Role of Corporate Universities in Higher Education

Abstract

Learning and development has become increasingly challenging, critical, sophisticated and vital in knowledge based global economy. This trend is now accelerating in the rest of Asia and the Middle East. Corporations such as Infosys in India, Huawei in China, Singapore Airlines in Singapore and Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates have well-established corporate universities/learning centers. Other Asian and Middle Eastern corporations, both large and small, are following suit and allocating huge resources to strengthen their learning and development function. As corporate universities make new waves, the days of viewing them as training departments with fancy names are gone. Besides, the corporate university movement has become truly global in scope with them becoming sophisticated and highly visible world over. Using published research and the author's own work, this paper explores the current state of the corporate university and role of corporate university in higher education.