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This paper reports the findings of a case study undertaken in the Scottish hospitality industry of which the process of accrediting competencies has been positively experienced by employees and managers of Montpelier (Edinburgh) Ltd. The paper begins by reviewing some of the British and American theoretical and practical literature on the accreditation of competencies to raise some of the issues which are addressed by our data. The study draws on both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in order to evaluate the value of Scottish vocational qualifications (SVQs) to both the employee and employer. The findings suggest that, on balance, the competence approach has proven to be a popular and useful method of job and career development for those people participating in the programme and provides a useful development framework for the employer.

Details the results of an attempt to identify the impact of a comprehensive management development programme on organizational effectiveness within the health service public sector. Concludes that management development programmes must have a prespecified set of strategically‐linked outcomes, identifying the benefits to the organization, and a set of critical success factor measures to determine their achievement or otherwise. Programmes which do not result in managers feeling empowered will be criticized in not impacting positively on the organization.

This study aims to dissect the multifaceted impact of ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation, specifically within civil engineering testing and calibration laboratories. To achieve this, it intends to explore several key objectives: identifying the prominent benefits of accreditation to laboratory performance, understanding the advantages conferred through participation in proficiency testing schemes, assessing the role of accreditation in enhancing laboratory competitiveness, examining the primary challenges encountered during the accreditation process, investigating any discernible adverse effects of accreditation on laboratory performance and evaluating whether the financial cost of accreditation justifies the resultant profitability.

This study employs a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews with 23 industry professionals—including technical managers, quality managers, external auditors and clients. Thematic analysis, guided by Braun and Clarke’s six-stage paradigm, was utilized to interpret the data, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the accreditation’s impact.

Findings reveal that accreditation significantly enhances operational processes, fosters quality awareness and facilitates continuous improvement, contributing to greater client satisfaction. In addition, standardized operations and rigorous quality controls further result in enhanced performance metrics, such as staff capability and measurement accuracy. However, the study also uncovers the challenges of accreditation, including high resource costs and bureaucratic hurdles that can inhibit innovation and slow routine operations. Importantly, the research underscores that the impact of accreditation on profitability is not universal, but contingent upon various factors like sector-specific regulations and market demand. The study also highlights sector-specific variations in the role of accreditation as a marketing tool and differing perceptions of its value among clients. It further emphasizes the psychological stress of high-stakes evaluations during audits.

This study represents the first in-depth investigation into the impact of ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation on civil engineering testing and calibration laboratories, directly contributing to the enhancement of their quality and operational standards. Providing actionable insights for laboratories, it underscores the importance of weighing accreditation costs and benefits and the necessity for a tailored approach to the unique market and regulatory landscapes they operate in.

The purpose of this paper is to report the development of internet‐based educational support to enable practitioners in built environment conservation (preservation in American terminology) to evaluate and, if necessary, improve their competence. In the UK it is a condition of project grant‐aid of some heritage bodies that the professional leading a conservation project is accredited, and several schemes, peer‐reviewed by professional bodies, have been set up in recent years. Since these require practitioners to provide evidence of their competence, there is a need for an increased understanding of the issues involved. The work aimed to define the basis for the competences and establish an educational framework for professional development in this area.

A structured framework of competences, consisting of five units dealing with all the stages of a conservation project, is presented and evaluated against the 1993 ICOMOS Guidelines on Education and Training in the Conservation of Monuments, Ensembles and Sites. The framework is appropriate for all professional disciplines and has been converted to a computer‐assisted self‐learning package that provides support for practitioners in developing their portfolio of evidence for submission for accreditation peer‐review.

The internet‐based educational support has been available since 2007 and receives over 2,000 visits per month from all over the world. It has the support of all the UK accreditation schemes in built environment conservation.

A desk survey of electronic resources in the subject domain suggests that the educational support material described in this paper is unique in the world.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the critical factors (CRFs) of IS/ISO/IEC 17025:2005 laboratory accreditation and indicators of the performance (IOPs) in the testing/calibration laboratories. The impact of accreditation on the performance is analyzed using the level of presence of critical factors that can be used to benchmark the best practices in the accredited testing and calibration laboratories.

A questionnaire is designed on the basis of an extensive literature review on laboratory accreditation and performance. Based on the responses from pilot study, the developed instrument is tested for its unidimensionality, reliability and validity. Multiple regression analysis is carried out to analyze the impact of critical factors on the IOPs.

The findings reveal that the six distinct critical dimensions of laboratory accreditation (which are the independent variables) have a significant impact on the performance of the accredited testing/calibration laboratories. The performance is measured by the dependent variables which are the IOPs. The customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, laboratory performance, image of the laboratory, the number of increased customers and loyalty of the existing customers are highly influenced by the accreditation which in turn improves the performance to gain the competitive advantage.

Contribution to research is in the area of laboratory accreditation and the performance measurement by the development of a comprehensive instrument to analyze the Laboratory Quality Management System. The results are dependent on the number of respondents who are the quality/technical managers.

This instrument would enable the accredited laboratories to analyze their performance through the feedback from the quality/technical managers to gain credibility and to continually improve and benchmark the quality management system in alignment with the quality policies.

This paper proposes an instrument to measure and benchmark the performance of the accredited testing and calibration laboratories.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the contextual and linguistic challenges that French business schools face when preparing for international accreditation and to shed light on the different ways in which experts facilitate these accreditation processes, particularly with respect to how they capitalize on their contextual and linguistic boundary-spanning competences.

The authors interviewed 12 key players at four business schools in France engaged in international accreditations and in three specific categories: senior management, tenured faculty and administrative staff. The interview-based case study design used semi-structured questions and an insider researcher approach to study an underexplored sector of analysis.

The findings suggest that French business schools have been particularly impacted by the colonizing effects of English as the mandatory language of the international accreditation bodies espousing a basically Anglophone higher education philosophy. Consequently, schools engage external experts for their contextual and linguistic boundary-spanning expertise to facilitate accreditation processes.

The authors contribute to language-sensitive research through a critical perspective on marginalization within French business schools due to the use of English as the mandatory lingua franca of international accreditation processes and due to the underlying higher-education philosophy from the Anglophone academic sphere within these processes. As a result, French business schools resort to external experts to mediate their knowledge and competency gaps.

A review of the approach adopted by the Management Charter Initiative (MCI) towards the use of management competences, drawing on contemporary research and journal articles, is made. In addition, use is made of insights and experience gained through involvement in the MCI Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) pilot project conducted at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education. Three major assumptions associated with the MCI competence approach are evaluated and a specific facet of the Cheltenham and Gloucester College APL experience, that of high delegate wastage, is examined. An expectancy model of motivation is used along with an action feedback model to illustrate and explain some of the potential reasons for a high drop‐out rate. The model affords an opportunity to provide a rationale to underpin needed action on the part of the major actors within the APL management competence approach. In conclusion, a number of summary propositions predicated by the review are given.

Accreditation encourages the examination of programs as to whether they make sense as a whole and if students are well prepared for the world of work. Current accreditation is directed toward the assessment of learning and the assessment for learning. What is competence? Professional organizations and higher education should be involved in determining what is competence, how should it be measured and by what standard it should be evaluated. Digital portfolios provide a means for professionals, students and education entities to demonstrate competence. Portfolios provide performance‐based assessment; artifacts that provide real‐world preparedness.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) can face barriers implementing the accreditation of informal learning, despite many institutions having developed policies and strategies to embed employability and skills. The purpose of this paper is to present the case of the institutional response of one HEI when dealing with the various drivers and challenges faced when accrediting informal learning at higher levels.

The case study approach was adopted as this method allowed for in‐depth qualitative enquiry into a contemporary phenomenon in a real‐life context.

The paper finds that by designing a shell framework incorporating module outlines and a toolkit of support materials for various stakeholder groups, HEIs may overcome many of the implementation problems often associated with HE accreditation of informal higher level learning.

This framework and toolkit approach could help other HEIs better enable the wider accreditation and embedding of work‐based learning within HE, which is deemed so important in facilitating the achievement of UK Government targets for 40 per cent of UK adults to gain a qualification at Level 4 or above in the next ten years. This is also a particular issue for Wales, dealing with its own skills agenda in response to specific skills gaps needed to ensure the sustainable future of the Welsh economy.

While a limited number of HEIs have adopted a framework approach to the accreditation of work‐based learning, this paper addresses the issues in a regional context, as the framework and toolkit presented is the first of its kind to be articulated for the Welsh skills agenda by a Welsh HEI.

This paper aims to explore the development of the concept of competence in Lithuania beginning from the period of transition from the Soviet planned economy and post‐totalitarian regime to the market economy and democratic society and ending with the designing and implementation of the National Qualifications System and Qualifications Framework.

The paper takes the form of desktop research of scientific literature and analysis of documents related to competences and qualifications in Lithuania.

The understanding of competence in Lithuania varies between the official usage in the laws and policy documents, common usage in education institutions and the approaches of employers, and this differentiation of understanding is caused by complex reasons related to the development of education, world of work and society in the socio‐economic transformations. In the National Qualifications System and National Framework of Qualifications of Lithuania competences are understood to be a bridge between the system of activities and the system of education.

The research involves mainly those concepts of competence that are originated by different social stakeholders and have influence on the processes of initial and continuing vocational training in Lithuania. All different scientific concepts of competence proposed by different scholars and circulating only in the scientific discourse have not been considered.

The article provides useful information for the policy makers and different stakeholders looking for information on the existing variety of the concepts of competences in Lithuania.

The paper provides a discourse that integrates the various complex conceptual and contextual issues related to the concept of competence.