Presentation for the International HRD Conference 2010 in Pecs, Hungary.

1. “CORPORATE UNIVERSITIES”
MAKING A STRATEGIC CONTRIBUTION BY ENHANCING ABSORPTIVE
CAPACITY
WORKING PAPER
DAAN ASSEN MSc MBA

2.  ntroduction
I
 ur research
O
 heoretical Co
T
ncept
 ey concepts
K
 irst findings
F

3. 3

4. OUR RESEARCH
IN BRIEF
 Aim: understand the strategic contribution corporate universities can
make to innovation in organisations
 Research questions:
 What is a corporate university and what models of corporate
universities exist?
 How can corporate universities play a strategic role in organisational
learning?
 How do corporate universities contribute to strategic innovation?
 Methodology:
 Literature research (stage 1)
 Case studies (stage 2) – healthcare, industry
 Quantitative research (stage 3)
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5. THEORETICAL CONCEPT
Potential
absorptive
capacity
Corporate
Organisation
University
Context
Configuration
Realised
absorptive
capacity

6. CORPORATE UNIVERSITY
Advanced Knowledge Knowledge
Training Department Backbone Factory
(operational) (tactical) (strategical)
Goal • Efficiency • Alignment • Competitive
advantage
Relation • Indirect, re-active • Direct, re-active • Direct, pro-active
to strategy
Activities • Coordinating training • Develop and rollout • Strategic innovation
activities learning initiatives in the corporation
based on corporate via learning and
strategy research
Rademakers (2005)

7. ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY
Knowledge Knowledge
acquisition assimilation
Knowledge
exploitation
Knowledge
transformation
Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Zahra & George, 2002 7

8. ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY
Dimension Description
Acquisition Refers to a firm’s capability to identify and acquire externally
generated knowledge that is critical to its operations.
Assimilation Refers to the firm’s routines and processes that allow it to
analyse, process, interpret and understand information
obtained from external sources.
Transformation Refers to the firm’s capability to develop and refine the
routines that facilitate combining existing knowledge and
newly acquired assimilated knowledge.
Exploitation Refers to the routines that allow firms to refine, extend, and
leverage existing competencies or to create new ones by
incorporating acquired and transformed knowledge into its
operations.
Zahra & George (2002)
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9. FIRST FINDINGS
 Corporate university is a misleading and ambiguous concept
 Several typologies and development models for corporate universities
exist
 Models and typologies are descriptive and provide limited guidance to
implementing a corporate university
 Research into corporate universities from a strategic management
perspective is lacking (e.g. contribution to strategic innovation)
 Absorptive capacity seems to be an interesting concept to measure a
corporate universities contribution to strategic innovation
 Absorptive capacity concept has an external orientation, although a
broader measurement instrument exists (Brettel et al, 2009)
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