Literature on the corporate elite in transitional economies has focused on the elite's political backgrounds. However, the evolution of the corporate sector amidst decades of transition in these economies suggests that research needs to go beyond origins to focus on career pathways. Adopting a career history analysis, this study constitutes the first systematic attempt to empirically analyze career pathways of top corporate leaders in Vietnam, where, the literature has argued, capitalists emerged from within the state sector. The analysis of an originally constructed database of top leaders of the 100 largest listed firms reveals, firstly, that state‐origin leaders persist alongside newly emerging private‐origin leaders and, secondly, that leaders following different career pathways exhibit different attributes, which influence the leaders' capacity to rise and stay in power. These findings demonstrate how a focus on career pathways would shed new light on the emerging patterns and drivers of social stratification in transitional economies.

中文翻译：

---

越南转型经济中的顶级企业领导者：起源和职业道路

转型经济中有关企业精英的文献集中在精英的政治背景上。然而，在这些经济体数十年的转型中，企业部门的发展表明，研究需要超越起源以专注于职业道路。该研究采用职业历史分析方法，是对越南顶级企业领导者的职业道路进行实证分析的首次系统性尝试，文献认为，越南资本家来自国有部门。对最初构建的100家最大上市公司高层领导者数据库的分析表明，首先，国家领导者与新兴的私营部门领导者并存，其次，遵循不同职业道路的领导者表现出不同的属性，从而影响了领导者 上升和保持权力的能力。这些发现表明，对职业道路的关注将如何为转型经济中新兴的社会分层模式和驱动因素提供新的思路。