Universidades corporativas e a educação da sustentabilidade nas organizações

Abstract

Corporate University and Sustainability are contemporary themes, present in organizations with bigger emphasis since the 21st century. However, they seem to run parallel, with a few interaction with each other. Apparently there is a detachment that makes a connection between them impossible. On the one hand, the Corporate University aims to promote the continuous, active and flexible education of employees and stakeholders, focusing on the development of essential competencies that guarantee the fulfillment of organizational strategies, generating sustainable competitive advantages. On the other hand, Sustainability is know as a value, a relevant component present in the organizational strategy, that can be found in the mission statements, vision and values of organizations. Given this scenario, it is expected that the Corporate Universities will act in order to promote sustainability education at all organizational levels, as well as the existence of dialogues, joint actions and even models of action involving these themes. However, there are a few works that demonstrate the interaction of these themes. This work intends to investigate how this interaction happens in practice, in the day by day of Corporate Universities. Through a qualitative research, semi structured interviews were conducted with 16 managers of Corporate Universities present in the state of São Paulo, belonging to organizations from different sectors of action, with the objectives of understanding how sustainability education works, to investigate the existence of specific models that make this education feasible and of identifying the barriers and challenges related to sustainability education. The results show that although Sustainability is considered a strategic component, present in the organizational discourse, there are practically no educational actions and / or specific models for education sustainability. The barriers found refer to the lack of a culture of effective Sustainability in organizations, to the lack of knowledge of the theme at different hierarchical levels, and to the fact that in many organizations, knowledge is found in specific departments of Sustainability. By assigning sustainability education exclusively to the Sustainability department, this learning ends up being fragmented and punctual because it is not directly related to the strategy. Thus, the main challenge is the construction of a collaborative dialogue between the Corporate Universities and the Sustainability departments, which will facilitate Sustainability education in order to meet the organizational strategy