IndiaOn

Green Isn't Gold for MBAs

A good environmental reputation doesn’t make the grade when it comes to rating a company as a prospective employer, a new study finds.

The students expected to be leading the green revolution apparently wouldn’t mind making some green first.

A company’s record on environmental issues ranked at the bottom of factors MBAs are using to select employers, according to a study released Jan. 16 by the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. Also close to the bottom were other so-called company value issues such as corporate ethics, social responsibility, and community involvement.

At the top of the list: career opportunities, corporate culture and working environment, and benefits. MBAs also expressed a strong preference for companies that produce high-quality products and allow their employees to balance work with their personal life.

Show Me the Money

According to the study, which surveyed 527 MBA students at 12 top-ranked international business schools, 95% of the students ranked career opportunities as “extremely” or “very important” factors in selecting an employer. In contrast, only 34% of the students viewed a company’s environmental or green policies in the same fashion—despite the fact that schools and environmental advocates report strong interest by MBA students in the subject.

American students care less about a company’s green policy than students from other countries, the study found. Only 1 in 5 American MBAs said that poor environmental practices would discourage them from taking an attractive job offer. About twice that many respondents from Europe and Asia—42% and 38%, respectively—said they would turn down an offer from a company with a bad record on the environment.

The study found that factors driving career choice fell into three descending tiers: salary and corporate culture; company performance; and company values. But even in the bottom tier, a company’s green record ranked considerably lower than items such as its “brand and marketing message.”

Shying Away from Some Industries

The study didn’t paint a completely dismal picture for advocates of corporate social responsibility. A spokesperson for Hill & Knowlton pointed to areas of the study where MBAs aligned their values with their job prospects. For instance, about two-thirds of surveyed students said they would never work for a tobacco firm. Almost half of U.S. students said they would not work in the energy or automobile industries, a sign that the Enron fiasco and hard times for the Big Three may be having an effect.

“You see the impact of these negative headlines. It hurts companies’ ability to hire the best,” said Hill & Knowlton spokesperson Vickee Adams. “We’re seeing the impact of students who’ve seen headlines of senior executives pulling down salaries [of lower-level employees]. These students are saying, ‘We want to work for companies that have greater values than that.’”

Carlos Ocampo, a second-year MBA student at Columbia Business School who participated in the study, said that it was corporate reputation, more than money, that was a key factor in his job hunt. “I want to be where the best people work,” he said. “Salary is important, but I also want to work for the leader in the industry.”

Ocampo, who recently accepted a position at McKinsey & Co., said the company’s good reputation heavily influenced his decision to sign. “I would never work for some industries,” he said. “I would never work for a tobacco company. I would think twice about pharma.”

The results of the survey actually don’t surprise Stephen Greyser, a Harvard Business School professor of marketing and communication. He said MBA students wouldn’t be expected to place values such as environmentalism over factors such as salary. “What the company stands for is important, but only once salary and corporate culture have been addressed,” he said.

No Impediment to Sustainability

Greyser suggested that environmentalism turned up at the bottom of the list because only a small portion of graduating MBAs aim to launch their careers at firms that actually interact with the environment. “If you were an MBA looking to go into investment banking, green policy isn’t as important. But if you’re going into the energy industry, for example, that’s very different.”

Rich Leimsider, director of the Center for Business Education at the Aspen Institute, which promotes sustainable policies, said he didn’t think that the relatively low importance MBAs give to corporate environmental policies would slow down the growth of sustainable business practices.

“When Wal-Mart (WMT) tells their suppliers to stop shipping in [costly] bulky packaging, it’s not for the consumer. It’s for the company,” Leimsider said. “The good news is that the green revolution is moving beyond corporate reputation issues.”

---