The search for a new head of the retailer, based in Fort Worth, Texas, is now under way after Mr Edmondson, who joined the company 12 years ago, admitted to inflating his educational credentials.

In Britain, concerns about corporate credibility have prompted many companies to hire “detectives” to investigate claims on their executives’ CVs.

Some executives who have admitted to tactical omissions, embellishments or “polishing” have clung on to their jobs, enduring little more than personal embarrassment.

For others, inaccurate CVs have triggered dramatic downfalls and, in some cases, even criminal records.

Charles Thomson, the chief executive brought in to save Equitable Life, admitted last year that he had written an unauthorised reference that was purported to have been penned by Mike Ross, his former boss who was the chief executive of Scottish Widows at the time.

Mr Thomson, who remains in his post, conceded that he “did not have Mr Ross’s explicit authority” for the reference, which claimed that he enjoyed an “exceptional level of success” at Scottish Widows.

Details of the reference emerged during Equitable’s £3.75 billion negligence action against its former directors and former auditors, Ernst & Young.

In 2000, Alison Ryan was dispatched before taking up her job as public relations chief for Manchester United when it emerged that, as a young lawyer, she had falsely claimed to have secured a first-class honours degree in history from Cambridge University on her application forms to become a pupil at her barristers’ chambers.

Richard Li, the Hong Kong tycoon and chairman of PCCW, the Hong Kong telecoms group, has also been forced to clear up confusion over his education. He ensured that claims on his company’s website that he graduated from Stanford University were erased when the institution in California confirmed that no degree had been awarded. Mr Li blamed his staff and said that legal documents made clear that he was educated at Stanford, but did not graduate.

Jimmy Gulliver, the retail tycoon, hit trouble in the 1980s during the takeover battle for Distillers when it emerged that details of his university education at Harvard had been exaggerated. Although he had attended the university it was on a course of only a few days.

Neil Taylor, former head of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, was handed a suspended jail term last year after faking his qualifications to land the £115,000-a-year post. He falsely claimed to have received a first-class degree, something uncovered when he was asked for proof of his qualifications during a salary review. He had secured only a couple of A-levels.

Jeffrey Archer, the former Conservative Party chairman, declared spells at Wellington and Oxford on his CV. These credentials were not as impressive as they seemed: Wellington was a local school in Somerset, not the famous public school, and his time at Oxford constituted a one-year diploma course.

These high-profile cases have done little to deter people from seeking to boost their educational credentials. Research last year by the Risk Advisory Group, which helps to unearth CV fraud, found that about a quarter of jobseekers lie on their CVs, with women in their early 30s most likely to exaggerate their achievements.

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