ABSTRACT
An examination of the literature dealing with the relationship between the quality of top-level management and economic growth produces meagre results. This chapter suggests that the valuation of executives' performances is generally viewed within a narrow framework of material rewards, security of employment, and, to a lesser degree, certain motives related to status. The theoretical possibility of other cultural, social, and psychological factors having an effect is often acknowledged, but in practice is usually fairly vigorously excluded from the general thinking. Business executives, like all human beings, respond to complex motivational patterns which are shaped by biological and environmental forces. One focus of examination must therefore be the attitude of the senior executive to his market and to the symbolic importance of those outside him in the market whom he 'services' with his products.
