Organizational capability building in transformation with university-company collaboration

Abstract

Transformation in the modern developed societies challenges the companies in them, where especially the smaller companies acting in traditional and rigid fields are experiencing difficulties. There are companies that do not have the experience of drastic changes or have rather aimed their efforts in resisting or shielding themselves against change are now back against the wall in face of the megatrends of digital and green transformation. In order to cope with the change, organizations have to expand and heterogenize their value production, which requires developing their capabilities but also developing a change-positive organizational culture. The capability development can be done by educating the current personnel or hiring new skilled professionals. In a highly competitive labour market, where most of the companies are looking for new people, the recruitment is challenging, especially when field- and company-specific tailored skillset are sought after. University-company collaboration with tailored learning and internship can provide new focused capabilities for the organizations, but the culture for such collaboration needs development and planning. This paper studies the opportunities and challenges in a university-collaboration in a tailored internship-course development for organizations challenged by changes in the field. The study focuses on a case of an international master’s programme on a regional context.