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Analyses of work based learning (such as that offered by Brennan and Little) have typically ignored the issue of ownership of knowledge. Here the authors consider this issue as it relates to accreditation in the UK higher education sector, arguing that the points raised have relevance for the international community. The main argument is that employing organisations are the main beneficiaries of accreditation, and as such universities need to make a much clearer case for work based learning to safeguard learners – and society – from exploitation and the universities from becoming vessels for narrowly defined performance statements, unworthy of higher education.

The aim of this paper is to present the second in an annual series of selected papers from the 2012 Conference of the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning (UALL). The Conference, at Clare College, Cambridge, took as its theme Higher education for the social good? The place of lifelong learning.

This paper is an editorial.

The editorial explores the conference theme and introduces the papers in this issue.

The five papers are indicative of the theme of the conference and, more generally of all those involved in lifelong learning.

The notion of business ethics is explored as a way of understanding difficulties in bridging the credibility gaps between management′s intention, staff′s committed implementation and consumers′ need for reinforcement of their personal dignity, in service situations where general competence levels are low. Presents a model of ethical awareness which forms the context in which the personal trust transaction occurs. Presents research which shows the recognition of an ethical credibility gap between organizations and consumers. Describes the role of marketing intervention, designed to overcome barriers to co‐operation and applied to the use of codes of ethical conduct.

In this conceptual discussion paper the author seeks to suggest that marketing as a technology of the market has contributed to the foreshortening of educational horizons within which we act or observe but can only hold for declining durations. To satisfy this demand for more in time, marketing has contributed to the commoditisation of consumption patterns in time and foreshortened the acceptable temporal range over which consumption can be achieved.

This paper is philosophical in nature.

Marketing has, it is proposed, contributed to change in essence of educational provision. Moreover the clash of temporalities of marketing and liberal education creates a tension that directly effects the provision of education. This can be seen in lifelong education which it is suggested is functionally a series of short bite‐sized exposures to learning, readily consumable often one after the other with the rubric of linear time.

The paper raises issues that managers and marketers of higher education need to be aware of in order not to use the tools of marketing carelessly.

The value of the paper is in the debate it might encourage about the dialectic relationship between marketing and education in a time of managerialism and consumerism.