The empircal study was carried out in six Chinese organizations - private-owned, foreign-invested, and state-owned. Although great advancements have been made, China still faces large demands to increase access and quality of edcuation. This applies in specific to the education of the elder, in the rural areas and private education. HRD professionals should adopt a new role of consultant to line managers with professional advice and assistance to assure the quality of HRD activities performed by line managers. The foreign-owned companies seem to create more learning chances for their employees in comparison to the state-owned en private-owned companies in this study. When it comes to lifelong learning a non-threatening knowledge sharing culture is required, free from fear for punishments by dominating leaders and a greater tolerance for mistakes.