MBAs with a Social Conscience

More business school applicants say they want jobs in sustainability and social enterprise. The implications are potentially huge

By Francesca Di Meglio

MBA students at Duke Fuqua working with Habitat for Humanity.

(Corrects spelling of James Ellis, dean of the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.)

Many MBA applicants have a dream that one day businesses will rise up and live out the true meaning of their new creeds, which include bottom lines that do more than fatten the wallets of shareholders. They have a dream that one day Wall Street will not be judged by its big bonuses but by the content of its character. It is a dream deeply rooted in American capitalism—but until recently not much in evidence on B-school campuses. That's about to change.

At many top MBA programs these days, admissions committees are seeing an increase in the number of applicants who want careers in sustainability, nonprofits, and other nontraditional sectors. In application essays and interviews, where applicants once waxed poetic about careers in consulting and high finance, idealism is the order of the day. "It seems like every other [application] I look at is talking about doing good while doing well," says Mary Miller, assistant dean of admissions at Columbia Business School (Columbia Full-Time MBA Profile). "That seems to be the mantra."

Indeed, six of the top 30 B-schools in Bloomberg BusinessWeek's ranking of the best full-time MBA programs say there's been an increase in the number of applicants showing interest in social enterprise, microfinance, sustainability, and nonprofits in the past year. "I have new optimism that this group really wants to change the world," says Miller.

The change of heart among members of the incoming class of MBA students marks an important turning point, one with potentially big implications for students, employers, and schools. A by-product of the surge in B-school applicants from the famously idealistic millennial generation, the new priorities promise to reshape the recruiting landscape and transform the very idea of what an MBA is for.

Student Interest

Of course, having heart is not exactly new. "It's not like we invented social concerns in 2002," says Ray Fisman, a professor of social enterprise at Columbia, where half the students now have some involvement in social enterprise, either through clubs, classes, or the school's social enterprise program. "Business schools have had this on their radar screens for some time." For the past six or seven years, says Sandra Navalli, staff associate of Columbia's social enterprise program, there has been a steady increase in interest in social and environmental issues among MBA students. Information technology has given the next generation of MBAs more connection to the world and its problems than ever before. Leaders, such as Muhammad Yunis, who developed the concept of microfinance, have inspired people to think about how business skills can be used to solve world problems, such as poverty. And the global economic crisis has also played a part. "Increasingly, the economy has forced students to get creative with job options," says Thomas W. Monaco, director of international advising and outreach at Columbia. Unable to find work at McKinsey & Co. or Goldman Sachs (GS), he says, students are pursuing opportunities of a social nature.

Another major factor bringing on this change among business school applicants is potential employers, who are realizing that having a positive impact on the community makes good business sense. Sarah Slaughter, coordinator of the Sustainability Initiative at MIT's Sloan School of Management (Sloan Full-Time MBA Profile), says businesses are seeking MBAs with skills that can help them address environmental and social issues, in effect creating a new market for MBA talent.

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