In the UK, Harrison (2000) argued that the historical development of HRD is more fragmented compared to the US. The history of HRD in UK was suggested to have started during World War Two in which ‘training’ was the symbiotic term. Similarly to the USA, during this period, training was the term because workers were trained in the production and manufacturing sector as well as becoming soldiers. The emergence of HRD began in early 1980s when the manufacturing industry was hit by a recession and a strategy was required to overcome the crises especially in multinational companies. Companies began to realise that human resource is an important asset and started developing their employees particularly to improve their performance and develop or enhance their skills to increase productivity. Since then, HRD is considered as an important business strategy and
processes (Harrison, 2000) but viewpoints of HRD as a strategy for business success were argued by writers such as Garavan, Costine and Heraty (1995).