ABSTRACT
There was a time during the late 1990s when the world suddenly woke up to the allure of the ‘knowledge economy’. Politicians boldly declared that the future prosperity of their countries would depend far more upon companies’ intellectual and human capital than upon their manufacturing and financial capital. It has all died down a bit since then; but the traditional and often undervalued business of managing human resources in any organization gained new stature. As explained in this chapter, the Five Capitals Framework defines human capital in terms of any one individual’s physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual capacities – in other words, what each one of us brings to any working, playing, nurturing or loving relationship. All organizations (for-profit or non-profit) are now keen to find ways of enhancing their human capital, although there’s a lively debate as to how best to measure this – or indeed whether it is worth measuring in the first place.
