Beyond Skill — An Introduction

Abstract

This book discusses things of importance to many of us: work, employment, pay, work environments, learning, participation and voice. It discusses the impact of government policy, other institutional arrangements, organisational practices, collective and individual behaviour, on all these things. The chapters in this book are based on a series of invited papers given at an International Symposium on ‘Developing human capability, in and for, the workplace’, in June 2008 at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. This symposium marked the end of a five year research programme investigating the impact of institutions, organisations and individuals on the development of human capability. The core task of the book is to critically analyse recent policy and practice pertaining to work and skills. It does this from a variety of perspectives, and it introduces (in Chapters 2 and 10) the concept of human capability as a way to constructively reorient our considerations of work, skill, and productive societies.