[James]

Shows like The Apprentice have 'soured' a generation against business

Business-related reality television like The Apprentice and Dragons' Den has poisoned young people’s impressions of entrepreneurship, a new survey claims

By Lauren Davidson

7:00AM BST 14 Oct 2014

A generation of Britons has been “ravaged by Dragons and soured by Sugar,” according to a new survey that claims business-related reality television has poisoned young people’s impressions of entrepreneurship.

Almost half of 2,000 respondents said they would describe the world of business as “dog eat dog,” according to a YouGov poll commissioned by the online training company Caffeine on Demand.

Some 29pc of people said that the corporate world is “full of jargon,” while a fifth called it “corrupt and dishonest” and 16pc said they believe business “attracts unpleasant people.” A mere 3pc to 4pc of respondents associated the phrases “honest, open and transparent”, “attracts nice people” or “caring and responsible” with their understanding of business.



David Kean, co-founder of Caffeine on Demand and author of the international bestseller Pitching To Win, called the results “extremely worrying” because “it means that the very thing that feeds the national purse is despised.”


Mr Kean blamed business-related reality television shows, such as Dragons' Den and The Apprentice, for spreading the idea that “you have to be a ruthless fictitious stereotype” to succeed in business and putting young people off from entering the world of business.

He also accused the government of having a “lacklustre approach” to promoting entrepreneurship, as well as the “few bad-apple business figures” who have contributed to “the perfect storm” of people choosing not to go into business.

Young people in particular have a negative attitude towards business, the YouGov poll found. While 47pc of all respondents said the business world is “dog eat dog”, that number rose to 52pc of 18 to 24 year olds and 54pc of 25 to 34 year olds.



Those two age groups were also more likely to view the corporate world as “corrupt and dishonest” - 25pc compared to the average response of 17pc - and more than three times as likely as older respondents to see business as “a force for evil”.

There is an upside to these reality TV shows, however. While a quarter to a third of older respondents said that business is “full of jargon”, only 21pc of people aged 18 to 24 did.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...-business.html

I have thought this about The Apprentice for a while, actually.