![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This contribution explores how multinational companies (MNCs) have managed to develop their own policy that sets international standards for education, in particular in the sphere of corporate education. It criticises education policy studies for leaving the study of corporate education mainly to management and human resource studies. As a consequence, education researchers tend to ignore an important policy area that has emerged out of the public limelight. This contribution is informed by a retroductive methodology and explores the ‘extrastatecraft’ of companies by combining empirical research with a theoretical discussion of transnational private authority. Any speculation about the return of the nation state that does not account for the privatisation of policy making and the influence of multinational companies as the new global shadow sovereigns risks failing to see that the nation state as we know it no longer exists.
Acknowledgments
A very early version of this paper was presented in 2016 at the conference on University Futures at the Danish School for Education, which was organised by the EU funded project ‘Universities in the Knowledge Economy’ (UNIKE). I would like to thank the conference participants for their comments. My thanks also go to Susan Robertson and two anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful comments on subsequent drafts. Last but not least, I like to thank all the experts I interviewed for this research project for sharing their knowledge and insights with me. The usual disclaimer applies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The expenses include the cost of internally organised training programmes, consultancy, as well as the purchase of learning, classroom and authoring tools and systems, learning and content management systems and certification (Trainingmag Citation2017, 20–1).
2. See Eurostat 2016: Participation rate in education and training (last 4 weeks) by sex and labour status [trng_lfse_01], https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Adult_learning_statistics [last accessed 12/06/2019]. The Adult Education Survey of the EU that looks at a one-year period identifies participation rate of 42.7 percent of the population aged 25 to 64 in non-formal training in 2016. See (2016), Participation rate in education and training [trng_aes_200] (last accessed 12/06/2019].
3. The comparison draws on figures provided by CIA World Factbook 2015 and Fortune Global 500. For a ranking see www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/corporations_vs_governments_final.pdf [last accessed 28/06/2019].
4. See https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/24310/bsa_statement_of_ethical_practice.pdf and http://www.esrc.ac.uk/files/funding/guidance-for-applicants/esrc-framework-for-research-ethics-2015/.
5. It is this emphasis that distinguishes his work from Michel Foucault’s governmentality (Foucault Citation2008).
6. For a very interesting study of the role of management theory in this context, see Hanlon 2016.
7. There are interesting management studies that explore the specific challenge MNCs are confronted with. However, they fail to account for the broader implications for societies. In a manner that is very typical for management studies, they rather seek to develop recipes for MNCs for how to deal with the challenges. A case in point is the concept of ignorance management, which is designed to help management deal with the loss of knowledge as a result of imposing a standardisation that makes diversity invisible (see e.g. Israilidis, Lock, and Cooke Citation2013).
8. In this contribution I only focus on the Stanford theory of world society and do not look at the other two theories of world society, one related to the English School and the other to systems theory (for a good overview, see Kessler and Herborth Citation2016).
9. However, current examples show that charismatic authority continues to exist in modern societies.
10. Most education scholars who seek to bring power and coercion into the analysis of global standards are informed by a Marxian perspective, such as Wallerstein’s world-system theory (Griffiths and Arnove Citation2015) or Gramsci’s theory of hegemony (Robertson and Dale Citation2015). Gramsci’s account of society was a major source of inspiration in many of my other publications (e.g. Hartmann Citation2015, Citation2014, Citation2011). In this contribution, I draw on a neo-institutionalist perspective only in order to develop a nuanced critique that can account for the strengths of this perspective as well as its shortcomings.
11. We could also argue that Weber’s account of modern societies is much less critical than that of, for instance, Karl Marx. Andrew Zimmerman, for instance, shows in his study of Weber’s work how much he was in favour of German colonies and the racist prejudices informing his studies of other cultures (Zimmermann Citation2006).
12. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Continuing_Vocational_Training_Survey_(CVTS)_methodology [last accessed 23/06/2019].
13. A study of the American consultancy firm Brandon Hall Group speaks of a trickle-down strategy in the spending of money on training. The higher an employee is positioned, the more money is spent on her or his training (Brandon Hall Group Citation2016, 7).
14. See www.deutschland.de/en/topic/knowledge/education-learning/pioneer-in-mexico-volkswagen-group-academy [last accessed 23/06/2019].
15. See http://www.ceibs.edu/ceibs-establishment [last accessed 28/06/2019].
16. http://annualreport2015.volkswagenag.com/servicepages/filelibrary/files/collection.php [last accessed 28/06/2019].
17. See https://new.siemens.com/th/th/company/sustainability/education.html or www.siemens.com/about/sustainability/en/core-topics/employees/references/continuing-education.htm. In Germany the number of CUs reached 39 in 2005 and has remained more or less stable since then (Hovestadt and Beckmann Citation2010).
18. Examples in France are AXA, Alcatel-Lucent, EDF Group France Telecom, Fnac, Mazars, Orange and PSA Peugeot Citroën. A recent study speaks of about 70 to 100 corporate universities (Salomon and Demos Citation2014,: 6). Companies in Spain with corporate universities are Gas Natural Fenosa, Grupo Santander, Indra, Ferrovial, Telefónica and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (Baladron and Correyero Citation2013; for Italy, see Cappiello and Pedrini Citation2017).
19. https://9to5mac.com/2014/11/03/apple-plans-apple-university-in-china-bringing-jobs-vision-to-asia/[last accessed 28/06/2019].
20. See https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/scale-for-good/investment-in-people.html [last accessed 16/06/2019].
21. https://www.mars-llc.ru/cis/en/careers/more-than-a-job/mars-university.aspx [last accessed 28/03/2019].
22. For an excellent study of the differences between MNCs in terms of ownership and control of affiliates, see (UNCTAD Citation2016, 130–143).
23. Studies indicate that American MNCs seem to prefer such a hierarchical structure, although the sector and the type of production also play important roles (see, e.g. Edwards et al. Citation2007, 32) (interview 22).
24. https://quotes.wsj.com/AAPL/company-people/executive-profile/35827600[last accessed 23/06/2019].
25. According to the HR experts I interviewed, companies recruiting from an external labour market tend to make use of this additional source of authority to a much greater extent than companies with a strong internal labour market (interview 2, 6, 9, 11, 21, 22).
26. https://www.hrci.org/our-programs/certify-your-staff [last accessed 23/06/2019].
27. The service is carried out by a sub-unit, Corporate Learning Improvement Process (CLIP) http://www.efmd.org [last accessed 21/06/2019].
28. A comparison between 2007 and 2011 indicates a slight decline in the education provided by employers, while external provision increased in many European countries. See EuroStat: Distribution of non-formal education and training activities by provider[trng_aes_170].
29. There also are some country-related differences. The EU Adult Education Survey identifies a broad range from 71 per cent outsourcing in the Czech Republic to 31 per cent in Slovenia. The EU average is 46 per cent. See Eurostat: Percentage of the total hours in external CVT courses, by training provider and NACE Rev. 1.1 [trng_cvts3_67] http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=trng_hour03n&lang=en [last accessed 28/06/2019].
30. This information is provided by the company. See www.skillsoft.com/about/press_room/press_releases/June-14-17-Skillsoft.asp [last accessed 28/03/2019].
31. https://www.wilsonlearning.com/wlw/workforce/services/en-gb [last accessed 28/06/2019].
32. About 10 percent of training, on average, is provided by this type of provider in the EU countries, according to the latest EuroStata data. See EuroStat: Distribution of non-formal education and training activities by provider Code: trng_aes_170., https://data.europa.eu/euodp/en/data/dataset/pjTE42j35nuLTd0tCI8R0A [last accessed 28/06/2019].
33. Interview 11; see also www.mercer.com/what-we-do/workforce-and-careers/talent-strategy.html [last accessed 28/03/2019].
34. One example is The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and Jim Noel, which provides the major reference for the training courses offered by the Leadership Pipeline Institute at 28 different locations in 22 different countries (see https://leadershippipelineinstitute.com [last accessed 28/06/2019]. Many FORTUNE 500 companies, including some I visited, buy external courses based on this normative framework (interviews 1, 9, 11).
35. https://www.hrci.org/provider-network/providers/continuing-education-provider-program [last accessed 28/06/2019].
36. http://www.thewindowsclub.com/microsoft-learning-partner [last accessed 28/06/2019].
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Eva Hartmann
Dr Eva Hartmann is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. She has published widely on cross-border recognition of higher education qualifications in the context of an emerging European and international labour market, on cross-border quality assurance, and on the internationalisation of further and corporate education. Her current research project focuses on the rise of transnational private authority in the sphere of education.