Introduction to the special issue.

Periodically, Human Resource Planning focuses on a single theme and dedicates an entire issue of the journal to that theme. In this case, we devote attention to the "new economy. To some readers it may seem strange that this topic comes up at this late stage: Don't we understand that the new economy crashed along with the dot.coms? We don't think so. The effect of the Internet and e-business remains and will affect many aspects of the worldwide economy on into the future.

The interesting part about this special issue is that the conference that gave birth to it was held to celebrate the dot.com boom when indeed many thought "build to flip" might be better than "built to last." Participants were prepared to comment on the human resource and management implications of the primacy of market capitalization and the marvels of online hits with less attention paid to the traditional fundamentals of long-term profitability and revenue growth.

But perhaps one of the blessings of the time it takes to go from original thought to publication is that the authors lived through the economic changes of 2001 and 2002 and have been able to factor those changes into the view of the new economy that they present here.

Human Resource Planning is indebted to all the authors for this series of articles, but we would be remiss in not voicing our particular thanks to John Herbert and Yochanan Altman. As Executive Director of the European Human Resource Forum, John is responsible for providing the venue at which the academics and other prominent HR practitioners came together to discuss the new economy. John has been a friend of The Human Resource Planning Society for many years and can always be counted on for insight, enthusiasm and, when needed, constructive criticism.

Besides co-authoring one of the articles, Yochanan is responsible for serving as editor and cheerleader for all the articles in this special issue. Creating the thread that brings separate viewpoints together is Yochanan's special genius, and we are grateful to him for working with the authors on this project.

Our expression of appreciation would not be complete, however, without also recognizing Paul Swiercz, the immediate past Articles Editor. Paul was the early sponsor of the special issue and encouraged Yochanan to continue work on the articles despite the changes that had taken place in the new economy.

As always, we will be interested in the comments of our readers as you reflect on the concepts and practices presented here. If you wish to share your views with the editor or the authors, please contact us at wgstopper@msn.com.