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Executive Briefings

Published March 2008

Can Corporate Universities Play a Role in CSR? Should They?

  

  Brian Summerfield

Members of Generation Y — and to a lesser extent, Gen Xers — are commonly said to desire two things from their employers: robust development opportunities and a sense of social responsibility. These corporate “carrots” are fine by themselves, but never the twain shall meet, right?

Maybe not. Annick Renaud-Coulon, an international thought leader in learning and development and the principal founder of the Global Council of Corporate Universities, believes there can and should be a relationship between the two. In fact, she’s spent a substantial part of her recent career advocating greater involvement from corporate universities in their organizations’ CSR initiatives.

Specifically, she envisions these institutions as a kind of intra-organizational communications broker.

“Their role isn’t to take the place of the departments whose job is to decide social and environmental strategies, implement them or manage their application,” she said. “Corporate universities are there to bring different parties together. Their main role is to make corporate responsibility an effective leadership tool for business strategies and corporate identity. So they must develop programs that provide action learning for employees and external stakeholders to help them understand this fundamental issue.”

Renaud-Coulon’s point of view is undoubtedly influenced in part by her European heritage. In stark contrast to the United States, where there are more definitive distinctions between the public and private sectors, the relationship between business and government in the eurozone is much closer. Also, as she points out, people “become citizens through education,” and as institutions of learning, corporate universities can play a part in helping employees fulfill civic responsibilities.

“In Europe, the emphasis is placed on solidarity,” Renaud-Coulon said. “The vast majority of these companies are happy to publish an annual social and environmental report, unlike their counterparts on other continents. Although European companies are not legally obliged to train their workforces to adopt socially and environmentally responsible behavior, corporate universities have started to play a vital role in encouraging this [behavioral] transformation.”

Thus, most European corporations feel compelled to use as many means as they can, including their learning functions, to achieve social ends that might not always have a clear impact on the bottom line. However, cultural considerations aside, Renaud-Coulon said there is a convincing business case to be made for further integration of an organization’s corporate university and its CSR strategies and programs.

“The business case is value creation through managing internal and external stakeholders, with whom it is important to develop intelligent cooperation and control methods. There needs to be a review of the sponsorship of competencies and the donation economy, as well as the relationship between NGOs, rating agencies and international government institutions. There’s a new way of seeing things and a new way of governance. And this cannot be achieved without help. This is where the internal [corporate] university comes into play: It can help managers understand the local and distant environments in which the company operates and acquire new competencies, and define and implement a new strategic agenda for their organization.”