HUMAN CAPITAL AND HUMAN POTENTIAL: THE QUESTION OF INTERACTION IN CHANGING SOCIETY

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of relationship between economic and educational systems. It focuses on the features of this relationship at the time of transformational processes in society whose existence is based on human knowledge and the ability to apply it in real life. The author underscores that knowledge is a component of “human capital” and “human potential” concepts. The purpose of the article is to describe interaction between the concept of “human capital” and that of “human potential”. To accomplish it, the author set the following objectives: to describe the content and the meaning of the term “human potential”; to describe the components of accumulated human potential; to focus on the knowledge component as one of the main components of pedagogical theory and to raise issues of interaction of “human capital” and “human potential” in the context of modern society. To research the issue the author used the following methods: the method of collection and analysis of literary sources related to the topic, the method of summarizing data, the method of systematization, and the method of synthesis of theoretical positions. The author concluded that the accumulated human potential, whose components are natural human potential and human capital, is determined by the combination of internal and external factors (natural predispositions acquired in the process of developing and improving personal and professional qualities, investments into persons and the enterprise). Knowledge itself is capital only when investing it into the specific production or sphere can bring economic benefits for its holders and ensure efficiency of the enterprise as a whole. The prospects for further research lie in the study of conditions that educational institutions create for further accumulation of human potential by students.