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Junior Achievement: Training Teenagers for Business Careers after World War II

By: Walter A. Friedman
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:36
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Abstract

This article traces the growing popularity of Junior Achievement's "Company Program" in the two decades after World War II. The program provided high school students with the opportunity to form teams and start mini-corporations that would last for most of the school year and would compete to sell goods or services. The learn-by-doing program gave teenagers the chance to prepare for corporate life by experiencing different positions within the company—sales manager, treasurer, president, and manufacturer, for instance. The essay also features the leading proponents of this program, especially Charles Hook of ARMCO, and reasons for its eventual decline.

Keywords

Management; Human Capital; Age; Training; United States

Citation

Friedman, Walter A. "Junior Achievement: Training Teenagers for Business Careers after World War II." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-113, March 2016. (Please contact the author to request copy of this paper.)

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Walter A. Friedman

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