While finding work that pays a good salary is still important to business students, finding work that promotes social good is becoming a priority for many of them, too. Recent national surveys by the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education found that 88 percent of business students believe for-profit companies should do more to address social and environmental problems, and students increasingly want to work for organizations that do so.

This trend is evident at DePaul University, where business students are already putting their values into action. During their winter break from Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, DePaul MBA students will provide marketing, finance and business-planning services for two ventures that educate children in post-Katrina New Orleans. Back home in Chicago, their classmates have been serving since last spring as volunteer business consultants at Chicago Family Health Center, a clinic founded by community leaders and the local Catholic church to address health-care disparities on the city’s South Side. Meanwhile, student interest in social entrepreneurship has led DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business to add an MBA course in this subject and the school’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center to include a social entrepreneur category in its annual student new venture competition.

"Interest in work that serves a social purpose is definitely growing among young people and this is supporting the rise of social entrepreneurship," said Patrick J. Murphy, DePaul assistant professor of management, who developed and teaches the new social entrepreneurship MBA course. "This trend can be traced to a sea change involving one of the basic paradigms of business—that there’s a forced trade-off between financial value generation and social value generation.  In the past decade or so, this trade-off is becoming less ingrained in the way people view business, particularly among the younger generation, who, through social media and other worldwide communication channels, are more aware of the values they share with others and social inefficiencies that threaten these values. This leads more students to seek to launch, or work for, ventures that resolve social – and not just market – inefficiencies." (Click here to see a "First Business" video profile of DePaul student and social entrepreneur Jennifer Moran, founder of GREENOLA, who won the 2009 DePaul New Venture Challenge social venture category prize.)

Recent events that have shaken the business world also are causing some business students to re-evaluate traditional career options, according to MBA student Justin Henderson, president of DePaul’s 140-member chapter of Net Impact, a national student organization dedicated to developing and inspiring socially engaged leaders who create positive change through commerce.

"Because of the recession and the financial and housing crises, there’s been a growing disillusionment with big business," Henderson said. "More and more MBA students are now targeting companies outside of Fortune 500 as places to launch their careers. Increasingly, they are considering smaller organizations with social missions, where they can make a big impact and do work that is aligned with their values."

DePaul’s tradition of community service also inspires students, said MBA student Dan Block, one of the leaders of the New Orleans service trip, the third that DePaul MBA students have organized to help various for- and non-profit social entrepreneurs in the Big Easy during the past two years. "DePaul fosters the type of environment where students feel empowered to make a difference.  By truly embracing the Vincentian values that the university preaches, DePaul’s administration has created a culture in which students are encouraged to get involved and given really great support for these kinds of projects."  

The 14 DePaul MBA students participating in this month’s New Orleans project will collaborate with Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans to apply their MBA knowledge to operational issues facing two organizations: Roots of Music, a year-round music program for middle school children created to replace public school music instruction cut from the curricula after the hurricane, and A’s and Aces, a children’s tennis program that also promotes academic achievement and literacy.

Instead of short-term charity work, the business students want to help create long lasting change, said MBA student Brean Deters, who helped plan the trip. "The focus is not just on the immediate benefit for these organizations, but on creating long-term working relationships that will allow them to continually benefit from our trip, even after our students return to Chicago. Our business recommendations will revolve around short- and long-term goals and planning for each of these organizations, with the expectation that we will conduct frequent checks and follow-up after the trip to ensure sustainability and promote growth."

The work has benefits for the students, as well, Deters said, noting that the projects expose students to the "type of situations and problems that high-level managers or executives face on a daily business."

Henderson, part of the DePaul student team that launched pilot projects to provide the Chicago Family Health Center with patient market research and change management advice, agrees that these partnerships benefit all. "Students want to contribute to organizations that need help in fulfilling their social missions, and, in return, they receive an opportunity to gain experience and advance their careers through the practical application of what we’ve learned in business school."

Block said he hopes his New Orleans experience will help him post-graduation to find work or start his own organization with an emphasis on social responsibility.  "I think this trend is more than just a fad. People are starting to realize how important it is for businesses to think about not just the bottom line, but also about how they can make the world a better place for all stakeholders." 

Editors’ Note: Journalists interested in interviewing students or faculty involved in the projects described above should contact Robin Florzak, DePaul Media Relations, at (312) 362-8592 or rflorzak@depaul.edu.