“Real” managers don’t do NVQs: a review of the new management “standards”

Abstract

In 1997 the Management Charter Initiative (MCI) officially launched the new management NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications), benchmarks which attempted to describe the work performed by British managers. This article is a review of those qualifications. It remembers some of the main problems associated with the original management NVQs and, drawing on some of the best theoretical and empirical accounts of managerial work, argues that the new qualifications have failed to live up to the MCI’s original promise, to assist the development and training of managers.