Globalization and individualization have radically changed both the economic system and the personal life world in industrial or postindustrial nation-states. To survive hypercompetition and volatile consumer choice, learning organizations and a workforce engaged in lifelong learning are needed. Constructing "the good life" has become an individual responsibility demanding reflexivity and skills. The question pursued in this article is how current policies in the context of lifelong learning

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... ate to the requirements of a competitive economy, on one hand, and the good life on the other hand. To be able to evaluate dominant and alternative answers thoroughly in terms of lifelong learning, the authors look at the consequences of globalization and individualization. After having analyzed lifelong learning policies in the Netherlands, the article examines an important alternative, the so-called biographicity approach. In conclusion, the authors outline their own "transitional learning" perspective as an integral approach to lifelong learning as life-wide learning. Globalization and individualization constitute the driving forces of the information society. Global hypercompetition, markets on the move, and individualized consumer choices make demands upon an increase in technological and cultural intelligence in the organization of work. In the face of continuously changing circumstances, both organizations and employees have to become flexible. Creating the learning company and developing lifelong learning (LLL) with a view to economic competitiveness have become the gospel of the "knowledge economy." 291 FOLKE J. GLASTRA is an associate professor in the Centre for Learning in Organizations,