Corporate university

A corporate university is any educational entity that is a strategic tool designed to assist its parent organization in achieving its mission by conducting activities that cultivate individual and organizational learning, knowledge, and wisdom. Corporate universities (CU) are a growing trend in corporations. In 1993, corporate universities existed in only 400 companies. By 2001, this number had increased to 2,000, including Walt Disney, Boeing, and Motorola.

The term 'corporate university' also refers to public universities which have developed, or have been forced by states to develop, corporate style behaviour.

In most cases, corporate universities are not universities in the strict sense of the word. The traditional university is an educational institution which grants both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in a variety of subjects, as well as conducting original scientific research. In contrast, a corporate university typically limits scope to providing job-specific, indeed company-specific, training for the managerial personnel of the parent corporation. The scope of the CU depends on the corporate strategy, consequently maintaining a strategic alignment between the CU and the parent organisation belong to the key success factors of a CU implementation. Corporate universities are most commonly found in the United States, a nation which has no official legal definition of the term "university". Perhaps the best-known corporate university is the Hamburger University operated by McDonald's Corporation in Chicago.