An Enron MBA? Going it alone in today's volatile business climate can easily spell disaster for corporate universities (CUs). But when CUs partner with top business schools, the results spell credibility and competitive clout for companies.

How would you like the diploma on your wall to read "Enron University MBA"? What sounded quite plausible a decade ago sounds like a bad joke in today's volatile corporate environment.

Even the venerable Arthur D. Little School of Management watched its parent company, ADL - the oldest consulting company in the world - go into receivership last month.

However, if you think the demise of these pioneering corporate degree programmes is going to stop corporate universities playing a dramatic role in the radical changes currently taking place in management education, think again.

Corporate universities are growing by leaps and bounds in the US, and are now making serious inroads in Europe and Asia. It's easy to understand why.

CUs fulfill a top priority for companies in today's competitive marketplace: to develop leaders who can execute corporate intent, and close the management competency gap, from where the company is today to where it should be tomorrow.

The greatest asset of corporate universities is the daily access they have to senior leadership that allows them to align education programmes with the company's shifting strategic goals.

At their very best, CUs excel at organising company-wide change programmes and using a variety of techniques, including distance learning, to cascade efficiently and effectively new ideas and concepts deep into the organisation.

But corporate universities have not always focused on what they do best. In the past, frustrated with traditional business schools, CUs explored ways to offer their own degree programmes to employees.

This proved to be a bad idea. What they soon discovered was that a quality degree meant expensive investments in curricula, often out of line with corporate needs.

Corporate universities also tried to position themselves as profit centres, creating management development programmes they could sell to other corporations to cover operating expenses.

Changing economic times forced companies to take a second look, and they realised that management education was not their core business.

Now, back on track, corporate universities have returned to their core mission of aligning management development with the stra-tegic intent of the company. As a result, CUs are poised to play a big role in management education as they evolve in this century.

Does this pose a threat to traditional business schools? On the contrary, it actually brings business schools an unprecedented challenge and growth opportunity.

Both CUs and traditional business schools, despite their very different missions, know that if they hope to enhance the practice of management, they must take the next step: collaborate.

In a recent survey, I asked some large corporations - this included British Airways, Johnson & Johnson and Motorola - this question: "What key attributes do you look for in a management development partner?"

Number one on the list of corporate sponsors was "thought leadership". Companies want to collaborate with partners on the cutting edge of new thinking, those who can bring the latest theories and models to their senior management team. Of course, business schools have always led the way in the areas of research and the creation of new knowledge.

A second key attribute sponsors look for is "impact". Corporations want providers to deliver company-specific programmes that directly impact the organisation to bring about change of behaviour among their management teams.

It is here that business schools need the help of CUs. Many brilliantly-designed and delivered business school executive programmes have failed the return on investment test because the new concepts were just not sustainable. Without the co-operation of the corporate university to integrate these programmes into the systems of the organisation, little will change.

However, in order for traditional schools to inspire confidence and encourage CUs to partner with them, they must develop new ways of doing business as well. Business schools must become customer-intimate and be ready to invest time in getting to know the company and its industry context.

They have got to work at improving cycle time providing "real-time" responses to their corporate partner's development needs.

Business schools must also be willing to deliver programmes globally rather than just on their own campus. And they must embrace technology and utilise distance learning to deliver blended management development models in cost-effective formats.

With collaboration also come new challenges for corporate universities. Once CUs accept that they cannot do it all alone - understand the changing needs of their company, access top talent and develop high-impact programmes - they must be willing to welcome business schools as true strategic partners.

CUs must provide academic partners with access to senior management, along with the opportunity to integrate education programmes into the fabric of the institution, from performance reviews to succession planning.

Leading companies are already forming these new corporate/academic partnerships. Some corporations have joined with top business schools to create blended corporate degree programmes that offer the best of both worlds: a high-quality, accredited MBA programme and customised course projects that let employees do real work, not homework.

The Babson/Intel MBA and the Lucent MS in Finance at Babson are just two examples of this new approach.

When corporate universities partner with top business schools, they can offer a management education experience that blends the latest conceptual models with the impact that can be obtained only when the new way of thinking leads to a new way of working. When leading business schools and corporations join forces, it is a win-win situation for all.

Thomas Moore is dean of executive education at Babson College, and CEO of Babson's new distance learning organisation, Babson Interactive. He can be contacted at moore@babson.edu