By Dr. Peter Hirst, Senior Associate Dean of MIT Sloan Executive Education
Not long ago, I wrote about the "talent gap," which was widely discussed at the Internet of Things World Forum in Chicago last October. The problem is real for many employers, particularly those in industries that rely on innovation driven by science, technology, engineering, infrastructure services, etc. In response, companies must be increasingly systematic and purposeful about organizational learning and addressing their talent development needs. More and more are doing so with little or no help from us in academia, relying on internal resources and the commercial education sector instead.
With respect to internal provision of corporate education, UNICON, the trade association of university-based executive education providers, released two studies recently on the complex relationships that exist between business schools and the growing phenomenon of "corporate universities." The studies--"Same Solar System, Different Orbits: Opportunities and Challenges in Executive Education and Corporate University Partnerships" and "Minding Their Business By Flexing Our Minds: A Guide To Corporate University Partnerships"--offer interesting comparisons between the two business education models. While these reports were written primarily for an audience of academic executive education providers, they are worth a read for anyone who is interested in how the business education landscape is changing.
What is a corporate university?
As defined in one of the UNICON studies, "corporate university" is the generic name given to educational structures based in private and public, commercial and non-commercial organizations to help implement--through Learning and Development--the organization's strategies. These strategies may include human, economic, financial, technological, communication, social, and environmental terms as well as embody the identity, culture, and brand of the organization for all its stakeholders. One of the studies reports that there are now 4,000 corporate universities in the United States alone and more than twice that number worldwide.
A variety of purposes
The field is quite diverse, ranging from actual campuses to simple training programs delivered in person or online. The names of the in-house educational entities often include words like "academy" or "institute," but I’ll follow the lead of the UNICON reports and use the term corporate university for the sake of simplicity. The UNICON studies found that the range of activities also varies greatly, from training the entire employee base to focusing specifically on the needs of top leadership, or integrating a function or a geographic region into the company culture. It's worth noting that corporate universities are not necessarily limited to their own resources. Companies often contract guest speakers and instructors who may even come from academia.
A range of industries
The idea is not new. GE's Crotonville campus opened in 1956, McDonald's created its famous Hamburger University in 1962, and more recent examples include Pixar University and the notoriously secretive Apple University. Coincidentally, the Dean of Apple University is the sociologist Joel Podolny, who left a post as the Dean of Yale School of Management to join Apple (an example of a corporate university finding its own leadership talent from within the traditional university sector!). Deloitte and General Motors have their own schools, too.
A culture of learning
One finding by the UNICON researchers that should be of concern to all of us who are passionate about the value and importance of university-based education: quite a few of the companies surveyed view academic executive education as a luxury and say that many business schools are non-collaborative and inflexible in addressing businesses’ needs. Perhaps it's no surprise that corporate universities are on the rise!
Many of our own corporate clients at MIT, however, also have sophisticated internal training and development organizations, yet they continue to see the value of partnering with MIT Sloan to meet critical elements of their organizational learning needs. We see the most senior executives and talented innovators and entrepreneurs attending our programs--individuals and teams responsible for forging the futures of their businesses.
A call to action for academia
Increasingly, we are being asked how we can help these companies to accelerate the rate at which learning cascades throughout the organization, and achieve greater "speed to impact." It is a point of pride and distinction that in our programs we focus equally on the creation AND application of business know-how--after all, we are "MIT’s business school," and such requests are consistent with our core mission in executive education. However, they also stretch our limited resources as but one part of a research-based institution. When and how we can effectively partner with corporate universities in the broadest sense of the term is thus a matter of growing importance. Every business school that wishes to remain relevant and connected to businesses should pay close attention to this trend.
On a more speculative note, we (business schools) need the business community's trust in our expertise and value. If we are not able to ultimately sustain that, I can't help wonder where it might all lead. Maybe one day corporations will cease hiring graduates of university degree programs altogether, and instead routinely recruit from high schools directly into their own corporate university "degree" programs? But that's a can of worms for another day!