Corporate Academy Research Articles

Losing Our Faculties: Contingent Faculty in the Corporate Academy

Losing Our Faculties: Contingent Faculty in the Corporate Academy

Industry 4.0 and Internal Knowledge Management The case of Corporate Academies in Emilia-Romagna region

Industry 4.0 is not only a bundle of linked innovations, but a wide-ranging revolution that also affects the organizational aspects of the company and its value chain. This work focuses on the relationship between the tacit knowledge inherent in human resources and the codified knowledge built within the machinery and the whole production process 4.0. Human resources have returned to the center of the production process. Companies face a trade-off between the need to invest more and more resources towards internal training and the increased need to "retain" their employees. The Corporate Academy can be an interesting tool to achieve these two goals simultaneously. This work analyzes and compares 29 Italian Corporate Academies in the manufacturing sector based on a research and survey Nomisma. The study helped to understand the motivations that led these companies to adopt this tool, in addition to understand the different methods that they undertook in the process and the relative actual and expected benefits.

Классификация корпоративных программ обучения руководителей и развиваемые в них кластеры компетенций

The purpose of this paper is to propose a classification of corporate education programs for executives and talent reserve based on the revealed characteristics of such programs. The study explores existing Russian and foreign research literature, is based on authors' experience in development and implementation of such programs in a corporate academy, a business-school and in corporate universities, and also analyzes the content of other executive education programs provided by leading Russian corporate education organizations. Analysis of executive education programs classifications in foreign literature revealed that none of them inсluded all types of programs delivered in Russian corporate education, so the authors propose an original classification based on the relationship between the target audience and the competencies and skills to be developed. The proposed classification is of practical interest for professionals in corporate education and company HR, as it assists them in defining the type of a program they develop in-house or order from other educational organizations, in accordance with their organizational goals and through developing clusters of competencies and skills of their top-management.

“Social Movement Theory” as a Baseline Legitimizing Narrative: Corporate Exploitation, Anti-Hegemonic Opposition and the Contested Academy

Scholars and administrators created “Social Movement Theory” (SMT) and associated institutions in order to establish a field of “contested politics” buttressed by “scholarly synthesis.” In this article, I place SMT as an object of study itself within the contested space of the corporate academy. SMT is a baseline legitimizing narrative that the domesticated academy produces and that corporate entities then use as preemptive inoculation against anti-hegemonic opposition by geographically separating governmentalities of often brutal and arbitrary material exploitation from depoliticized, dehistoricized and scientistic spectacles of consumerist legitimization. I summarize key ways that administrators govern the corporate academy and remove historical and social specificity, followed by analysis of exemplary cases demonstrating how SMT is placed within “peer-reviewed” scholarship. In contrast to SMT's over-riding goal of “synthesis,” I argue that effective social movement scholarship is contingent, situated and explicitly engaged with power (willing to “reveal a stand”), including difficult questions about who exercises power, how, and especially under what guises of corporate authority. Done well, such intellectual-activism must be conducted independent of current corporate academic strictures, and indeed will likely involve direct anti-hegemonic challenges to the corporate academy. Intellectual-activists that choose to do so can face significant negative impacts ranging from “double-shift” marginalization through loss of academic privileges, total career destruction, banishment from the academic canon and even physical endangerment. Therefore, effective transformation of social movement scholarship requires transformation of the contested academy, both projects very difficult for embedded academics absent external pressure from intellectual-activists.

Voice and Community in the Corporate Academy

This article is the story of the simultaneous feminization and corporatization of universities, themes that emerged in a test of a collective biography, a qualitative research method. Organizers brought together 12 macro social work academic women across generations and, through sampling, attempted to avoid the intergenerational splitting that seems to be leaving junior faculty to be socialized by administrators while simultaneously isolating senior faculty from their generative role. Our analysis identified several trends developed from our collective experiences including changes in faculty governance, formalized mentoring, intergenerational faculty relationships, and shifting expectations. With these changes, we sense a reduction in what we used to think of as a collegium, now in danger of becoming an historical artifact.

Predicting Intention to Complete and Learning Outcomes in a Sample of Adult Learners

Aims: This research investigates the relationship between Self-Esteem and completion/non-completion of tertiary qualifications for a sample of New Zealand adults, and explores the factors that may predict intent and learner outcome for these students. Study Design: A descriptive and correlational research design. Place and Duration of Study: Corporate Academy Group, a Private Training Establishment located in a low socio-economic area, Manukau City, New Zealand, between August 2009 and April 2010. Methodology: The Theory of Planned Behavior was used to assess intent to achieve, and was extended to include the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale as a measure of Self-Esteem. Adult students ( n = 211), 115 females and 96 males aged between 15 and 65, were assessed for intent to achieve and actual outcome (completers vs. non-completers). Results and Discussion: Participant’s reports of attitude, perceived behavioral control and subjective norm, within the Theory of Planned Behavior, sufficiently predicted their intention

Review of "Selling Out: Academic Freedom and the Corporate Academy"

Woodhouse, Howard (2009). Selling Out: Academic and Corporate Academy. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. Pages: 360. Price: 35.95 CAD (cloth).Dr. Howard Woodhouse (College of Education, University of Saskatchewan) begins book by disclosing his own firing from University of Western Ontario close thirty years ago. This extreme disciplinary action took root when without protection of tenure or freedom, he authored a letter that was published in university newspaper in which he criticized a peer's position on South Africa apartheid and it culminated when he penned a report about the future plans of educational development office(p.3). Woodhouse sued for wrongful dismissal and ultimately Ontario Human Rights Commission found on his side of dispute. This author has both direct personal and professional experience with an freedom case and has published in this area for several decades. This considerable vantage point might be, in part, what prompted him frame his cumulative argument in a series of case studies of people have opposed influence of on teaching and research at Canadian universities (p.3) that serve examine both personal and institutional levels. He also takes care situate concrete narratives alongside abstract theory with key attention paid the concept of 'generalization' operant in wok of Alfred North Whitehead (p.5). essence of ongoing argument is that traditional goal of university, provoke and share knowledge, is antithetical to, or in necessary conflict with (p.21), corporatist academy of 21 century which privileges demands over independent thought, research, teaching and learning. Woodhouse warns that current innovation, commercialization and federal government funding driven Canadian higher education engineers ready-made products and standardized ideas for corporate market (p.38) while simultaneously academic skills are decoupled from any disciplinary base (p.26).The structure of monograph is comprised of an introduction, seven chapters supported by approximately 70 pages of notes, and a short back of book index. heart of work is engaging set of case studies which vary from iconic Nancy Olivieri affair (Chapter 3: Taking on Big Pharma) lesser known set of circumstances of other scholars who spoke out against forces in Canadian higher education. These stories of resistance are complemented by broader narratives, including The Market Model of Education and Threat Academic Freedom and The Value Program in Theory in Practice. Through two closing chapters, which counter ubiquitous model of student evaluation as customer satisfaction and examine People's Free University of Saskatchewan, book ultimately pushes questions that many of us in academe grapple with today. To what extent is resistance in form of a civil commons (p.261) a possibility? How much daring will it take and at what personal and professional cost, for example to be shunned, persecuted and possibly dismissed (p.11)?Selling Out is highly relevant contemporary Canadian higher education, including its current dramas, such as August 2011 agreement between York University and RIM co-founder Jim Balsillie's private think tank, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in which the University agrees that it will allow CIGI not only a voice in who should be hired in program at York, but veto power over whom University can consider for hiring. …

Action learning drives the Emerald Academy

This account examines the action learning process adopted by Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., embedded in the organization through the in-company Emerald Academy. In case study format, the paper emphasizes that in order to align learning with organizational objectives joined up thinking and practice is needed beyond the learning and development function, with ownership taken of the process at all levels. To date the Emerald action learning corporate academy process is in its sixth year. It builds upon a tradition of management development through action learning which goes back to the early days of the company. Organizations seeking to develop a similar process would need to consider organizational commitment and readiness.

Great Business Training is Just Enough, Just in Time, and Just for Me

How has a small midwestern rural community college contributed to the growth of the nation's largest direct marketer whose annual earnings exceed $1.5 billion? Discover how Western Nebraska Community College has developed a Corporate Academy and a Corporate Associate of Occupational Studies degree customized to meet the unique needs of employees of Cabela's, Inc.

Risk and Innovation - Case for Building a Methodology Tool to Assist Informed Decision Making for Managers

There is a direct correlation between risk and innovation. A Corporate academy Study for Applying Innovation in Clients environment, mentioned following: Cultural clash in delivering Client Innovation: Service Delivery is based on standards, repeatability, reference architectures, proven and robust technology, guaranteed quality, efficiency and meeting SLAs. The resulting culture is inherently in conflict with innovation, which inescapably entails increased risk. SD has no processes or targets for regularly engaging in Client Innovation. It does not employ people for this purpose and has no measurements or incentive programs to perform this task and indeed incents the opposite behavior. The study establishes that there is a direct correlation between Innovation and Risk.

ECUANET – European Corporate Academies Transnational Best Practice Network

This article describes the formation and forward planning of an important and independent transnational best practice networking development project, i.e. ECUANET. ECUANET's aims are to track and disseminate the evolutions and revolutions that are taking place in the creative management of corporate universities and small and medium enterprise academies. Both categories are referred to in the text as corporate academies. The article describes how and why this transnational network has been originated by a combined group of professional practitioners and national level clusters of corporate universities. It illustrates how it is intended that it should grow in the future as a thematic social community dedicated to the creation and appreciation of leading edge corporate academy knowledge. It describes the planning of sequential and interlinked work package activities to be shared by its members in building a sustainable transnational network. Additionally, it addresses the choice of case research reference architecture and the conduct of related thematic action research processes to be employed in defining world class best practice standards in corporate academy management

The new generation of corporate universities – co‐creating sustainable enterprise and business development solutions

Captures the researches, experience and current thoughts of two leading professional corporate university and corporate academy solutions designers and developers. Provides a provocative commentary on the quality of current management perspectives and practice in the area of corporate university management and comments on some of the popular misconceptions of what the corporate university is all about. Moves forward, from a critique perspective, with comments on a proactive modality for configuring intellectual properties and implementing intervention programmes. This process involves the development of dynamic scenarios around “thinking schools” properties and their manifestation through management processes defined as the BLU way. Emphasises the vital strategic management role being undertaken by the new generation of corporate university managers and the nature of the skills and competencies necessary in renewing and sustaining intelligence based enterprise cultures in organisations.

Corporate university developments in the UK SME sector

This article surveys the status and potential of three small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to the concept of the corporate university. It examines the dynamic context for their current training and development activities and their individual similarities and differences in emphasis and priorities. The study involves the use of taxonomies and model structures to articulate current status and to give pointers to further potential for corporate university or corporate academy development.

Voices of the academy: academics’ responses to the corporatizing of academia

Abstract This study explores the ways in which continuing and casual academics make sense of their roles in a post-Dawkins Australian university. The traditional affiliations of discipline and campus are being competitively eroded in favour of more entrepreneurial liaisons. These shifting liaisons result in organizational silences, which some academics strive to fill. Their selective interpretations of the changing tertiary environment enable them to create a disparate range of academic identities. The narratives of academics who were interviewed in this study suggest that the espoused stories and strengths of the unique profession of academia have less relevance in the unfamiliar corporate academy, which is resistant to the metaphor, myth and traditional typification. In attempting to restructure the university to operate profitably in the current environment, decision-makers have opted for strategies which attempt to homogenize a body of academics. The disparate skills, identities and voices of academics are overlooked in an attempt to create adaptive generalists with definitive discipline specializations.