You have to reverse the return list, otherwise you'll refer to the previous value of $?:

sub executeCommand_wrong {
  my $command = join ' ', @_;
  ($? >> 8, $_ = qx{$command 2>&1});
}
sub executeCommand_correct {
  my $command = join ' ', @_;
  ($_ = qx{$command 2>&1}, $? >> 8);
}
my $command = 'echo -n ciao ; false';
my ($status, $output) = executeCommand_wrong ($command);
print "[$output] -> [$status]\n";
($output, $status) = executeCommand_correct($command);
print "[$output] -> [$status]\n";

__END__
[ciao] -> [0]
[ciao] -> [1]
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If you cannot live without having $status as the first returned value, just use reverse:

sub executeCommand {
  my $command = join ' ', @_;
  reverse ($_ = qx{$command 2>&1}, $? >> 8);
}
[download]