Australia

The chapter presents survey data from an Australian university cohort enrolled at Murdoch University in Perth. The data show that students prefer employers with good CSR and sustainability credentials and that general company related attributes are the least influential for their employer choice. Overall, the data point to a trend of growing CSR and sustainability sensitivity among the country’s future workforce, which at present is poorly matched by Australian companies. To contextualise the results, Australia today is a highly multicultural society without a clearly defined national culture. The country exhibits a raft of conflicting, cultural characteristics with both egalitarian and fatalistic environmental worldviews being equally dominant cultural biases. Despite a culture of self-reliance and a strong cynicism towards political authority, conformism is equally part of Australian culture as is the expectation on government to be interventionist and to be involved in the day-to-day management of social life. Despite these cultural tensions, there is a notable rise in pro-social and pro-environmental attitudes nationally, especially among young Australians, which is also reflected in the student survey data presented here