The Institute of International Education offers a great variety of services to corporations, which in turn contribute generously to it. In a promotional pamphlet, Services for the International Corporation, the IIE explains its usefulness to the corporate elite:
In the last decade, U.S. corporations have expanded their direct foreign investments by 60 per cent — to $40 billion at the end of 1963. They recognize — abroad as well as at home — that education offers the best means for stimulating purchasing power, encouraging political stability, and most important of all, developing a reservoir of the trained manpower so necessary to their overseas operations. However, the U.S. corporation faces difficult decisions and alternatives in undertaking sound and profitable ventures in international education. Unfamiliar cultures, complex situations, unskilled manpower, and frequently a thin layer of educational and technical resources present serious problems in foreign settings. In approaching such problems, many corporations have benefited from the Institute’s wide experience and counsel.
One of the IIE’s most important functions is providing intelligence on personnel for corporations operating abroad. As the IIE points out, “With few exceptions, American companies which operate in foreign countries find it necessary or desirable to employ nationals with U.S. academic training. Every year the IIE takes and Publishes a census of foreign students and scholars studying, teaching, or doing research at U.S. colleges. It does a similar study on U.S. students and scholars abroad. The survey includes fields of study, country of origin, and sources of support. This information, which is now being computerized for quicker and cheaper access, serves as the basis for the Roster.
Why do international corporations need this personnel intelligence? IIE answers that question for us. Their Roster, they explain, permits corporations to identify and locate (the Roster contains foreign addresses) possible employees (1) for
current overseas operations, (2) for expansion of operations, (3) for establishment of new operations in foreign countries. The Roster covers over 120 countries and 150 fields of expertise. The reports are tailored to a corporation’s needs and the cost is about a dollar per name supplied. The reasons for educating foreign students in American universities are explained in an article published in IBM’s THINK magazine. For example, the article states:
Foreign students will ultimately, be helpful to U.S. business. The man who wants to start a cotton gin in the Congo will find it easier if he has a Congolese buddy from college, especially as the Congolese will probably be a high official. And then, American corporations, gradually turning their operations in foreign countries over to the people who live there, will need trained personnel.
IIE’s services include recruitment o professional staff members, contractual salary negotiations, purchase of equipment and material, fiscal management, and other services hand-tailored to each articular undertaking.” The IIE helps corporations set up international fellowships whether for public relations or for real training of its management. The IIE will secure publicity for the corporation (get the announcement into leading newspapers in the foreign country and issue press releases here). They will also screen candidates abroad through their connection with selection committees — composed, they say, of educators, people from local ministries of education, and U.S. businessmen abroad. U.S. embassies also assist. Resident managers of the companies can participate in choosing candidates.
