Competitive Inteligence 2.0: Organization, Innovation and Territory

Chapter 4

Corporate Education and Web 2.0 ¹

4.1. Introduction: what is corporate education?

Corporate Education (CE), which is normally associated with the concept of Corporate University (CU), has emerged as a reality that surpasses our imagination when we seriously think about this field. Historically, we can say that corporate universities were born out of the evolution of training activities proposed by companies’ human resource departments. Initially, their principal objective was “…to prepare their employees toward the improvement of their professional competence and excellence in their activities within the company” [TAR 09].

With the present evolution of the scope in corporate universities, the concept of the corporate university appears to be one of the best ways for companies to educate their employees, in order to ensure their competitiveness in the market. We will share the views of authors like Allen. For him, a CU is an educational entity which is a strategic tool. It is designed to assist the organization to fulfill its mission by accomodating those activities that create a culture of individual and organizational learning, leading to knowledge and wisdom. For Allen, the word strategic is the more important one in this definition [ALL 02].

Eboli [EBO 2004] contributes by complementing this definition by stating that the purpose of corporate education is “…the development and installation of entrepreneurial and human skills considered critical for business strategies”. ...