ABSTRACT
In particular, a further issue needs to be confronted by employers. Management in the UK is among the least qualified when compared with major competitors abroad. The 1995 Grant Thornton European Business Survey showed that 56% of the UK’s managers had some formal business education compared with an EU average of 72%. Within the hospitality industry literature, there has also been criticism of the offering of management training and development, much of it being reactive and unplanned responses to difficulties rather than linked closely to business objectives (see McGunnigle and Jameson, 2000). It is also true, however, that major hospitality chains are amongst those service businesses to have developed ‘management academies’ or management training centres, in an attempt to inculcate management training and learning into a clearly developmental culture. The importance given to corporate culture within multi-site companies has also been a boost to the significance of strategic-level management development plans and activities, exemplified by the recent programme of training and development within the Compass Group, impacting on all its 400 000 worldwide workforce.
