Corporate university success drivers: testing the Malcolm Baldrige framework in the corporate university environment

Abstract

The Corporate University (CU) phenomenon has rapidly proliferated within the field of adult education. Despite this growth in investment, the CU has yet to receive appropriate academic attention as critical component of the full continuum of education and human development services. This dissertation will take the preliminary steps to close this gap by applying and testing a validated and reliable strategic management model, the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) within the CU context. The MBNQA framework was selected as the model for inquiry in the CU environment as it accurately represents TQM (Curkovic, Melnyk, Calantone, & Handfield, 2000). TQM is a well-respected lens and CU experts believe it could be critical to running a successful CU (Campbell & Dealtry, 2003). As expected, the MBNQA has a great fit within the CU framework. This is evidenced by the fact that the three variables tested account for nearly 80% of the variance in model. Three variables drive success in this environment including Leadership, Operations, and Customer Focus, in that order. Implications are discussed for learning leaders, education, and professional organizations.