For Daniel Muzyka, dean of the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, the situation isn’t that simple. He points out that students now earning their M.B.A. degrees are generally in their late 20s to early 30s, which means that most have been in the business world for only a short period of time. “I don’t think it’s related to culpability as much as a feeling that they want to help build and live in a new model,” he says.
But Muzyka concedes that it’s been an “interesting year.” New M.B.A. grads, he says, are increasingly lured not to high finance and big bucks, but to working on the big socio-economic issues of sustainability and globalization. This year, Sauder had 24 sustainability-related M.B.A. internships compared with last year’s 14. At the same time, the percentage of Sauder students who chose to work abroad jumped from 14 per cent in 2008 to 19 per cent in 2009. That’s indicative, Muzyka says, of the fact that grads are being more creative and flexible out of necessity, are considering alternative paths, and are willing to work for governments, not-for-profits and social enterprises if it helps them eventually land their ideal job. “The fact that they’re integrating their social needs and their work needs is something that’s reflected in a similar shift in business, as the realities of problems like climate change are really sinking in,” he adds.
For Sebai, whose fledgling program at Concordia sent one M.B.A. student to Uganda this summer, the shifting concept of what a business degree is for—and of how a business education can help others—is a welcome and necessary development. “Students and corporations are starting to look for extra value from the organizations they do business with, buy products from, work for,” he says. “They want to see proactive change. That’s one of the reasons why a program like ours can now exist compared to 20 years ago. I certainly hope that’s a trend.”
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