Creating the ‘Neo-Lisbon’ Economy

The chapter advocates Lisbon-oriented policies such as an increasing educational attainment and participation in education and training, higher investment in human capital and mobility. However, these supply-side orientated policies must be complemented with measures relating to organisational effectiveness which strongly influence the dynamism of the economy and the quality of working life through their impact on productivity. This is a source of major concern since the knowledge-based economy is fundamentally about the behaviour of organizations rather than individuals. The rational and efficient solution to problem of low productivity is to make work-base learning workable, which requires an organizational design and setting of workplaces consistent with the creation and diffusion of tacit and informal knowledge.