Expanding the Value of Corporate Universities: The Stakeholder Approach

Abstract

For educational programs at traditional universities, it is clear who the primary stakeholders are: the students. In corporate universities, it is not as obvious. At a minimum, it is the student/employees as well as the organization itself. But a deeper look reveals that in addition to the students, their managers and co-workers benefit from the education, just as we can say that in addition to the organization as a whole, the department or division benefits. Peeling the onion a little deeper, we can expand the stakeholder network to include vendors, suppliers, business partners, customers, and possibly even governments, communities, and society. Since organizations are comprised of complex networks of stakeholders, both internal and external, the beneficiaries of organizational learning are an equally complex network of stakeholders. Moreover, as we will discuss in this chapter, it is these very networks that enable us to multiply the value of our learning.