More than one-half of senior executives (56%) say they are optimistic about business prospects in their industries over the next six months, up 11 percentage points from the 45% who said so a year earlier, according to a survey from Doremus and The Financial Times.

Regarding business prospects in their own companies, 65% of surveyed executives say they are optimistic, up 16 points from the 49% who said so a year earlier.

Below, other findings from the annual online global survey titled "Decision Dynamics," conducted by Doremus and The Financial Times:

• Overall, things are getting better: Roughly one-quarter of executives say they are pessimistic about the six-month outlook for the global economy, their local economies, and their industries. Those levels are at or near the lowest recorded since the survey began in 2003.
• Location matters: Senior executives from companies that operate locally are less optimistic across the board than those whose companies operate regionally or globally.
• Asians are more optimistic: Asians are significantly more optimistic than their North American or European counterparts about the six-month outlook; they are only slightly more optimistic about improvement in the global economy over that period of time.