Inside the minds of today’s new MBAS

sure inadvertently — as arrogant (one young woman, “passionate” about education, returns to Pakistan and says of her aunts and uncles that they had probably “never owned an independent thought or harbored any reason to reason”).

Nonetheless, all of these testimonies are vibrant and interesting. The authors have done well in choosing a variety of voices, of several nationalities and with very different experiences, approaches and outlooks.

Highlights include Harvard Business School graduate Tasneed Dohadwala on the evolving roles of women in business and the casual sexism she encountered in her time as an equity sales analyst at Lehman Bros.

Dohadwala writes of what she believes are the changes needed for businesses to “harness the talent of all of their employees,” including “rejecting the false choice between family and professional success.”

Benjamin Schumacher, who is pursuing his MBA, writes of “happiness at work,” a subject that might seem alien to previous generations but is paramount to many young people today.

All these contributors share idealism and a hope that, though slightly grating at moments, is on the whole infectious and makes “Passion & Purpose” an upbeat, enjoyable read — as well as a useful one. Emmanuelle Smith writes for the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.