Millennials’ Strategic Decision Making Through the Lens of Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Management

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the touchstone for millennials when looking at the means for making their world a better place. Higher education’s focus on CSR has allowed millennials to focus their decision-making using a CSR/stakeholder approach to financial management decisions. Millennials’ support for a CSR/stakeholder approach has grown as they have been completing college. The CSR/stakeholder approach has increased partly due to social awareness created by curricula that highlights areas of social and environmental inequality. This CSR/stakeholder approach has recently emerged as a bona fide strategic management option globally. This paper extends CSR research by evaluating millennial financial decisions and the resulting competitive company performance in a widely used business simulation. Proactive university equality initiatives, resulting in curriculum changes, reinforce millennials’ ethos of social and environmental sustainability. As millennials will soon take the reins of industry, the results of their ethos will significantly influence society.