Introduction
Human capital development in its context
Human capital has gained a place in contemporary scholarship and business practice,
explicating economic progress and individual wellbeing at both national and firm
levels (Shultz, 1961; Becker, 1975). The originality of these seminal economists’
research was two-fold: first, in regarding education not as consumption goods but rather as an asset worthy of investment; and second, by developing an analytical
framework to assess the return on investment in education. By investing in education
and training, an individual will develop her human capital, that is, her skills and
knowledge, which will allow her to hold better paid jobs. Investment in education and
employable skills therefore emerged as a key component of human capital deployment,
whether initiated by the state, the company or the individuals themselves (Mincer,
1974). Accordingly, we treat human capital development in this paper as a multifaceted
socio-economic-political phenomenon, conscientious that such returns on investment
are neither homogeneous nor unidirectional as Denny et al. (2001) demonstrated in the
case of the European Union.