Corporate Universities: Lessons in Building a World-Class Workforce - Review

by Jeanne C. Meister, McGraw-Hill, 1998, 297 pages, $40.00, ISBN: 0-7863-0787-0.

A Review by Jennifer C. Patterson

Human beings always have sought ways to improve the businesses that support them. When agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, it brought about improvements in tools, development of hybrid crops and techniques of crop rotation. Centuries later, manufacturing was streamlined with assembly lines and motion study. Now, as the millennium approaches, the world is reinventing itself as a knowledge economy. Modern corporations are faced with the challenge of providing continual education for their workforces to retain employees and remain competitive.

Enter the corporate university. Far more than a simple training department or an employee educational benefit, corporate universities represent an enormous investment by a company in the education of its workers. based on the model of a traditional university, the corporate university offers course work, certifications or even credit toward degrees to a company's employees. In Corporate Universities, Jeanne Meister provides a detailed explanation of how and why a company would undertake the enormous task of founding and maintaining such a program.

As a university administrator, I have become increasingly aware of the role that companies will need to play in the education of their own workforce. By some estimates, adults today may expect to change jobs five to seven times in their working years, whether due to changes in technology, shifting markets or worker preference. Traditional universities will not be able to handle these education and training needs alone. Companies will by necessity learn to depend on themselves to maintain a well-trained workforce. Consequently, many of them may elect to establish corporate universities to meet the educational needs of their own employees.

Much of the book's strength lies in the numerous examples that Meister provides to guide the reader in establishing a corporate university. Each topic discussed is illustrated with the experience of an actual corporation. This real-world link helps put each topic in context. The examples provided allow the reader to gain confidence from others' success stories.

The appendix also is one of the most useful features of the book. Here, the reader will find a list of 50 networking contacts of organizations that make use of corporate universities and a frequently asked questions list. These resources further the book's ability to provide support to a reader who may be charged with piloting the development of a corporate university.

Meister has effectively provided a blueprint for the design of a new corporate university. In a relatively brief yet efficient chapter, she takes the reader step-by-step through the concerns that must be addressed in the planning and implementation stages.

However, one of the book's weaknesses is the failure to adequately address the transition process. The companies targeted by Meister as candidates for corporate universities are clearly large enough to include some sort of training department, yet she makes little mention of how to incorporate existing training professionals into the new program and what types of existing training programs might best be eliminated.

Additionally, little attention is paid to ways in which small companies or new businesses might make use of the corporate university model. Meister makes a compelling argument that corporate universities are a trend of the future. Surely there is a way that a small business can have, if not a full-fledged university, at least a one room schoolhouse.

In spite of these few weaknesses, Corporate Universities would make a useful addition to many HR professionals' resource libraries. Meister presents solid reasons for companies to consider establishing a corporate university and concrete steps to follow once the decision has been made. After completing this book, it is clearer to me than ever that all workers must soon be lifelong students; corporate universities may be the bridge to that future.

Jennifer C. Patterson is registrar of the University of Dayton School of Law in Dayton, Ohio.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Society for Human Resource Management
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