Frequently Asked Questions with Reference to the Corporate University

This article by Richard Dealtry was first published in the Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol 13, Issue 6, 2001, ISBN: 0 9523007 2 9

The approach taken in this article is to provide informative insights into the subject of the corporate university and to initiate thought leadership that will result in the full realisation of the corporate university concept as a strategic business development platform.

When introducing 'hard' performance improving management techniques the starting point is usually quite obvious and the instructions on 'what to do' and 'how to do it' are clear and logically progressive. In these cases questions about aims and outcomes are relatively easy to answer.

Alternatively, soft development packages aimed more towards releasing individual potential and building organisational capability are more complex in terms of their processes and are more difficult to articulate, although the majority of these are usually well prescribed and targeted at a well-defined audience with particular needs. Consequently managers can get their minds around these subjects without much difficulty.

However, at the level of business development intervention that accompanies the introduction of the corporate university more serious reflections, research and preparations are necessary to make a successful start.  The corporate university development with its melting pot of diversity both in terms of thinking and management disciplines can appear arcane - fuzzy and full of mystery - and questions about 'what it is' and 'what it does' often result in raising more questions rather than providing clear cut answers.

From our experience it is possible to be presented with a wide variety of different answers describing perspectives and scenarios on what the corporate university is and what the intervention entails.  Some experts emphasise one particular aspect such as e-learning whilst those companies already engaged in the development of a corporate university often adopt different strategies and emphasise different aspects of people, management, organisational and business development.

One of the difficulties is that if we ask for someone's view of something it will be influenced by many factors including self-interest, their experience and in particular their standpoint.

The level of confusion generated by asking someone about the corporate university who is not familiar with the full concept and its possible relevance to your particular business can result in you having the unwelcome privilege of paying for their learning curve. If we add to that the fact that the full potential of the concept is still unfolding and maturing this will detract from what should be an exciting, intellectually challenging and very profitable enterprise for you and your company.

How the initial enquiry is handled from a company who is considering the corporate university application is, therefore, very important. Knowing the right questions to ask is the important first step in this process. The second is to get coherent answers from an independent and unbiased source that has no hidden agenda. Helping managers to achieve these two steps was the main reason why we developed the following question and answer exposé.

It is important to provide such a guideline and questioning clarification for managers who have the task of formulating a meaningful strategic approach to their company's investments in the corporate university.

The following questions and answers are listed below:

• What is its purpose?
• Is it necessary to use the term corporate university - what name should we give to ours?
• Is the corporate university just for large corporations?
• What type of companies are getting involved in corporate university developments?
• Where are the corporate universities located?
• Is it like a traditional academic university?
• Is the corporate university all inclusive - for everyone? Do the slowest set the pace?
• Do you think we would benefit from the introduction of a corporate university?
• Who is responsible for the development and management of the Corporate University?
• What programmes and awards will it give to participants and will they have value outside the company?
• Will we need to form alliances with universities and business schools?
• Do our staff and managers have time for this?
• How much does it cost and what is the payback/return on investment?
• Can it work globally?

There are many definitions in the literature of the corporate university. One that reaches out into the meaning of the full concept and its strategic role whilst being quite thought provoking is :-

"the corporate university is an management intervention that takes a company or organisation into a new robust and sustained phase of business performance that it would not achieve with its current levels of opportunity for thought leadership and styles of learning behaviour."

Many companies are quite satisfied to apply this term as the word 'corporate' captures the company's essential ownership of the intervention. The word 'university' connects with a place that provides instruction and facilities for research and advanced learning and also gives recognition to the level of learning achieved.

On the other hand this title is totally unacceptable to some companies. They neither like a title that implies that this a head office driven initiative or that it has a strong academic focus.

The term corporate university has, however, become the common currency for discussing this development and is a useful cachet. Each company will generate its own preferred title and it is recommended that this is a tactfully managed issue.

Naming and branding the corporate university is very important. It is a symbolic act that sends messages to all the internal and external stakeholders and demands a unique balancing of all the motivational factors to arrive at a brand profile that is positive and energising for every one. Guidelines for naming would include name of the company, name of the industry or business sector, it's intellectual or learning style, i.e. academy, university, school of,  etc.

No not so. The issue is about how to sustain competitive advantage through the acquisition and generation of new learning and its dissemination starts at the level of the individual.

It is concerned with leadership and talent development at all levels and enhancing the quality and relevance of the company learning experience. The main thrust is to achieve thought leadership and competitive business behaviours throughout a company's business sectors: to have the capability to be a lot smarter and quicker of the mark than the competition.

Size is therefore not an issue, although larger companies have tended to make the running in taking up this initiative. There are logistical and structural benefits of scale that are inherent in corporate university thinking that also make it an attractive development and promote its adoption. Paradoxically many large companies aim to engender the entrepreneurial spirit of enterprise through the corporate university.

Small and medium sized companies - in the form of Enterprise Academies - aim to achieve and sustain this state of know-how leadership, their competitiveness depends upon it. But it is an awareness for the mental processes that counts with them, rather than structural considerations.

The initial trend was established by hi-tech businesses, professional services firms, consultancy companies and companies with a strong scientific or technological base. The ethos for continuous innovation and leadership in every aspect of their businesses is well established in such companies and the need to press ahead is ever present. Exercising the full corporate university concept provides them with the opportunities to develop thought leadership and provide a more stimulating environment that reinforces cultural values around learning, innovation and achievement

The trend is now taking hold in more traditional businesses where the combined benefits of properly managed business-led learning, shared knowledge and e-technologies are being put to good use.

Some larger companies have tended to locate formal programmes in campus style training and development centres. However, the essential positioning of it is in the hearts and minds of people and in the corporate psyche of organisation.

Benefits are only realised when people are doing things 'thinkingly' and take pro-active executive situational action in the real-time environment, in the office, in the factory, in discussion and in negotiation with suppliers, when building relationships with customers, in making interpersonal and organisational links work and in the social environment.

The corporate university 'campus' has no outer limits. Learning and development is coterminous in character and can take place anywhere any time when you know how to do it efficiently and effectively. Also it is about adult learners and they are different. They like to learn in different ways at different times. What they do need is a healthy supportive quality learning infrastructure that serves their particular 'need-to-learn' dynamic, on time, every time, wherever they may be.

One company defined it in this way, "we aim to develop a high quality learning infrastructure and rewarding environment that is worthy of people's participation."

The fundamental objectives of providing quality instruction, facilitating research and advanced learning and giving recognition to the level of learning achieved are the broadly the same. However, the management, strategic orientation, the learning processes used, the career context and developmental objectives of the corporate university are very different from a traditional university.

The corporate university is a hybrid development that in it's overarching strategic purpose it brings together the rapidly changing nature of the new working environment with certain elements of the intellectual discipline and rigour that underpin academic processes.

It is true to say that it is not like any older patterns, academic or business,  but is a new mind-set and culture much more connected to building the intellectual equity value of the modern business.

The starting point for every company is that you have the employees, staff, managers, executives and directors that you have, and the corporate university is there for everyone, not for the slowest or the chosen few. But this does not mean 'wall to wall' everything: the opposite is true.

One of the most difficult jobs for the managers of the corporate university is to determine how and when scarce resources are directed to particular groups of people for the success of the business. This is not a link that many companies are really good at making. It implies considerable fluidity and pro-active management in training and development provision alongside real-time tactical and strategic learning initiatives.

The all-inclusive strand is more about building basic real time competencies at all levels - learning how to learn and knowing learning needs - and instilling the ability in managers and staff alike to be able to build a learning scene at the same time as getting on with their jobs.

No one knows this for certain. What we do know is that a great deal of organisational thinking has come to the end of its useful life. The contemporary classic management concepts and thinking constantly demonstrate that these ideas are no longer capable of coping with the perturbations of the modern business environment. They stop people thinking out of the box and they bring pressures to get better and better at what served well in the past - getting further and further out of synch with customers, competitors and the business climate - rather than making organic adjustments to anticipate and move forward with the times:

A thorough dynamic situation analysis will quickly show whether the consequences of the current issues facing your business or business sectors can be resolved with or without a cultural shift to a more knowledge innovation centred style of management.

This is an important major business led change management platform that has to be clearly manifest in the vision of top management. Its success will be dependant on overcoming cultural and organisational barriers at all levels and the introduction of new ideas about what the firm needs to value, where it puts its resources and what it rewards.

This top-level commitment then needs to be underpinned by a team of people who are firmly committed to the survival of the business, e.g. a Project Director reporting directly to the CEO. This will be someone who has high level skills as a network organiser and in the recruitment and management of a core team and specialist contributors who provide expert advice on specific decisions on an as required basis.

Awareness and induction training is essential for everyone who is to be involved in the planning and implementation of this intervention as not many people will have the subject knowledge, personal profile, skills and competencies, or ready made cross disciplinary management capabilities to immediately take on these responsibilities.

The corporate university provides the opportunity to give a high level of recognition and reward to new learning and internal programmes. This implies that all training and development should be assessed in terms of what has been achieved by (a) the person carrying out the work, (b) the benefits received by the company and (c) academic credits if the programmes are credit linked to a university, business school or college of further education.

Career incentives and rewards are an important area of policy development in the management of the corporate university and should be reviewed in the complete context of personal development, remuneration and benefits packages.

The aim is to make your company the company of first choice.

External strategic alliances and learning partnerships with the intellectual supply chain should be formed on the basis of specific learning needs allied to particular strategic learning initiatives. Such arrangements should be competitively and properly contracted.

There is a great deal of case history concerning the selection and management of intellectual partnerships with universities and business schools  and these can evolve in various ways - in ascending order of ‘complexity’ and ‘risk’, collaborative intellectual partnerships and strategic alliance projects may include:

• exchanges of information

• experience sharing and consultancy

• collaboration on development through research projects

• adaptation and evaluation of learning media and materials

• establishing APL and APEL methodologies

• establishment of credit transfer arrangements

• the creation of new management structures both within and between/among the partners and institutions

A common framework of external provision and assessment in all areas and subsidiaries of the company should be developed.

Having the opportunity to exercise independent thinking and take on the role of an internal change agent or internal consultant appeals to many people when it is properly managed.

The development of a corporate university is a major investment and should be treated as such from a financial evaluation point of view. A feasibility study and funding forecast is an essential step combined with an estimate of benefits arising in terms of improved organisational performance and competitive capability.

Every assignment undertaken by staff and management should be properly monitored and assessed by direct reports with estimates of benefits, i.e. increased sales, cost savings, etc.

Is it desirable that it works globally?

This question addresses one of the key issues for many companies. Businesses are now subject to global competition and have to think developmentally beyond national and regional boundaries both from a personnel development point of view and from a marketing and customer culture point of view. However, the dependency of some international businesses on sustaining local cultures is immense whilst others are driven by the strength of global brands. Understanding the differences and synergies of the cultural and intellectual competencies across boundaries and their effect on the firm's businesses makes a classic corporate university action research project.

E-learning technologies make the collective global learning idea much more realisable and can add significantly to the competitive time advantage through accelerated shared learning. Developing the global learning infrastructure using e-communications, e-systems and pro-active e-management tools adds a whole new set of dynamics to the real time development process. Building those perceptions and making those connections helps to re-define the global potential of  the corporate university.

This article brings full circle our investigations into the full concept of the corporate university and the evidential findings and field research that has been carried out over a considerable period. The questions posed by companies starting out on the journey do not change, but the accumulated store of knowledge from our research programme has, and continues to foster more informed responses.

We look upon these comments as the first iteration on the learning curve process about the potential and role of the corporate university as an organisational and business development platform. Further articles at www.corporateuniversity.org.uk/Bookshop.htm   concentrate on the particular experiences of companies in developing bespoke solutions that optimise their particular corporate university properties and also examine the leadership, value adding and project management aspects of these interventions.

It is clear from our findings that there is a fundamental shift taking place in how investors view business value and the perceived quality of a company's intellectual equity is becoming the magnet that increasingly attracts flows of equity funding. The evolution of organisations that find the means to achieve this through the widespread release of intellectual competencies in the context of executive action are the ones that will prosper in this changing financial market environment. The responsibility for and means of achieving that transition in corporate reputation lies with top management in a many sided development programme that is captured in the concept of the corporate university.