ABSTRACT
Today, developing competence has become a crucial issue for establishing a smart workforce that can achieve competitive success (Kanter 1983; Porter 1990). The rapid pace of technological development within areas such as microelectronics and communications has created essentially new conditions for producing goods and services in many industries. The flexibility in production has increased dramatically, while the product life cycles have become shorter. Such rapid technological change creates a requirement for both different competence and for ongoing renewal of the workers’ present competence. Furthermore, as Ellström (1992) argued, an often encountered difficulty for workers when new technology is introduced consists not of learning to handle it, but of using its potential to achieve higher productivity.
