Strategic Coherence Under Turbulence: Department Researchers Spotlight Corporate Learning Breakthroughs

On 6 November 2025, at the 2nd International Conference on Education Research (ICER-2025, Lisbon), the paper “Strategic Coherence and AI-Enabled Personalization: Drivers of Motivation in Corporate Learning” was presented virtually by Arseniy Kovalerchik, a graduate of the Bachelor’s programme “Business Management” at the Graduate School of Business, HSE University. He was joined by his academic supervisor, Konstantin Bagrationi (Associate Professor, Department of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management, PhD in Social Psychology), and by Bagrationi’s doctoral student and department lecturer, Olga Tunkevichus.

The speakers highlighted several key findings:

Sensing proved the strongest predictor of employees’ intrinsic motivation to engage in corporate learning. The more pronounced this organisation’s dynamic capability, the more willing learners are to tackle even demanding courses.

Sustained motivation also depends on strategic coherence –aligning learning content with business goals – and on seizing those opportunities once identified.

Environmental dynamism acts as a natural catalyst: frequent, unpredictable shifts in the external environment spur people to upskill without additional prompting.

Content personalisation and high-quality AI-based recommendations play a supportive, amplifying role: while weaker than the organisational factors above, they strengthen each of the relationships just described.

On the same day, faculty members delivered a second presentation – this time with Irina Plaunova (also a “Business Management” alumna and a supervisee of Bagrationi) – entitled “Strategic Coherence under Turbulence: How Corporate Universities Balance Exploration and Exploitation.” The study examined how corporate universities (CUs) navigate the tension between exploration (innovation) and exploitation (operational mastery).

Vertical strategic coherence emerged as the most powerful driver of exploration: when senior leadership clearly signals an exploratory priority, the CU confidently invests in new competencies (its effect on exploitation was notably weaker).

Strategic coherence between learning objectives and business-unit KPIs boosts both exploration and exploitation.

Technology currently favours exploitation more than exploration: digital tools streamline routine tasks but contribute less to breakthrough innovation.

Depending on which strategic learning subprocess a CU emphasizes – knowledge creation, dissemination, interpretation, or implementation – it can tilt the exploration–exploitation balance in either direction.

The ideas voiced by the conference participants mirror a broader trend: when traditional management tools can no longer guarantee long-term stability, it is the coherence of processes and goals that becomes the vital link between strategy and results - a point highlighted by Olga Filatova, Professor of Practice at the department, in her RBC article (https://trends.rbc.ru/trends/spec-project/68ef53ef9a7947a749a13a82).