Keynote Speaker

Professor Chris Leggett

   University of South Australia

                         Workforce Development and Employment Relations: National, Regional and Global Perspectives.


Abstract 

New technologies and new forms of work organisation have prompted the adoption by corporate, national, regional and international policy makers and influencers of a broader concept of skills formation than that evoked by ‘vocational education and training’. The scope of ‘workforce development’, framed by human capital theory, is wider than technical expertise, and takes in the social skills, traits and attributes desired by employers, implemented by human resource managers, and propagated by national governments, and that is high on the agenda of regional and international employer, labour and trade union councils. With examples from each of these levels, and with reference to the debates on the nature of skill, the keynote address will review and assess the effect on and the implications for employment relations of skills formation conceptualised as workforce development.

Biography

Chris Leggett is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Management at the University of South Australia and in the School of Business at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, where he now resides. He is also the moderator of the International Employment Relations Network-List (IERN-L). Chris has followed an international academic career for over 40 years and has held positions in university management and business schools in Saudi Arabia, the UK, Papua New Guinea, the Sudan, Singapore, Oman and Australia. His publications − on industrial and employment relations − reflect his international perspective. Their titles may be accessed at Community of Science Profile. Chris may be contacted at chris.leggett@jcu.edu.au
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