About

The Global Human Capital Journal addresses the global shift from the Industrial Economy to the Knowledge Economy, which is marked by a profound shift in how human beings work and deliver value. In the Industrial Economy, products and services encapsulated the value of human work; in the Knowledge Economy, information produces the lion's share of value, and customer experience itself is the focus of commerce and government. In the Knowledge Economy, a greater degree of collaboration among people of the world is possible than ever before, and increased interaction will bring unprecedented surprise and opportunity, especially because the potential is great to "level the playing field" among people of the world. Obviously, these developments hold significant ramifications for business and organizational strategy.

More specifically, we are keenly interested in two prongs of this economic transformation: 1) strategically, how organizations can rejuvenate their relationships with customers and constituents by using innovation and transforming how they think about "marketing" and 2) operationally, how organizations can build strong collaborative cultures and skills to engage the growing network of expertise that is emerging around the world, both within and without their walls. Related to this, we examine the cultural and economic significance of global collaboration that is being powered by global sourcing, outsourcing and offshoring. We analyze how global sourcing and collaboration is transforming the enterprise and government organizations as they transition from relatively self-contained, closed entities to more networked, open organizations.

We structure our inquiries and analyses along these topics:

• Beyond Sourcing—This topic covers several styles of "sourcing," including outsourcing and offshoring. We believe that outsourcing will become so pervasive that it will soon lose its identity as a distinct practice. Notably, we discuss many facets of using outsourcing to develop collaborative practices that are subsequently reused for marketing-oriented innovation.
• China, India & Globalization—This is an immense topic, but our chief interest here is in exploring developments in new producers of value—say in India, China or the Philippines—as well as the galvanization of their consumer markets. We write regularly about cultural issues that impact cross-cultural collaborative teams and marketing initiatives.
• Economy—Tackles macro-economic level issues as well as economic development, from the point of view of developing new consumer markets and producer knowledge capabilities.
• Innovation/Web 2.0—Customers are increasingly collaborating among themselves via the Internet to share information about their experiences with products and services. This self-produced consumer information is beginning to rival the influence of producer-controlled information (advertising, promotions, brand building) to the extent that smart producers are creating collaborative strategies with consumers to build their brands.
• Technology/Leaders—CIOs and CTOs have a pivotal role in helping global enterprises adapt to the shift to the Knowledge Economy because information technology is its infrastructure, and they have a strong grasp of innovation and leadership. We offer a strategic look at CIO and CTO issues as well as major technology developments such as enterprise software transformation and hardware, software and network virtualization.
• The Enterprise—The transformation of the commercial enterprise and the government organization will be required as the transition to the Knowledge Economy progresses, and our analyses are usually enterprise-centric due to its influence in the market and its ability to execute strategy.

We strongly feel that organizations will lose control of their destiny during the Knowledge Economy shift unless they understand and respond to the profound changes that customers will demand. Those that understand more quickly will have an unusual opportunity to increase their influence and profitability. The mission of The Global Human Capital Journal is to develop and share insights that will help leaders to appreciate the full potential of their opportunities and threats as well as the role that global human capital can play in economic transformation.