Introduction
There is a growing body of literature on the emergence and growth of human resource development (HRD) and in particular HRD with a strategic focus. Part of this growth can be attributed to the popularization both of Porter's[1,2] notion of competitive advantage and of the excellence literature, (e.g. [3,4,5 ]). The former body of literature argues that an organization needs to identify the key elements of its value chain in order to achieve competitive advantage. …