Training and Development (T&D) programs are increasingly playing a crucial role in determining long-term survival and success for technologically advanced corporations and societies alike. T&D is the sine qua non to address major challenges at both the societal and the corporate level through continuously building and renewing technological skills and knowledge. A resource-based, dynamic learning systems approach encompassing the major stakeholders of vocational and corporate Training and Development programs, addresses the following three questions: (1) What hinders the strategic role of T&D? (2) What facilitates/reinforces the strategic role of T&D? (3) How can the hindrances be alleviated and the reinforcing elements enhanced in a Continuous Improvement Process (CIP) framework based on multinational benchmarking of "Best Practices"? A comparative analysis of the historical evolution and the state-of-the-art in corporate- and government-sponsored Training and Development in the U.S., Japan, Germany, and France are used as the frame of reference for dealing with these questions. The answers developed provide a conceptual framework for T&D within the context of the learning, technology-driven corporation of the future, which pivots around three mutually reinforcing levels of technological learning: operational learning, tactical learning or learning how-to-learn from experience, and strategic learning or learning to learn how-to-learn from experience. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Author Keywords
Index Keywords
