CORPORATE UNIVERSITIES: ORIGIN, EVOLUTION, MODELS, AND LIMITATIONS

Corporate Education (CE) or Corporate Universities (CU) has its origin associated with the organizations' training centers. The mismatch between the skills demanded by organizations and the training offered in academic programs compromised the company's overall productivity. Thus, the training centers aimed to fill gaps in the training of their employees and respond to criticism directed at the formal Education sector, which did not meet the needs and demands of organizations (Narayandas; Rangan; Zaltman, 1998).

CUs are structures developed within organizations, whether public or private, to enhance organizational performance through education in the following dimensions: human, economic, financial, social, environmental, technological, and communication (Silva et al., 2020). According to Renaud-Coulon (2013), CUs focus on the collective intelligence of the organization and business solutions.

The first CE was created in the 1960s, at McDonald's, initially being called Hamburger University. The purpose was simple: to adapt the knowledge acquired in management schools to the needs of the organization. In the same decade, General Motors Corporate University also emerged intending to meet the company's specific training needs (Buryakov et al., 2019).

In the 1990s, large Western corporations contributed to the expansion of CUs in several countries — Canada, Europe, and Latina America — promoting the idea of a corporate university. Partnerships were signed with universities for the vocational guidance of workers, and corporate universities were created to train and retrain employees, accompanying them throughout their careers. Thus, the financial health of organizations would be guaranteed, improving work efficiency and increasing the level of competence of specialists (^{Buryakov et al. 2019}).

In Brazil, in the 1990s, it was also observed the growth of CUs influenced by the international literature and organizational practices, which promoted the advantages for organizations' investments. However, the first CU originated in 1952 after the National Petroleum Council signed an agreement with the Federal University of Bahia to train oil engineers. This institution later became Petrobras, currently one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, relying on a strategic decision to train high-level professionals to develop technologies that would enable them to play a leading role in the production of oil and gas in deep waters. Thus, actions related to CU existed before the formal creation of Petrobras’ CU, in 2005 (^{Chagas, 2004)}.

For Sorochinsky et al. (2020), during corporate training, employees improve their professional skills, mastering certain skills and abilities in a specific field and, in addition to learning, there is the opportunity to disseminate knowledge, creating a virtuous circle of benefits for the organization. As organizations are in a dynamic and competitive environment, they need to be in constant development, with the continuous training of qualified personnel. Employees, therefore, are considered the main competitive advantage of organizations and must be trained in the specific knowledge and skills necessary for the good performance of their work and for innovation purposes (Aires et al. 2017).

There is constant research with a focus on improving the quality of teaching at CUs. The work of ^{Murthy and Pattanayak (2019)} applied the concept of academagogy, which is a learning approach based on andragogic (student-centered learning) and heutagogical (self-determined learning) principles in training in a corporate environment. There was little improvement in technical learning; however, there were good results in the behavioral aspects of the participants, encouraging employees to set goals and take responsibility for their work, as well as to act collaboratively with other team members.

There are several models of corporate education: on one hand, some aim to develop skills related to the institution's core business; on the other, some aim to develop skills related to the institution's core business, others expand their target audience to stakeholders and employees' families, and, within a logic of social responsibility, act to the reduction of social inequalities (^{Oliveira, 2004}). ^{Silva et al. (2020)} aim to identify ways of acting for CUs to internalize and promote a culture of social responsibility in the exercise of their activities through partnerships with organizations and educational institutions. ^{Castro and Eboli (2013)} emphasize that CUs should operate based on a logic focused on productivity/competitiveness and not on social responsibility, as being competitive, the company already contributes to social development. So, to invert these roles would be to subvert and jeopardize the sustainability of the corporate education structure.

It is worth noting that, after nearly three decades of expansion of CUs, and the release of Meister’s seminal book on the subject, criticism persists, and formal education's responses to the challenges of the labor market continue to be slow. Even before the pandemic, organizational leaders had been expressing their concerns about the inability of graduates in the traditional and formal educational system, in the face of the demands of the labor market (Meister, 1994; ^{Pfeffer; Fong, 2002}; Cummins et al., 2019). Furthermore, such concern also applies to the lack of training of employees already in the market, who need to be updated due to advances in automation or digitization. Thus, in the pre-pandemic context of covid-19, discussions aimed at training the workforce already valued technology, automation, digitization of information, and the different skills needed for a changing world. However, it is important to note that the role of CUs is not to compete with or negate the importance of traditional educational institutions, but rather to complement them by offering alternatives and actions aimed at preparing people for the challenges of organizations (^{Cesconetto, 2011}; Silva et al. 2020).

The criticisms also extend to the CUs that, even after decades of growth and investments in training their employees, did not present favorable results. According to a McKinsey survey, 87% of executives interviewed complained of gaps in the training of the workforce and at least half of them had solutions to solve the problem (Capozzi et al., 2020). Despite the high investment in CUs and the growth in the training of the workforce, only 8% of CEOs perceived some impact on the business, presenting an interesting paradox to be investigated (Christensen, 2020). Given the important role of CUs in training employees, it is expected that, in the long term, they can be compared in quantity with traditional universities, as they have the advantage of offering proposals and solutions to organizational problems faced daily in a customized way (Luna-Amaya et al., 2016).

CORPORATE UNIVERSITY IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The pandemic made it imperative for people to adapt to work, study, shop, hold meetings, and communicate digitally from home. All these activities require a robust and reliable digital infrastructure, making them a high priority for national and local governments (^{Carnevale; Hatak, 2020}). Digital technology plays a fundamental role in society and its importance will remain for decades to come. Nevertheless, it is uncertain how managers will deal with the impact of technology in reducing jobs, creating new professions, changes in organizational culture, and the move to working from home that has imposed a 24/7 employee availability (Allen; Fukami; Wittmer, 2021; George, 2020).

^{Yeganeh (2021)} supports that the pandemic, like other crises, considerably influences the market and eliminates smaller and fragile businesses, saving large corporations and their solid digital infrastructure. Therefore, with the advent of covid-19, small business activity dropped dramatically across all major industries. Furthermore, small businesses are often disadvantaged in e-commerce because they traditionally operate as one-person businesses. As a result, they face an unprecedented existential threat (Carracedo; Medina; Selva, 2020; Economist, 2020; ^{Zahra, 2020}). covid-19 also discouraged startups and their innovation potential, and many of these technology-specific startups saw their capital and revenue decrease considerably (Bofinger et al., 2020; Kuckertz et al., 2020).

However, large technology companies must emerge from this crisis even more robust, as is the case with Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, which can capitalize on their vast technological resources to innovate, increase market share, and, consequently, prosper. The technology sector moves away from the business models of the last decade towards more sophisticated and profitable models based on subscriptions, e-commerce, big data, cloud computing, and business infrastructure (The Economist, 2020).

Aligned with this scenario, it is worth mentioning the transformation that Petrobras’ CU, the largest Brazilian organization, has been undergoing since 2019. The organizational model of Petrobras University was revised to meet the challenge of strategic repositioning, and a new model was created, with a network of Academies directly linked to the management of critical processes within the company. Additionally, opportunities brought by Digital Transformation enabled the establishment of the foundations of Petrobras Digital University. With the declaration of the pandemic, concrete actions were quickly taken, and regarding face-to-face classes, 70% of the portfolio that was previously in-person was adapted to remote classes (Granja, 2020).

Hence, one of the main consequences of the covid-19 pandemic is the rapid obsolescence of conventional business models and the emergence of a new type of globalization, based on increasing levels of connectivity in virtual space and economic production marked by more digital, intangible assets and with fewer employees. However, as organizations shift to telecommuting and remote business, new problems associated with distance management emerge and demands for skills and abilities to manage uncertainty and facilitate global work become more critical (Caligiuri et al., 2020).

Similarly, the implications of covid-19 for business schools have destabilized operating models, creating an urgency for them to quickly adapt and learn new virtual educational alternatives. However, simultaneously, new opportunities emerge with the pandemic, demanding an education that is attentive to social challenges, which can give greater legitimacy to the curricula by turning to responsible management education (Falkenstein; Hommel; Powell, 2021).

Studies that address the impact of the digital transformation and covid-19 on Corporate Education emphasize the need for these units to rapidly expand the use of technologies, to learn new skills, to adopt new ways of teaching, placing educators in the position of students whom they need to update themselves and quickly present responses to a new reality. Consequently, changes have had effects on both those who educate and those who teach, and in the academic and business environment (McFadden et al., 2020; Prata, 2020).

Thus, education in the recent past, present, and future is connected to the “digital all” movement (^{Baldwin, 2020}). There is no doubt that EdTech has advanced with the covid-19 pandemic, becoming an important part of the educational equation for both traditional and corporate universities. EdTech has been the main vehicle for teaching, learning, and working as the world becomes virtual. However, criticism is attributed to EdTechs for not prioritizing solid pedagogy and learning, giving more importance to business goals (Knox; Williamson; Bayne, 2020; Teräs et al., 2020).

In short, considering that corporate education has similarities with traditional university education, the challenges to be faced are equivalent. The isolation of students and staff during the learning process, the difficulty in adapting to the online reality in the pandemic, and uncertainties in the post-pandemic are challenges to be overcome by HEIs and CUs. Both must support students and staff, guide them in best practices, provide infrastructure and platforms for online or hybrid learning, and need to develop strategies to deal with psychological issues - stress, anxiety, depression - intensified by the pandemic.

In the face of the intense changes generated by the pandemic, the CU had to adapt to deal with the scenario imposed by covid-19. It is a fact that large organizations with resources suffered less impact as they had already been investing in digital technologies and innovations. However, based on the literature, among the main advances and trends in the scope of CU, it can be mentioned the consolidation of online learning, hybrid learning, and microlearning - short-duration courses focused on more immediate applications in organizations. Additionally, there is a growing interest in gamified activities that bring challenges, competition, collaboration, and problem-solving opportunities (^{Andrade, 2021}; Moran, 2023).

As trends, the protagonism of employees in defining the content and the learning path for their training should be mentioned. Another trend is the use of artificial intelligence and chatbots to clarify doubts and facilitate learning (Engage, 2021). On the rise are applications of Artificial Intelligence, a source of concern for the risks and impacts on society, but also a source of inspiration in this new phase of AI, called cyber-social intelligence (^{Cope; Kalantzis, 2022}), in which technology is driven by feedback relations between machines and people mediated by computing. In this scenario, it is understood that AI has broad potential for application in education and Corporate Universities, contributing to learning and skill development, interacting with students, teachers, and professionals in companies, making teaching and learning more dynamic and more directed by feedback from evaluations.

SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

According to ^{Petticrew and Roberts (2006)}, systematic literature reviews guide researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. Sandelowski and Barroso (2003) described different steps in this process, including the formulation of the research question, literature search, evaluation, and inclusion of articles, as well as interpretation.

The literature search focused on the Web of Science and Scopus databases on 07/16/2021, using the Boolean formula: (["Corporate Education" OR "Corporate University" OR "Corporate Academia"] AND "Covid"), having identified a total number of 1,251 articles. Articles from the last 5 years were filtered. From the analysis of the title and abstract, it was possible to eliminate those that did not adhere to the research objective, reaching 27 articles. Additionally, complementary articles were sought in other databases such as SciELO and EBSCO, thus incorporating a further 41 articles, in all, 68 articles were used as the basis for the elaboration of the theoretical framework of this study.

FIELD RESEARCH

A questionnaire was developed and made available on the Qualtrics platform from October 2020 to July 2021 and distributed to approximately 300 companies. Although the survey was applied to a group of 325 individuals, only 65 respondents completed the entire survey, justifying the number of respondents considered in this quantitative part of the analysis.

The questionnaire contained questions related to demographic data, actions traditionally taken by corporate universities, actions taken during the period of the pandemic, and related to the organization to which the corporate university is linked. In addition to descriptive statistics and inferential analysis, qualitative research through interviews was used to broaden and deepen the understanding of the results obtained in quantitative research (^{Eisenhardt, 1989}).

The study evolved eight large CUs located in Brazil as its unit of analysis, selected based on the accessibility criterion, that is, companies with more than 3,500 employees. The eight CUs are in the following fields: mining (1); energy (1); oil & gas (1); technology (1); sectors and four national ones operating in the banking (2), mining (1) and mobile phone (1) sectors. The interviews were structured from a set of questions defined based on the researched literature and the Qualtrics questionnaire. The in-depth interviews were conducted with managers who occupy leadership positions in Corporate Education at the organizations surveyed.

The data analysis method used was content analysis, a set of techniques for systematization, interpretation, and description of the information content (^{Bardin, 1977}). For the analysis of the interviews, a priori categories were created from the questions used in the survey, which gave rise to the quantitative results (^{Eisenhardt, 1989}), as shown in Table 1.

SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

For the systematic literature review, we adopted the VOSViewer software together with the search terms in the initial Boolean formula (without filters), obtaining the content shown in Figure 1, which allows the visualization and analysis of the most common subjects in the scientific literature. It is noticed that the themes of education, higher education, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and performance were the most present, ensuring alignment with the research theme.

Source: Research Data

FIGURE 1 Themes network generated on VOSViewer 

Of the 68 pre-selected articles, 10 were considered the most aligned with the research objective (Table 2). The articles address the importance and role of corporate education, the challenges faced by organizations to respond to the pandemic, the migration of companies for the digital environment, different approaches to dealing with employee anxiety, skills valued in organizations, and reflections on the consequences of the pandemic after covid19.

FIELD RESEARCH

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS

The sample is well-balanced in terms of gender, with 51% of respondents identifying themselves as men. Either 43% of respondents are between 46 and 60 years old and have completed or ongoing education at the specialization level (35%) or master's (34%). Furthermore, about 41% of respondents are in management, directorship, or presidency positions, and most have between 1 to 5 years of work (42%) or between 11 to 20 years in the institution (27%). When asked specifically about their work at the institution's corporate university, the groups with the highest concentration are repeated: individuals who have between 1 to 5 years of work (50%) or between 11 to 20 years at the corporate university (17%).

Regarding the actions taken during the pandemic period, the core of this article, some descriptive data are worth mentioning. Short online courses were identified as the type of education with the highest number of respondents (32%), followed by seminars, technical conferences, and distance lectures (23%), and graduate online courses (17%) (Table 3).

TABLE 3 Courses during the pandemic with the highest n. of participants 

Type of Course	Abs. Freq.	Rel. Freq.
Short online courses	80	32%
Graduate online courses	43	17%
Seminars, Technical Congresses, Distance Lectures	56	23%
MOOCS, Coursera	20	8%
Mentoring, Coaching	22	9%
There were no training courses/initiatives in this period.	11	4%
I don't know how to inform	10	4%
Others	5	2%

Source: Research data.

On the other hand, courses aimed at qualifying teachers and instructors were identified, in general, as the most important action taken by the corporate university during the pandemic (31%), followed by courses for qualified employees (21%) or investments in digital technologies (19%) (Table 4). This is in line with Buryakov et al. (2019), ^{Jestine and Aguilar (2021)}, Kiron et al. (2016), ^{Siebel, (2017)}, ^{Castro and Eboli (2013)}, and Sorochinsky et al. (2020) that state that the financial/social health and competitiveness of organizations are directly associated with work efficiency improvement and social development contribution by increasing the level of competence, skills, and abilities of its specialists, based in the digital environment that requires technologies knowledge. Nevertheless, it is not aligned with the CEO's point of view, which did not perceive or recognize the impacts of workforce training.

TABLE 4 Main actions taken during the pandemic 

Type of Course	Abs. Freq.	Rel. Freq.
Courses to qualify teachers/instructors/facilitators	43	31%
Courses to qualify employees	29	21%
Courses to support/engage employees	17	12%
Investments in digital technologies	26	19%
Partnerships with national institutions	13	9%
Partnerships with international institutions	7	5%
Others	4	3%

Source: Research data.

It was also noticed that investments in the corporate university during the pandemic increased (41%) or remained constant (27%) (Table 5).

TABLE 5 Perception of investments during the pandemic 

Perceptions	Abs. Freq.	Rel. Freq.
Increased in comparison to the two previous years	40	41%
The investment was kept stable	26	27%
Reduced the investment	18	19%
I don't know how to inform	13	13%

Source: Research data.

Finally, in a post-pandemic context, most respondents consider the expansion of hybrid courses, with a predominance of online methodology, as the most important trend to be adopted by corporate universities (38%), followed by the migration of all courses for online methodology (20%). ^{Carnevale and Hatak (2020)}, ^{Baldwin (2020)} in line with mention this, and Falkenstein, Hommel, and Powell (2021) that the pandemic sped the digital migration to the digital world, quickly adapt and learn new virtual educational alternatives, as all activities should be done by home. Graph 2 presents other categories, as well as the distinction between the orders of importance attributed by the respondents.

Source: Research data.

GRAPH 1 Trends of corporate university in the post-pandemic context 

While the descriptive analysis of the data was limited to just presenting the sample of respondents and information related to corporate universities, both in the context of the pandemic and perspectives in relation to the post-pandemic context, the next subsections focus on the relationship between demographic variables — gender, age, educational background, hierarchical position and length of service — and some of the variables related to the main actions taken by companies in relation to covid-19.

Therefore, this section was divided into two subsections: the first presents the main findings related to the actions taken during the covid-19 pandemic, while the second one presents the trends in the post-pandemic context. In each of the subsections, the inferential results of the questionnaires are presented together with the discussion arising from the interviews carried out with the managers of 8 companies.