oa Is er een Europese arbeidsmarkt voor topmanagers?

An European labour market for top managers?

In this article, we study the extent to which the labour market for top managers in the European Union is internationalizing. Does this small but important labour market segment have an international and open character? Based on data of 2,229 managers in 363 companies in 15 European countries, we conclude that in 2005 this segment is only marginally international. Only 14.9% of the top management positions in the companies we studied is occupied by managers from another country. Between the countries we found large differences with an interesting role for the Netherlands. Differences between countries seem to be the result of differences in selection and allocation processes within individual countries, and much less of company and country characteristics.