characters of subgroups. In general, this is not the case. In fact, by a theorem of Taketa, if all characters of G are so expressible, then G must be a solvable group (although solvability alone does not guarantee such expressions- for example, the solvable group SL(2,3) has an irreducible complex character of degree 2 which is not expressible as a non-negative integer combination of characters induced from linear characters of subgroups). An ingredient of the proof of Brauer's induction theorem is that when G is a finite nilpotent group, every complex irreducible character of G is induced from a linear character of some subgroup. References Corrected reprint of the 1976 original, published by Academic Press. Further reading Notes Representation theory of finite groups Theorems in representation theory