Values, gender and attitudes towards environmental policy: A study of future managers

摘要

This study explores if the value priorities and their impact on future managers' attitudes towards environmental responsibilities vary with gender. While relevant prior studies mostly focus on gender-based variations of individuals' personal values in developed economies, we concentrate on both personal values and pro-environmental attitudes in an emerging economy. This study is built on MBA students (a proxy for future managers) in India since India is characterized as a male-dominated society and a producer of larger number of MBA graduates. Overall, our results show that personal values and attitude towards environmental responsibilities do not vary significantly with gender. Only two values (among the 21 values) and one value type (out of 10 values) get significantly higher ranking from females compared with males. Further, although 'universalism' and 'benevolence' are found to have a statistically significant impact on respondents' attitude towards environmental responsibility, the latter is invariant to the respondents' gender. Our findings may indicate India's transformation from a male-dominated society towards a more gender-balanced society. These findings can be used to operationalize a pro-environmental recruitment policy and to formulate strategies to improve female participation in MBA cohorts of business schools.