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If, like the British economist John Keynes you suspect entrepreneurs are strongly motivated by an irrational and pathological love of money, perhaps it is time for a job change. Keynes had serious concerns about the degenerating qualities of capitalism. Famously noting of the businessman: "Regarded as a means he is tolerable; regarded as an end he is not so satisfactory."
Should executives who are worried about being merely a "means" consider jumping over to the non-profit sector and, with luck, becoming an "end"?
There is certainly enough choice. By one calculation, there are one million non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the world - 25,000 with international reach. Vietnam alone, for example, hosts 650 foreign agencies.
The money available is also enormous.
Americans donate more than twice the official government aid of $15 billion to overseas projects, contributing to the rise of what's been called philanthrocapitalism - epitomised by the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet.
The hard-driving executive seeking fresh challenges may also be reassured in the knowledge that all but the dreamiest aid workers now recognise that business skills can be useful - if not vital - for today's NGOs.
"Executives moving into development? It raises huge issues," says James Copestake, head of the Economics and International Development Department at the University of Bath in England. "Are they looking for a [relatively] lucrative and easy career or are they hoping to re-engineer their business skills for philanthropic purposes?"
He adds: "The past 20 years has seen a convergence on many fronts and this is accelerating. Glibly speaking, development is becoming more businesslike and some bits of business have become more development-orientated, with socially-responsible corporations and businesses searching for market opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid. Business is sitting squarely in the development field now."
Satisfaction
Anyone who has survived at least a couple of years in development work claims to find more than enough satisfaction to compensate for what is often a poor salary - at least compared with jobs of comparable responsibility in the private sector. A number of the harder-edged business advisory jobs - including those in the UN - will pay well for genuine "experts", but the salaries are still comparatively small for any ambitious merchant banker.
"Never go into this kind of work unless you have a commitment, or you will be disappointed," says Anoop Sukumaran, a spokesman for the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South. "There are challenges enough - surprisingly tough ones - without anyone feeling hard done by. The reward comes in the work. If you doubt that, don't do it."
An executive who switched to a government development agency in Cambodia - and wished not to be named - says that being able to have a demonstrable impact on the lives of ordinary people is a tremendous kick.
"I don't believe you can get that satisfaction as a business executive. Sure, you can meet targets and you engage with the public, but you are hardly in a position to lift the quality of life of a community. That is good, believe me," he says.
A veteran business consultant - also wishing to remain anonymous - who moved to Vietnam to advise on business development with a prominent international NGO warns, however, that the work might be frustrating for an eager beaver fresh from the private sector.
First, NGO targets - such as "alleviating poverty" - tend to be woolly, and objectives often nebulous compared with straightforward profits and sales targets in business. Second, deadlines seem to "endlessly spin on" because there often appears little urgency in the work. Third, the office politics can be fraught, not to say nasty.
"People in development may believe that because they're doing good things, there's more latitude for doing their own thing," the consultant says. The resulting incoherence leaves plenty of scope for rancour. There was, he says, much more open dissension internally than he had ever experienced in the business sector.
Risks
Anyone expecting to arrive as a breath of fresh air in the development world should know that entrepreneurial dynamism risks a sharp rebuff. "I want to warn all executives that the decision-making process in NGOs is very participatory. It's a core value," says Cherian Mathews, regional head of policy and communications for Oxfam-GB in south-east Asia. "There is lots of worrying about what the right policy is and lots of consulting with the community and with government. It's a slow process. Frankly it will be very frustrating for a hard-charging business type."
That said, the consensus in the sector is that NGOs will soon look and act - at least superficially - more like the often disdained profit-orientated corporations.
"The development model will evolve significantly over the next five years. We're going to see a big focus on measurable outcomes and the use of business skills," says John Samuel, international director Asia for Actionaid.
A significant reason for this is that the influence of corporate philanthropy will increase, in line with the fall in influence from traditional big development lenders such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, says Samuel.
A fierce global competition for funds is forcing NGOs to be more competitive in proving and presenting themselves.
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