Tomorrow’s Responsible Leaders: The FT reports on a study showing that MBA and graduate students in America overwhelmingly believe businesses need to balance profits and social responsibility.

About 81 percent of the students said companies should try to work “toward the betterment of society”, while 18 percent thought most of them were already seeking that goal. Nearly 90 per cent said business leaders should factor social and environmental effects into their business decisions, with 60 per cent saying such an approach could be profitable.

And 80 percent said they wanted to find socially responsible employment.

Whether their idealism survives contact with the real world of American business remains to be seen, of course.