A performance support system for HRD: a link between research and practice

HRD is exposed as a vital discipline not only for the embedding of employees in a labour organisation; the main thesis of this article is that new information technology is needed to optimise employee's assets in order to make them sensitive to and productive in the central entrepreneurial goals. The adopted theoretical framework here is Simon's theory of bounded rationality. Concept mapping is a specific branch of cognitive mapping metaphors. The SMILE Maker tool was developed in order to elicit cognitive repertoires and strategies that would normally stay tacit. The spatiality of the mapping approach opens the road to generating ideas. Idea selection and idea implementation are the next stages in the existential basis for the problem solving process. The elaborated SMILE Maker method is evaluated for its facilitating effects. The experimental condition showed an increase in the fluency of idea generation. Instead of differentiating SMILE to the various cognitive and learning styles, an attempt was made to make the method tolerant of individual differences. In fact it was an attempt to trigger complementary styles in the learner via the tool.