Global Business Dynamics: A Comparative Analysis of Apple and Unilever

This report provides a comparative analysis of the corporate universities established by Apple Inc. and Unilever. It begins with an executive summary, highlighting the importance of corporate universities in the context of globalization and the need for competitive advantage through knowledge management. The introduction further emphasizes the role of knowledge management in global business and the establishment of corporate universities as a means to enhance employee skills and productivity. The discussion section delves into the specifics of Apple University and Unilever Four Acres, detailing their objectives, structures, and the knowledge they impart. It covers the history, curriculum, and the strategic importance of these institutions within their respective companies. The report then outlines the potential benefits of corporate universities, such as strategic alignment, knowledge sharing, and consistent messaging. It also addresses how these universities contribute to the development of leaders and a skilled workforce. The report concludes with recommendations for establishing and optimizing corporate universities, reinforcing their value in achieving organizational goals.

Running head: GLOBAL BUSINESS DYNAMIC
GLOBAL BUSINESS DYNAMIC
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive summary
This paper will focus on analyzing the corporate universities of two major companies Apple
Inc. and Unilever. The rise in competition and the rise of globalization has led to businesses
operating their business in other countries however tor unsuccessfully it is highly important
for business to gain a competitive advantage in the market. One of the major issues that
organisations face these days is the lack of competent employees because of the lack of
proper education provided to the employees. Thus, major companies have established their
own universities and corporate campuses like Apple University and Unilever Four Acres in
order to encourage proper knowledge management and provide necessary information to
develop skills and competencies important to successfully operate the business and for their
development. The paper will provide the potential benefits of the establishment of corporate
universities and also state why it is important to investment in corporate universities and the
reason for it being worthwhile.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Apple University....................................................................................................................4
Unilever four acres.................................................................................................................5
Potential benefits....................................................................................................................7
Recommendations................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
Reference..................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
In the age of globalization, it can be seen that various organisations have been trying
to develop an international influence and have been operating on a global scale by expanding
their business in other countries. In order to operate and sustain the operation in a global
scale, organisations and businesses need a competitive advantage which will help them in
operating in the market successfully and create a value for themselves which will contribute
to the growth and development of the business (Porter and Kramer 2019). One of the aspects
that help global economies to achieve competitive advantage is knowledge management.
According to scholars, knowledge management is considered to be the procedure of
creating, using, sharing and managing information and knowledge of an organisation (Ahmad
et al 2017). Serenko and Bontis (2016) states knowledge management is highly essential in
boosting the efficiency of the ability to make decisions of an organisation. It helps in making
sure that employees of a specific organisation or business have access to the expertise that is
held within a company or an organisation and smarter workforce is created in order to make
informed and quick decisions which contribute to the organizational benefits.
It has been that in recent times, in the age of globalization, majority of the big
corporations have been focusing and putting emphasis on knowledge management which has
led many major corporations to establish their own universities in order to provide the
necessary knowledge to their employees for better productivity and positive operations. This
paper will be presenting a case analysis on the universities that have been established by two
of the major companies, Apple and Unilever, their potential benefits and provide suitable
recommendations.

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Discussion
Apple Inc. and Unilever are among the top companies that have established their own
corporate university. Corporate university is defined as an educational institution which
facilitates organisations or businesses to cultivate their individual knowledge and learning
(Sułkowski and Zawadzki 2016). The main aim of the corporate university is to make
employees be prepared, educated in a better manner and make them more confident so that
they can be productive in their organisation and produce quality work so that the companies
can be productive and also contribute to the profits of the organisation. According to reports,
big companies have established their internal universities as they thought that the traditional
business schools have not been successful at training leaders and managers that are essential
and vital to run the operations of the company (Guthrie 2013). This is one of the major
factors that have led Apple and Unilever come up with their own universities in order to
produce eminent employees who will be able to contribute to their business in a positive way.
Apple University
Apple University is the internal training and educational department of the famous
multinational technology company, Apple Inc. This university is currently led by the dean
and the vice president of the University, Joel Poldony, an eminent sociologist and formerly a
dean of one of the most prestigious universities, Yale School of Management. This
University was started by the late co-founder of the company, Steve Jobs in the year, 2008.
The Apple University is located in the City Center inside the Cupertino headquarters. The
main of the University is to impart the corporate culture and the business history of the
company to the new generations of the management and also to the new recruits that join the
company as result of the acquisitions (Arocha 2017).

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The university runs one year round and it consists of writers, instructors and editors
who are responsible for preparing, packaging and the teaching the learning materials. The
professors who provide the students with the necessary knowledge mostly come from
prestigious and premium educational institutes all across the globe like MIT, Stanford,
Berkley and Harvard.
According to scholars, Steve Jobs initially was not satisfied and was having a lot of
issues as he was not being able to find the right candidates who were suitable for working in
Apple (Hunter et al 2018). Steve Jobs was very unconventional and did not believe in
traditional methods and thus did not give degrees of the employees much importance. He
thought that majority of the business graduates just teach the course materials and do not
provide any extra effort to help the students develop competencies and skills required in the
real word.
Thus, Steve Jobs came up with the idea of establishing a corporate university where
he would nurture the employees and the new recruits so that they could have a different and
unique approach to solving issues. According to scholars, most of the course materials that
are taught in Apple University are based on the crucial case studies about the decision
making of Apple; the University is elite and secretive and provides most of the knowledge
about the style of the company (van Dael et al 2017).
Unilever four acres
Unilever is one of the most popular transnational companies which is currently
headquartered in London. Unilever is seen to have introduced a Leadership programme
which is provided to the Unilever’s Four Acres Leadership Development Centre in
Singapore.

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The company long time back had acquired or purchased a site, Four Acres in the
United Kingdom. This site has become one of the key centers of the company for
development and learning. Unilever four acres had expanded from the corporate campus in
London to Singapore. The site was opened in the year, 2010 and the company had invested
about €50m in order to encourage learning and development especially during the times
where majority of the organisations were shutting down their learning and development
centers (Unilever Singapore 2013).
According to scholars, the primary aim of the corporate campus of Unilever is to
drive the core values in terms of sustainability, as the company continues to grow and fulfills
their vision of doubling the organisation as a size while curbing down the level or ratio of the
environmental footprint (Manfredini, Cezarino, and Liboni 2017). As the company has been
expanding, the company highly focuses on the importance of leaders in the organisation.
Unilever thinks that it is the leaders of the company who will help in guiding the organisation
in the right direction and will be able to manage the giant sized company successfully and
efficiently. Thus, this corporate campus by Unilever provides their employees and candidates
with leadership and development programmes in order to train them efficiently so that they
can successfully work across complex and emerging marketing while increasing the social
impact of the organisation in a positive way. It has been seen that over the years, thousands of
leaders of the company have gone through a transformational leadership experience at the
corporate campus of the company. Majority of the facilities of the company has become
synonymous with the development of leadership in the company. Unilever states that the
Four Acres is the place where the company has big conversations, work to build capacity,
grow the network and share ideas.

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Potential benefits
Corporate universities have been gaining importance and prominence among the
major companies which has led to other multinational and big companies to consider
incorporating these methods and establishing universities of their own in order to recruit or
enhance the quality of the existing the employees of the organisation to be productive and
help in organisations gaining benefits. According to scholars, corporate universities are more
effective in comparison to decentralized development and learning activities and training
departments that are organized by the different units in the business (Sammarra et al 2017).
Many scholars suggest that corporate universities have provided better knowledge and helped
the people learning in these universities to develop the necessary skills that are required in the
workplace in comparison to the traditional business schools (Konovalenko and Grønhaug
2017).
It has been seen that corporate universities have a lot of benefits which has been
helping the major companies in a huge way. It has helped them in creating leaders and
employees as they vision them to be which is highly essential for a company. One of the
major benefits of incorporating or establishing a corporate university is the strategic
alignment with the goals and mission of an organisation or a company. According to scholars,
the best and the most effective corporate universities are driven by mission, strategic and
designed in a way that helps in achieving specific objectives of a business (Dealtry 2017).
Every organisation has a different work culture and is seen to function differently as
they have different corporate values. The different work culture and the difference in
operations is one of the key and primary factors which help providing an organisation with
leverage. One of the potential benefits of these corporate universities is that they provide the
specific knowledge which they feel help them in the operations of their own company (Ewer

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and Russ-Eft 2017). In the traditional methods of teaching, it is impossible for teachers and
universities to apprehend what exactly a company is looking for and how do they function.
This is where the establishment of corporate universities and campuses play a huge role.
They provide the employees and the new joiners with knowledge which only the major
corporations will be able to provide. Aligning this with knowledge management, it is seen
that one of the key aspects of knowledge is the sharing of specialist expertise. Telaga et al
(2018) states knowledge management is the process that helps in sharing the knowledge of an
organisation. Corporate universities do exactly this and provide their employees or students
with expert knowledge about the organisation which helps the employees to learn new
strategies which is essential for the fruitful operations of an organisation.
According to scholars, corporate universities help in ensuring consistent message and
quality of the organisation (Intezari, Taskin, and Pauleen 2017). The primary reason for the
establishment of corporate universities was to provide necessary information about the
company and ensure that employees are efficiently trained and provided knowledge which
helps in ensuring the quality of the organisation. Corporate universities are basically the
knowledge management tools of an organisation via which the companies or organisations
handle and share the necessary and vital information which helps organisations to achieve
their desired missions and goals (Scarso 2017). Thus, aligning with knowledge management
it can be seen that knowledge management also helps in establishing better communication
within the organisation and the employees by sharing the important and necessary
information and also helps in improving the agility of the organisation through consistent
communication within the organisation. According to scholars, communication is one of the
key factors that contribute to the success of an organisation as it helps in clearly establishing
the task and the goals in a clear manner (Razmerita, Kirchner and Nielsen 2016). This helps
in bring potential benefits for the organisation as well as the employees.

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Khan (2018) suggests that corporate universities have a huge role in retaining
employees in an organisation. Major companies like Apple Inc. initially could not sustain
employees because of the demand and the expectation of the job which was totally different
from the one the students have studies in business schools or have experienced in other job.
The lack of knowledge about the company and the structure of the company led to this issue.
Thus, when aligned with knowledge management, it can be seen that providing the necessary
resources and knowledge to the people ensure that they understand the organizational culture
and work accordingly to meet the demands of the organisation and work towards the
productivity of the organisation. This helps the employees of the organisation to get
accustomed to the work and get connected to the organisation which automatically leads to
retention of employees and better productivity.
One of the central and vital knowledge management theories is the organizational KM
theory. The primary or the main focus of this theory is on the structures of the organisation
and understand how the design of the organisation in terms of their hierarchy or culture has
been designed to effectively manage knowledge and the process of knowledge (Bamel and
Bamel 2018). Moreover, it has been seen that corporate universities highly focus on
providing knowledge about the organizational structure in order to give the employees the
insight of the organisation and establish the different roles and functions of the organisation
so that the employees are fully aware of all the vital information and work accordingly to
fulfill the desired goals which helps in enhancing the quality of performance of the
employees which contribute to the growth and development of the company.
Corporate universities do not only contribute to the development of the organisation
but also focuses highly on the growth and development of their employees which is one of
the major positive factors. Knowledge management also strives to empower the employees of
the organisation (Abualoush et al 2018). This helps in motivating the employees and helps

10GLOBAL BUSINESS DYNAMIC
them in attaining competencies and skills which will not only helps in contributing to the
business but also to the professional development of the employees in the near future.
It can be seen that establishment of corporate universities has played a huge role in
transforming the operations of a business and has helped in providing customized training to
the employees and have provided the important and necessary knowledge about the
organisation which has helped both Apple Inc. and Unilever to help employees transform into
leaders and have a unique vision to successfully cater to the companies.
Recommendations
By assessing the potential benefits of corporate universities, it can be seen that
investment in setting up corporate universities is worthwhile and has a huge role to play in
the operations of the organisation. Apple Inc. and Unilever, both have established their
universities and campus to hire employees and contribute to the development of their talent
and also help employees understand and get accustomed to the workplace in an efficient
manner so that one can understand the needs of the business and work accordingly in order to
cater to the needs of the organisation or the company.
It has been seen that corporate universities have contributed in shaping the employees
and help them in providing proper knowledge which has helped them in developing the skills
and the competencies which are not only required for the organisation but also helps in
providing a wonderful learning experience which one can apply in the near future. Corporate
universities provide the necessary knowledge to the employees which the traditional business
schools have failed to provide which is highly essential in working in organisations with
different work culture and an approach and also essential in working in the real word. Thus,
investing on setting up corporate universities is worthwhile and essential as it meets the

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demands of the organisation and contributes to the development and growth of the
employees.
Conclusion
Apple Inc. and Unilever are considered to be major companies that have recognized
the importance of knowledge management and have put emphasis on it by incorporating tools
to facilitate knowledge management within the organisation which corporate universities.
Corporate universities is seen to have a lot of advantage and has helped in shaping the
employees to work efficiently in the different business setting and as per the demands of the
organisation which has helped employees to develop high quality skills and competencies and
also helped in organisations like Apple Inc. and Unilever gain a competitive advantage in the
market which has led these companies become a huge name in the global market.

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