This article starts by outlining five explanations of economic growth and four stages of economic development in the Asia‐Pacific region. the developed countries there include Japan, Australia and New Zealand. the ‘Asian tigers’ of Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan form a top tier of post‐Japan industrialisers. A second generation of ‘tigers’ includes Malaysia in the vanguard, with Thailand and the PRC following. A third tier of industrialisers may include countries as diverse as Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia and, perhaps, the countries of the Indian sub‐continent. Such a classification provides a context for discussing various approaches to human resources and industrial relations issues in this article and the ones that follow.