Do today’s MBA students care about the environment? You’d answer “no” if you took seriously a January BusinessWeek article by Derek Thompson, which was based on a recently released study by the communications consulting firm Hill & Knowlton.
BusinessWeek is an authoritative publication, with the largest U.S. circulation of any business magazine. But even if you can’t balance your checkbook and wouldn’t recognize a cash flow statement if one bit you, there’s no need to abandon common sense when reading the magazine.
The headline of Thompson’s piece reports the finding that “A good environmental reputation doesn’t make the grade when it comes to rating a company as a prospective new employer.” This assertion is based on the fact that “only 34 percent” of MBA students participating in the Hill & Knowlton survey consider a prospective employer’s “environmental or green policies” to be “‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important.” But “only” 34 percent? Doesn’t this figure suppo... Read more