Is the title of M.B.A shifting from “Masters in Business Administration” to, say, “Maximizing Benefit for All”? The WSJ had an article a couple of weeks ago about social entrepreneurship being a growing trend among MBA students. A culmination of recent events can be attributed to this trend:

• An awareness of how “corporate greed” has gone too far and led some of the strongest economies of the world astray.
• A growing social and environmental consciousness — through new social media tools, individuals are able to access global information like never before. This has allowed for a face to be put on global problems.
• Empowerment of the individual — also attributable to the rise in social media tools, but emboldened by success of the Obama campaign in illustrating how “small can be big”
• A down economy, where career prospects and future livelihoods are inevitably declining from the pedestal on which they once stood.

Our generation is seeing that relatively small changes to the way we live our lives or do business can have dramatic positive social impact, particularly in economically depressed parts of the world.

An article in today’s NYT, entitled “M.B.A’s Guide to Socially Concerned Entrepreneurs”, cites a survey done this year among MBA applicants by QS TopMBA.com, a career guidance Web site:

28.4 percent of respondents cited “starting own business” as a prime aspiration, up from 24 percent in 2006, while “improving career prospects” had dropped to 66.2 percent from 73 percent.

A thought that has stuck with me since SOCAP09 is that “all businesses started because somebody wanted to change the status-quo.” The profit-maximizing mentality of Milton Friedman, which shaped much of what the status-quo is today from what we learn in school to the legal structures that shape our private sector, has hit a wall. Sustainable business means practicing social and environmental discretion to ensure the company lasts over time. Growing wariness by consumers and investors alike over the “old mindset” is becoming more and more self-evident particularly in this economy.

The NYT article quotes Loïc Sadoulet, an affiliate professor of economics at Insead, saying:

“With the current financial crisis, we have seen student interest shift from investment banking and consulting jobs — the dot.com get-rich model — to social entrepreneurship, a socially conscious model,” Mr. Sadoulet said. “Google’s motto, ‘Don’t be evil,’ resonates more and more with our students. Most now want job options that ‘make sense.’”

Right now we live in an era where the United States is at what I call the “fringe” of the global economy. For too long we enjoyed the comfort of the status-quo and did little to prepare for “tomorrow”. The energy and passion that I see from a rising generation of leaders and innovators is contagious and inspiring. Our whole lives we’re told to “treat others how we want to be treated,” but now that’s evolving to an emboldening motto of “let’s treat ourselves how we want to be treated.” We no longer live within the confines of preconceived societal norms or rules — those have so clearly failed by any historical measures. We are able, and have the responsibility, to be the change that we want to see in the world.

Referring back to the NYT article, the mindset of “If you are so smart, why aren’t you rich?” is being overturned by a generation following — no, leading — the mindset of Una Ryan: “If you are so smart, why haven’t you saved more lives?”