Business and Students

by Hugh Spitzer


  PDF
 

Abstract

This article focuses on the student's attitude toward business. The 1960s are generally recognized as a lime of changing social values, especially among the country's young people. Preoccupation with national and international ills has increased. Business, in fact, is not the prime target of young peoples' antipathy. It is only one of a range of political, social and economic institutions being questioned and attacked. This is not, as some older adults would hope, a temporary spate of criticism by a small minority of radical students, these are feelings widespread among young people. Business and other major institutions are attacked because they appear to be hypocritical, they are also seen as destructive of the freedom and creativity of individuals and groups. The older generation, recovering from the stress of the Depression, perceived the corporate organization as a marvelous machine that could harness technology and bring material wealth to those who allied themselves with it. This attitude prevailed throughout the 1950's. But recent affluence has made material gain less relevant to young people, and they more often than not see modern organizations as stultifying and dehumanizing.

California Management Review

Berkeley-Haas's Premier Management Journal

Published at Berkeley Haas for more than sixty years, California Management Review seeks to share knowledge that challenges convention and shows a better way of doing business.

Learn more
Follow Us