The Businessman Abroad*

Abstract

As American foreign direct investment mounts, the number of Americans representing American business abroad likewise rises. American businessmen living abroad include those working for foreign enterprises, those self- employed, and those representing trading firms, but the larg est number work for American-headquartered international industrial corporations and service organizations. The Ameri can business group abroad includes managers, professional advertising men, and also drillers and construction workers. American businessmen are prominent among foreign travel ers. The reasons why American businessmen go abroad are as varied as the types of American businessmen overseas. Yet, in the midst of the variety, there are common elements: affluence, alienation from the nation in which they work, and alienation from the home office in the United States and from the United States. The American businessman abroad, what ever his position, provides an image of America. American business abroad has been subject to criticism. Often the criti cism has been unjust. American businessmen play an impor tant role in the economic development of foreign nations: in carrying on tax-paying businesses that furnish employment, in demonstrating hard work, in organizing a job, in offering skills, efficiency, and ingenuity, in providing technology, in uncover ing, processing, and marketing natural resources, in furnishing social overhead, in displaying management methods, in intro ducing new products, in giving training programs, and in en couraging ancillary industries.