I have noticed lately–in advertising and news broadcasting–an increase in the use of folks with British (or Australian) accents. I think in this country, we sometimes assume a person with a British accent is intelligent and a person with, say a Brooklyn accent, is not.
The situation in the average work place is often similar. Consider this: Two employees seeking the same promotion or a plumb assignment:

Person a) From Britain, sounds as if he’s worked for the Queen, but has an average education.
Person b) has graduated with honors from Harvard Business School–but, to you, he sounds like a hot-dog vendor …read more