Human resource development in the knowledge based and services driven economy

Abstract

Purpose – In July 2009 the Universidade Lusiada de Famalicao organized the International Conference on Managing Services in the Knowledge Economy 2009 (MSKE 2009). http://clegi.fam.ulusiada.pt/MSKE2009/. MSKE 2009 was an interesting forum which gathered 60 specialists from 20 countries in different areas such as knowledge management, intellectual capital, human resource development, social policy, law and international economics. In the human resource development field, five relevant contributions were selected to compose the current issue. The purpose of this introductory paper is to review the literature on the role of human resource development (HRD) in the current knowledge based and services driven economy.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the importance of knowledge as a crucial economic factor and the importance of services as the main area of economic business. It shows how HRD relates to services and knowledge.Findings – Starting at the time of the Agricultural Revolution when human...