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Keywords
Continuing professional development Training, Information technology, Workplace learning
Abstract
This paper discusses the emerging model of "corporate university" (CU) for continuous learning in the corporate world. With specially tailored training, CUs aim at improving the productivity and skills of employees using the latest advances in information and telecommunication technology. Training in this model particularly is more responsive to corporate needs than other learning intervention methods and adds value to the company business goals by helping recruit and retain talent. Their special focus is on disseminating common culture and driving changes in the entire organization. The article presents, briefly, the main characteristics of corporate universities and three examples. The article suggests that the CU model is sustainable to suit continuous employee learning and skill development and highlights the new approach of "active learning" that is increasingly being adopted as the future tool for training and development.
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Introduction
Corporate university (CU) is an emerging model for continuous training in the corporate world and continuous learning for employees. The first pioneered corporate university was General Electric's in 1950 and more recently such a model for training employees has been adopted by a large number of corporations worldwide. According to updated statistics, there were 400 corporate universities in the USA at the beginning of the 1990s and that number had grown to almost 1,800 by the end of 2000 (Anderson, 2000).
Traditionally, the purpose of a corporate university has been determined by the need to train employees and to develop their general skills. It was a simply an alternative denomination for "training departments" that basically organized training courses and distributed those programs among the corporate staff in the form of "catalogues", from which the staff chose courses and enrolled into the corresponding training activity. Such courses were usually subcontracted with universities or other training providers.
This role, however, has evolved to incorporate more relevance to imminent business needs. A number of strategic directions have been identified as drivers for the new role of corporate universities (Andresen and Irmer, 1999) as being:
* An initiative-driven approach, where...