Global Awareness of Marketing Students

Undergraduate and MBA Marketing programs typically include education goals such as: “To prepare students for a changing domestic and global business environment characterized by organizational and cultural values, diversity, opportunity, and growth.” They also include learning objectives such as: “Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to think strategically about the global business environment.” Presumably this approach to educating undergraduate and MBA students will prepare them to become ‘global citizens.’ The question may be asked about what undergraduate and MBA marketing students know about changes in global extreme poverty, education access for women around the world, and number of people killed in natural disasters annually? This research utilizes the work of Hans Rosling, with his famous charts of global population, health and income data (TED Salon, Berlin June, 2014). Rosling demonstrates in his presentation that people have a high statistical chance of being wrong about what they think they know about global events. This research is designed to assess marketing students’ global knowledge on three aspects of the world they will work in.