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High status groups in Portuguese society constitute a social context in which familial relations are of great importance, both at the level of family members' daily agency and on the far broader scale of their social and professional relations. The author analyses in this article the way familial relations become important processes by which an elite social position may be maintained. The argument is based on fieldwork carried out by the author on seven leading business families in Lisbon who own large firms in operation for at least three generations. This research has showed that the processes by which these families manage to remain majority shareholders and in the top management position in the large companies they have owned for several generations is due, to a great extent, to the fact that these economic investments are considered the symbolic materialisation of a familial project. It is by means of carefully managing familial relations that those involved in these projects are able to ensure and reproduce their belonging to Portugal's financial and social upper set. This argument is illustrated throughout my research into the processes by which the leading families in Portugal's economic setting before the democratic revolution in 1974 have recovered their top financial and social positions in Portugal today.

High status groups in Portuguese society constitute a social context in which familial relations are of great importance, both at the level of family members' daily agency and on the far broader scale of their social and professional relations. The author analyses in this article the
way familial relations become important processes by which an elite social position may be maintained. The argument is based on fieldwork carried out by the author on seven leading business families in Lisbon who own large firms in operation for at least three generations. This research has
showed that the processes by which these families manage to remain majority shareholders and in the top management position in the large companies they have owned for several generations is due, to a great extent, to the fact that these economic investments are considered the symbolic materialisation
of a familial project. It is by means of carefully managing familial relations that those involved in these projects are able to ensure and reproduce their belonging to Portugal's financial and social upper set. This argument is illustrated throughout my research into the processes by which
the leading families in Portugal's economic setting before the democratic revolution in 1974 have recovered their top financial and social positions in Portugal today.

The influence of US business leaders on US post-war foreign econ policy is related to the perspectives which condition their perception of policy alternatives. In Congressional hearings & in the recommendations of study groups, deliberations over foreign econ policy have been confined to issues which reflect an ideological split within the business elite. One segment of this elite (the `fundamentalists') adheres rigorously to traditional precepts of laissez-faire capitalism & limited US involvement in the domestic affairs of other countries; another segment of this elite (the `progressives') exhibits a willingness to reconcile these traditional precepts with policy innovations designed to make econ aid pol'ally effective. The split between groups holding these 2 perspectives has been evident throughout the post-WWII period in deliberations over the major programs of foreign econ aid-from Bretton Woods (1943) to the Development Loan Fund (1957). IPSA.

Objective-This study fills a void in research on race and social change by analyzing the transformation of the "black business elite," that is, those blacks who have been nationally recognized as successful entrepreneurs. Methods-Data from encyclopedic sources on eminent black entrepreneurs are used to build a chronology that documents how this elite has changed over time. Results-In the early and middle 20th century, the elite was dominated by southerners who prospered in lines of enterprise that arose because of racially segregated consumer markets, namely, banking, insurance, and publishing. By the end of the 20th century, the elite was dominated by northerners, many of whom were born in the North and succeeded in forms of mass media entertainment that appeal to racially integrated audiences. Conclusion-These geographical and occupational shifts reflect salient post World War II changes in race relations, most notably the decline of racial segregation in many areas of social life and the increase of opportunities for black entertainers to achieve distinction on a national level. Yet, blacks' pursuit of eminence in the business world continues to be focused into a narrow range of endeavors. Tables, 2, References. Adapted from the source document.

An analysis of the changes in the soc origins, educ, experience, & qualifications of America's top executives as reported in recent studies by Newcomer, Warner & Abegglen, & Maurer. Occup'al mobility throughout our society & especially from the bottom to the very top of the business world, has been rather limited. Educ is now the prime approach to the highest positions, but educ is still available mainly to the Mc's & Uc's. No women & no Negroes are among the top executives; there are, however, some foreign born, mainly from English speaking countries. Episcopalians, Presbyterians & Congregationalists are over-represented among them; Cath's are considerably underrepresented. Jews constitute 5% or close to their numerical strength in the entire pop. There is a lesser tendency for top executives to be church-goers than in the general pop. Whereas it used to be the operations & production men or the general management men who most often reached the top now the sales, advertising & finance department men most frequently forge ahead into the top positions. The % of entrepreneurs & capitalists among them has sharply dropped & the % of salaried admin'rs has risen. As traditional entrepreneurial audacity wanes in the US it is advanced as the greatest asset the West has to offer the underdeveloped countries eager to taste national power & material comfort. J. A. Fishman.

One might have supposed that historians, largely occupied as they have been with the activities of ruling classes, would have been among the first to study systematically the problem of the recruitment and tenure of elites. This problem is an especially interesting one in a country such as the United States which has had no official caste systems and no legally established hereditary hierarchies. Yet most American historians have shied away from it. Few of them have even raised questions about the locus and transmission of power or status in modern times. Moreover, those who have discussed in particular the ascent of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century business leaders have tended to attribute their success simply to the possession of more shrewdness or trickiness or more pluck or luck or other private qualities than competitors who failed to rise; the very few historians who have considered social determinants such as family background or work experience have, by stressing the alleged values of poverty or of starting business in boyhood, placed their emphasis, as we shall see, quite at the opposite pole from where it belongs.