The growing importance of learning as the key competition criterion obliges companies to undertake holistic and integrated restructuring to maintain or improve their market position. Such a renewal approach includes a focus on innovation as a strategic goal, intelligent use of modern ICT, development of decentralised organisation forms, establishment of a trustbased business culture and improvement of human resources. Empirical findings indicate that companies in EU Member States and candidate countries are rather slow in adapting their business systems to the new competition logic. Companies seldom define innovativeness as their core goal and they focus more on technical than on organisational restructuring. Companies in the Member States seem more sensitive concerning the value of their workforce than in the candidate countries. But improving human resources cannot increase the learning capacity of companies significantly if business structures do not become more reflexive. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure and 7 footnotes.)