Meta-Organisation As a Response to the Challenges of Quality and Fraud in the Field of Continuing Vocational Training in France ?

The continuing vocational training (CVT) market in France is worth around 30 billion euros (Froment et al., 2023). It is a sizeable market shared between more than 120,000 training organisations (TOs) (Froment et al., 2023). Since 2021, part of this market has been regulated by Qualiopi certification. The aim of this certification is to meet the challenges of both training quality and fraud prevention. However, this certification has major shortcomings and does not guarantee the quality of the training courses (Cour des Comptes, 2023 p.56-57) or sufficiently regulate fraudulent practices (Froment et al., 2023, p. 4). Faced with these pitfalls, the IGESR and IGAS proposed in a joint report to create a governance body to coordinate the quality of vocational training (Froment et al., 2023, p. 6).

Could this governance body be a meta-organisation (MO)? A MO is an organisation made up of organisations. It is based on consensual and non-hierarchical practices whose main objective is to organise collective action at a relatively low cost (Berkowitz and Dumez, 2016, p. 150-151).

This study is based on several semi-structured interviews and observations conducted with Céreq, France Compétences, competence operators and private, associative, cooperative or public OFs. This exploratory study attempts to materialise the operational reality of setting up a meta-organisation and its limits in the field of continuing vocational training.