe case with size per se, about75% of the trainees see this astrue for their actual companies,although a somewhat larger pro-portion actually see stability intheir firms than is the case withsize. Again, however, many fewerof the Jews, in contrast to the oth-er groups, desire a company withthis characteristic — only 30% ascompared with 57% of the Prot-estant trainees, 62% of the Cath-olics, and 51% of the agnosticgroup.

Several other size-related items,such as decentralized organizationand wide stock ownership, alsoyielded similar patterns in relationto religious background. Jewishtrainees had far less of a tendencyto desire characteristics of largesize, in comparison with othergroups, but about as many Jewsas others found that their actualfirms did have those characteris-tics.

Thus it would seem that theJewish trainees may anticipate orwant to work for smaller andless stable companies, but theireventual actual choices are firmswhich generally have size andstability characteristics similar tothose firms selected by studentswith other religious backgrounds.By way of explanation, there maybe a true ethnic difference in theJewish group in their choice ofa desired environment; the differ-ence may also stem, however, froman anticipation of religious barri-ers to Jews in larger, more stablecompanies.

2. Profit Orientation. A secondarea with which our student analy-sis was concerned is profit orien-tation. Included in this over-allcharacteristic are items on com-pany profit-emphasis and traineeearnings.

Trainee responses to the ques-tionnaire item, "Company policyemphasizes profits more than any-thing else," suggest that fewerCatholics (47% ) than membersof other religious groups desire towork for firms with a profit em-phasis. The other three groupsdemonstrate about the same inter-est in this characteristic for theirdesired companies. However, forall religious groups there are few-er descriptions of profit emphasisfor actual companies than for de-sired ones. This is particularlytrue for Jewish students: thisgroup not only has the greatestgap (15% ) between anticipationsand realizations of profit emphasis,but has the lowest absolute propor-tion (41%) who believe the poli-cies of their actual companies em-phasize profits more than anythingelse.

The relatively small gaps be-tween anticipation and realizationacross all student groups suggestthat those who think that studentsentering business are too idealisticor are lacking in the motivationbasic to the free-enterprise systemare reacting to what is at most atiny fraction of those who enterbusiness.

In addition to the profit orien-tation of the company we were in-terested in the profit orientationof the student trainee. Here thequestionnaire item stated thatmanagement trainees in the com-pany could "earn more than theycould earn elsewhere." Over 60%of the trainees sought this attri-bute in their desired company,with only the Protestants showingslightly less interest in this attri-bute.

All the groups found that thisdesideratum was less than fullyattainable. Agnostics and Jewswere most disappointed, judgingfrom the gap between their de-sired and actual percentages; Prot-estants and Catholics less so. Inabsolute terms, of the three major

religious groups, the Jewish stu-dents found themselves substan-tially less fulfilled with respect totrainee earnings than did eitherProtestants or Catholics. Whetherthese results come from actuallylower pay for Jews (and agnos-tics) or from higher expectationsas distinguished from desires, wedo not know.

3. Management Style. A thirdgroup of company attributes wehave termed "management style."Included are characteristics suchas risk-taking orientation, clarityof policy, tightness of organization,and pressure to increase output.

Attitude toward risk taking, asreported by the recruiters earlierin this article, turns out to bea crucial criterion differentiatingthose companies hiring Protestantsonly and those in our mixed-ethnicgroup. It is therefore of consider-able interest to look at the stu-dents' view of this company char-aracteristic, namely, that the tak-ing of risks is discouraged. Thestriking thing to be seen here isthe very strong student dislike forfirms evincing such a characteris-tic — only about 10% of our stu-dents see this as a desirable at-tribute.

The rarity with which this char-acteristic is used to describe a de-sired company cuts across alltrainee religious groups, althoughit is particularly infrequent (only7% ) among the descriptions giv-en by Jewish trainees for their de-sired companies. By contrast, themajority of the trainees in allthree major religious groups seethis as a characteristic of the com-panies which they actually select-ed. In light of our earlier findingthat the discouragement of risktaking has its greatest incidencein recruiter descriptions of Prot-estants-only companies, it is nottoo surprising that the Protestanttrainees see this characteristic intheir actual companies more oftenthan do the Catholic and Jewishtrainees.

"Clarity of company policies" isseen as a characteristic of then-actual companies by nearly 80%of our students. While there is notmuch difference among the re-

ligious groups in this item as faras actual companies are concerned,with respect to desired companiesthere is a difference: Jewish train-ees pick this characteristic lessoften, and Catholics more often,than the rest of the students.

A "well-structured organization"is another item which is seen astrue of their actual companiesby the preponderant bulk (about75% ) of our trainees. However,only about half of them desiretheir companies to be organi-zationally well-structured. Again,Catholics are highest, and Jewslowest, in their desire for this at-tribute.

A third related item, "having toput things in writing," also is seenby roughly 75% of our studentsas characteristic of their actualcompanies. However, only slight-ly more than one third of the stu-dents use this attribute to describetheir desired company. On thisitem, Catholics show a much high-er willingness (50% ) than mem-bers of all other religious groupsto have this characteristic in theirdesired company.

A final item related to "manage-ment style" is "pressure to increaseoutput and production." This isseen as true in their actual com-panies by about 60% of our stu-dents in all religious groups. Butagain the Catholic students differfrom all others in their views con-cerning their desired companies;here they desire less pressure thando the others.

Two general patterns emergingabove are that Jewish students de-sire more open, less formal sur-roundings and that Catholic stu-dents seek a more structuredand ordered working environment.However, as was the general find-ing above with respect to studentviews about company size, whenit comes to descriptions of theiractual companies there is farmore homogeneity of characteriza-tion among the differing religiousgroups than is the case for theirviews of desired companies.

4. Local Political Concern. Apopular myth which is given someslight support in our data is thatCatholics are more politically ori-

EXHIBIX in. CHOICES AMONG FAVORABLE AND UNFAVORABLE TRAITS MADEBY TRAINEES

PERCENT CHOOSING FIRST ADJECTIVE OF EACH PAIR

ADJECTIVE PAIRS

FAVORABLE TRAITS

TOLERANT over SYSTEMATIC

CHEERFUL over PRECISE

RESOURCEFUL over FORESIGHTED

TEMPERATE over UNASSUMING

STABLE over SERIOUS

CAUTIOUS over ATTRACTIVE

ENTERTAINING over SMOOTH

UNFAVORABLE TRAITS

PESSIMISTIC over OPINIONATED

ERRATIC over LAZY

FORGETFUL over LOUD

EGOTISTICAL over APATHETIC

[ CYNICAL over MILITANT

: STINGY over SHALLOW

REBELLIOUS over COMMONPLACE

ented than others. One item inthe questionnaire concerned theextent to which young membersof management in their companiesare concerned about local politicaldevelopments. Catholics do seekthis in their desired companiesmore than the Protestants andJews. Members of all groupsfind this concern less prevalentin their actual companies than intheir desired firms, although Cath-olics still have the highest propor-tion perceiving actual local polit-ical activity in their companies.That the actuality (in the eyes ofthe trainees) is less than theirdesire may have some favorableimplications for those companiesthat would like greater participa-tion on the part of their manage-ments in local political affairs.9

PERSONAL QUALITIES

To round out our picture of thefactors affecting the choices madeby students of different ethnicbackgrounds as they enter busi-ness, we need the picture of per-sonal qualities as seen by both the

trainees and the recruiters. EX-HIBIT HI shows the varying self-pictures, favorable and unfavor-able, held by members of the dif-ferent religious groups. Again wewill concentrate mainly on thelarger differences, selecting fromthe 56 adjective pairs for whichthe students and recruiters madechoices.

The first thing we see in thepictures these men have of them-selves, in terms of choices amongboth favorable and unfavorabletraits, is that there are relativelyfew large differences among thoseof different religious backgrounds.Of the 28 pairs of favorable traitsand 28 pairs of unfavorable traitsfrom which each trainee chose oneof each pair, there are only 7favorable and 7 unfavorable pairswhere the maximum range of dif-ferences between percentages ofmen of different religious back-grounds choosing a particular ad-

8 See Stephen A. Greyser, "Businessand Politics, 1964" (Problems in Re-view), HBR September-October 1964,p. 22.

jective in each pair is as high as10% . We must conclude on thebasis of this evidence that in gen-eral these groups of young men ofdifferent religious backgrounds seethemselves as possessing quite sim-ilar favorable and unfavorable per-sonal qualities as they start out ontheir careers in business. At leastthe similarities among the groupsare much more striking than thedifferences.

However, in spite of the generalfinding that men from differentreligious backgrounds have gener-ally similar views of themselves,it is nevertheless interesting toanalyze the differences we do find.EXHIBIT HI gives the choices of ourfour religious groups for both fa-vorable and unfavorable traits onwhich the range in the propor-tions was at least 10%.

Let us turn first to the favorabletraits. Here it can be seen thatthere is some tendency for Jewishstudents to give less importanceto traits characterizable as less di-rectly relevant to the job situationthan to traits with potential prac-tical utility. Thus the Jewish menhave less preference than do Cath-olics or Protestants for toleranceand cheerfulness as against beingsystematic and precise, respective-ly. On the other hand, Jews haveless interest in being stable andcautious as against being seri-ous and attractive, respectively, incomparison with the other twogroups. Perhaps the Jewish mensee seriousness and attractivenessas valued attributes on the job inthe kind of environment they ex-pect to be in. The three other dif-ferences do not seem to fit anyparticular pattern.

The preferences of the agnosticgroup are sometimes similar tothose of the Protestants and some-times similar to those of the Jewsas far as favorable traits are con-cerned. They rarely fall in between.Perhaps they represent a sort ofdissent with respect to hidden re-ligious or ethnic issues indirectlyrelated to the choices betweenthese adjective pairs.

When it comes to choices amongunfavorable traits, in general theJewish and agnostic groups showsimilar preferences. With two ex-

EXHIBIT rv. COMPARISON OF FAVORABLE AND UNFAVORABLE TRAITS REPORTEDBY TRAINEES WITH THOSE DESIRED BY RECRUITERS

ADJECTIVE PAIRS

PERCENT CHOOSING FIRSTADJECTIVE OF EACH PAIR

FAVORABLE TRAITS

SOCIABLE over STEADY

INDEPENDENT over FORCEFUL

DETERMINED over COURAGEOUS

CAREFUL over ASSURED

PUNCTUAL over RESERVED

PATIENT over SYMPATHETIC

STABLE over SERIOUS

CAUTIOUS over ATTRACTIVE

AMBITIOUS over AGGRESSIVE

CONSERVATIVE over PAINSTAKING

SHARP-WITTED over DELIBERATE

MATTER-OF-FACT over POLISHED

GOOD-NATURED over ACCURATE

UNFAVORABLE TRAITS

IMPATIENT over DAY-DREAMER

TENSE over IRRITABLE

SELF-SEEKING over UNFRIENDLY

FORGETFUL over LOUD

CYNICAL over MILITANT

STINGY over SHALLOW

ceptions (less preference for er-ratic over lazy and greater prefer-ence for forgetful over loud} theJews and agnostics show con-siderably greater willingness thanProtestants and Catholics to ad-mit to active, though undesirable,qualities as against undesirablequalities that are passive. Thusthese two groups see themselvesas more opinionated, egotistical,stingy, and rebellious than do Prot-estants and Catholics when thesequalities are paired with pessimis-tic, apathetic, shallow, and com-monplace, respectively. It shouldbe noted here that in an earlierstudy of mine focusing on quali-ties to be avoided in subordinates,executives surveyed by HBR alsogenerally preferred the passive —rather than the active — undesir-able qualities.10

61%

70

91

54

63

52

54

65

77

67

50

64

54

63

72

79

69

59

60

28%

29

66

26

85

75

88

44

52

33

64

44

10

89

92

58

35

35

88

33%

41

25

28

22

23

34

21

25

34

14

20

44

26

20

21

34

34

28

We have thus seen the similari-ties and differences among theself-descriptions of students fromvaried religious backgrounds. Rec-ognizing that patterns of descrip-tive similarity predominate amongthe religious groups, let us nowtreat all our students as a group,and turn to a comparison betweenthe way students see themselvesand the way our recruiter groupdescribes desirable managementtrainees. EXHIBIT IV contains thechoices made for favorable andunfavorable adjective pairs by stu-dents (as a whole) and recruiters(as a whole); only the traits show-ing substantial differences are re-ported.

As can readily be seen, there are10 "Do You Want a Weak Subordi-

nate?" (Problems in Review), HBR Sep-tember—October 1961, p. 6.

many relatively large discrepanciesbetween the favorable traits re-cruiters say they seek and thetraits the trainees think they have.The recruiters want the traineesto be steady, forceful, courageous,assured, punctual, patient, stable,attractive, aggressive, painstaking,sharpwitted, polished, and accu-rate. The trainees see themselvesmore as sociable, independent,determined, careful, reserved, sym-pathetic, serious, cautious, ambi-tious, conservative, deliberate, mat-ter-of-fact, and good-natured. Ifone can characterize the themesof these two sets of adjectives, itlooks as though the recruiters werelooking for traits which would im-press or affect others, while thetrainees picked traits which wouldbe satisfying to themselves. Thereis also a flavor of cautious con-servatism in the trainees' views ofthemselves.

When it comes to unfavorabletraits, there are fewer significantdifferences between the desires ofthe recruiters and the self-reportsof the trainees. No obvious pat-tern appears in the pairs reported,which are those with the greatestdisparity between recruiters' andstudents' descriptions.

There remains one final impor-tant series of comparisons —namely, of the qualities desiredby recruiters from companies hir-ing trainees of particular ethnicbackgrounds. Specifically of inter-est is an analysis analogous tothat of EXHIBIT I — i.e., a com-parison between qualities desiredby recruiters from firms hiringProtestants only and those desiredby recruiters from firms hiringtrainees from more than one re-ligious background (our mixed-ethnic group). As developed ear-lier, the concept underlying thisanalysis is the particular contrastof qualities desired by recruitersfrom groups of companies wherereligious barriers to managementcareers, especially against Jews,are thought to be present to a great-er (Protestants-only companies) orlesser (mixed-ethnic companies)extent. The pertinent figures aregiven in EXHIBIT V. The high-lights of this exhibit are as fol-lows:

(1) In comparing answers of themixed-ethnic group with those of theProtestants-only group, we note thatthe latter in several cases prefers whatmight be called "human" qualities,whereas the former prefers "intellec-tual" or "skill" qualities. Thus Prot-estants-only recruiters prefer train-ees who are tolerant, cheerful, con-siderate, while mixed-ethnic recruit-ers prefer those who are system-atic, precise, and orderly. Similarly,although both groups prefer kind topopular, the Protestants-only have amuch greater preference for kind.

(2) As for the unfavorable traits,the Protestants-only group tends toprefer passive ones, while the mixed-ethnic group prefers active ones.Thus the latter prefer opinionated,carefree, hard, argumentative andrebellious, while the Protestants-onlyprefer pessimistic, distant, bashful,retiring, and commonplace. Further-

more, the Protestants-only groupgives greater preference to unambi-tious as against reckless, and to plac-id as against clumsy. It gives lesspreference to egotistical as againstapathetic, and to willful as againstslow. All in all, it seems likely thatwith these preferences the Protes-tants-only group would hardly belikely to hire anyone who could notbe expected to fit smoothly into thehuman environment of these com-panies. That this attitude is wide-spread among executives in generalis suggested by the similarity ofthese data with views gathered inthe broader survey of executivesmentioned earlier.

(3) Because of the small num-ber of recruiters and companies in-volved, the fact that the Jews-onlyrecruiters show more extreme pref-erences than any other recruitinggroup should be viewed with skepti-

EXHIBIT V. COMPARISON OF TRAITS DESIRED BY RECRUITERS HIRING TRAINEESOF DIFFERENT ETHNIC BACKGROUNDS

PERCENT CHOOSING FIRST ADJECTIVE OF EACH PAIR

ADJECTIVE PAIRS

FAVORABLE TRAITS

SYSTEMATIC over TOLERANT

PRECISE over CHEERFUL

STEADY over SOCIABLE

KIND over POPULAR

RESOURCEFUL over FORESIGHTED

DETERMINED over COURAGEOUS

ORDERLY over CONSIDERATE

ASSURED over CAREFUL

ATTRACTIVE over CAUTIOUS

AMBITIOUS over AGGRESSIVE

INTELLIGENT over ENTERPRISING

RESPONSIBLE over ENERGETIC

UNFAVORABLE TRAITS

UNAMBITIOUS over RECKLESS

DULL over PURPOSELESS

OPINIONATED over PESSIMISTIC

CAREFREE over DISTANT

EGOTISTICAL over APATHETIC

HARD over BASHFUL

MILITANT over CYNICAL

CRAFTY over MEDDLESOME

ARGUMENTATIVE over RETIRING

REBELLIOUS over COMMONPLACE

MEEK over INTOLERANT

WILLFUL over SLOW

EXCITABLE over SLY

EASYGOING over SOLEMN

TIGHTFISTED over COCKY

PLACID over CLUMSY

(N = 188)

61%63

71567068557858516862

52715856846065536555567687525962

(N = 80)

48%4274698655476955567666

58664644664665544145526685596769

(N = 42)

64%6467697971487655487455

62695262724069624855607690525767

(N = 14)

64%8693797986645036716486

9386295079365043362179437177979

cism. Like the recruiters of the Prot-estants-only companies, the Jews-only recruiters seein to wish to avoidthe active unfavorable traits. On theother hand, they are like recruiierbof the mixed-ethnic group in thatthey tend to seek the "intellectual"and "skill" qualities among the favor-able traits. The Catholics-only groupusually falls somewhere in the mid-dle among the different groups interms of preferences among bothfavorable and unfavorable traits.

CONCLUSION

Having looked in some detail atdescriptions given both by youngmen entering management careersand by company recruiters, let usagain consider the paradox we re-ferred to at the outset of this ar-ticle — the failure to find mem-bers of certain minority groupsrepresented in the managementranks of companies whose topmanagements clearly believe in theideal of equal opportunity for all.What we have turned up does notsuggest any easy way to achievethis ideal, nor does it provide in-formation pointing toward anyrevolutionary theories about man-agement or human behavior. Itdoes suggest, however, some dif-ficulties companies are likely toface in trying to remove religiousbarriers to management careers —particularly, barriers against thoseof Jewish background.

First of all, some subtle atti-tudes on the part of recruiters arehighlighted by the comparisonsbetween companies hiring men ofmore than one ethnic backgroundand those hiring Protestants only.The latter see their companies call-ing for safe decisions on the partof lower-level managers; recruiterssay risk taking is discouraged inalmost two-thirds of such compa-nies. This is true in only aboutone-third of the companies of themixed-ethnic group.

Does this not suggest a re-edu-cation process all along the line,

at least with respect to personneldecisions? When this unwilling-ness to take risks is coupled witha strong tendency to avoid the ac-tive undesirable individual traitssuch as militance, argumentative-ness, hardness, etc., and greaterwillingness to live with qualitiessuch as distant, retiring, and bash-ful, it is relatively easy to see thatanyone perceived as clearly differ-ent from the current members ofmanagement would tend to berated down. What appears to beneeded is a change in values, notan order from top management tostop being prejudiced.

There is also the possibility thatthe recruiters, in describing theircompanies and the types of mendesired in the terms observed here,are reflecting the values and atti-tudes of top management in thesematters, and that no one con-cerned really recognizes that dis-crimination is likely to be the out-come. A greater emphasis on abil-ity and less emphasis on being a"good Joe" may have to start at thetop levels of management. A littleless "togetherness" among man-agers might be a small price topay for an increase in the qualityof mind and ideas that might re-sult.

The other side of the coin is, ofcourse, the view of the trainee.The director of personnel of theCarter Corporation commented, "Idon't know why it is that we don'thave more Jewish boys comingour way." Part of this can prob-ably be explained by the grape-vine; part from the fact that smartyoung men take a look at whathas happened to other young menlike themselves. If there are noJews in management in the Car-ter Corporation, a Jewish studentisn't likely to waste much time inapplying for a job there; it doesn'tlook like a promising place for amanagement career for him.

Hence, if the Carter companiesof business wish to change the pat-tern of their management recruit-ing to include Jewish trainees,they will have to take active steps,not only to bring their companiesto the attention of this group, butalso to present to them convincingevidence that barriers to promo-tion do not exist. This will be diffi-cult, if not impossible, if "play-it-safe" and "one happy family" arean important feature of the waythey describe their companies.

Because of their knowledge ofthe existence of such barriers, theJewish trainees more than otherslook for companies where risktaking is not too much discour-aged, for smaller companies whereindividual effort is more likely tobe recognized. They want compa-nies where profits are important.One would guess that this repre-sents a willingness to be judged interms of objective criteria of per-formance rather than in terms ofpersonal impressions. They see inthemselves more of the qualitiesof ability and skill, less of thequalities of pleasant and bland per-sonality. They do not fit well thepattern desired in the Protestants-only companies. Again, the resultssuggest that some change in val-ues will be needed in order to at-tract the members of the minoritygroups which today are not fullyutilized in the important task ofrunning the business enterpriseson which our society depends.

That society as a whole wouldbenefit from the better applicationof the ideal of equality of oppor-tunity is easily understood. Forindividual businessmen, of para-mount importance is the fact thatovert or covert discrimination ofany kind represents an opportu-nity loss, not just for society, butfor individual companies them-selves.

— Lewis B. Ward

Distributed by

THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEEInstitute of Human Relations

165 East 56 StreetNew York, N. Y. 10022