Abstract
Management education and training in the United Kingdom (U.K.) have been characterized as “too little, too late for too few” (Handy, 1987). The pressure for change in this tradition is highlighted by the dissatisfaction with current practice in shop floor and management training, made evident by many reports in the 1980s which compared the U.K. unfavorably with more economically competitive trading nations. This pressure led to government action to inclement a national system of vocational training. The lack of any comprehensive training strategy resulted in the creation of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) in 1986 with an aim of promoting standards based development and training within every sphere of industry in the U.K. economy. The national standards for managers, produced in 1990, define in output terms the standards of performance expected in employment. Concerns about national standards have been in two areas: the reduction of management to an atomistic list of skills and the fallibility of functional analysis used to determine the standards. On the positive side, studies of programs based on the national standards show benefits for both the individual and the organization. Managers are reported to have found the national standards reflective of their management role, enhancing teambuilding and problem solving, improving communications and clarifying objectives. Organizations involved in the programs found that managers made better decisions, maximized staff potential and generally improved the quality of operations.
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Thompson, J.E., Carter, S. (1995). The Development of Competence: National Standards for Managers. In: Corporate Training for Effective Performance. Evaluation in Education and Human Services, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0667-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0667-2_3
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