BRIDGING GOVERNMENT-UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY TECHNOLOGICAL LEARNING DISCONNECTS - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN THE US, JAPAN, GERMANY, AND FRANCE

Training and Development (T&D) programs are increasingly playing a cru cial role in determining long-term survival and success for technologi cally advanced corporations and societies alike. T&D is the sine qua n on 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 enc ompassing 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/reinforc es the strategic role of T&D (3) How can the hindrances be alleviated and the reinforcing elements enhanced in a Continuous Improvement Proc ess (CIP) framework based on multinational benchmarking of ''Best Prac tices''? A comparative analysis of the historical evolution and the st ate-of-the-art in corporate- and government-sponsored Training and Dev elopment in the dealing with these questions. The answers developed pr ovide a conceptual framework for T&D within the context of the learnin g, technology-driven corporation of the future, which pivots around th ree 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 experie nce. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.