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The Strategic Leadership Forum's Conference in Washington, D.C. (April 27–30, 1997) was a showcase of advanced leadership insights. More than 30 top management experts told of their most recent experiences and their latest theories about meeting the management challenges of the next decade. There were many real‐life examples of how the old, “control” style of leadership, which grew out of the Industrial Era, is being replaced by the newer leadership styles that match the realities of the Knowledge Era.

In 2005, the Qualitative Methods in Psychosocial Health Research Group (QMiPHR) at the University of Nottingham was established as a forum to bring together academics, researchers and practitioners with an interest in qualitative methods. The group has provided colleagues in nutrition, psychiatry, psychology, social work and sociology with a forum for discussion around the question of how qualitative research is able to contribute to understanding mental health and the development of evidence‐based treatment. As a group, we asked ourselves where we stood in relation to the use of qualitative methods in mental health. While we are unified in our view that qualitative research is important and under‐utilised in mental health research, our discussions uncovered a range of views on the underlying philosophical stance of what it means to be a qualitative researcher in mental health. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of our discussions and our view that as qualitative approaches have become more widely accepted they have largely been assimilated within the mainstream ‘medical model’ of research. In this paper, we call for researchers to re‐engage with the philosophical discussion on the role and purpose of qualitative enquiry as it applies to mental health, and for practitioners and decision‐makers to be aware of the implicit values underpinning research.

The purpose of this paper is to identify ways teachers might employ a robot to achieve learning objectives with pupils with intellectual disabilities and potential outcome measures.

A series of five case studies where teacher-pupil dyads were observed during five planned video-recorded sessions with a humanoid robot. Engagement was rated in a classroom setting and during the last session with the robot. Video recordings were analysed for duration of engagement, teacher assistance and number of goals achieved.

Teachers identified a wide range of learning objectives ranging from an appreciation of cause and effect to improving the pupil's sense of direction. The robot's role could be to reward behaviour, provide cues or provide an active element to learning. Rated engagement was significantly higher with the robot than in the classroom.

A robot with a range of functions that allowed it to be engaging and motivating for the wide range of pupils in special education would be expensive and require teachers to learn how to use it. The findings identify ways to provide evidence that this expenditure of time and money is worthwhile.

There is almost no research teachers can refer to on using robots to support learning in children with intellectual disabilities. This paper is therefore of value for researchers who wish to investigate using robots to educate children with intellectual disabilities, as it can provide vital information to aid study design.

The case opens with Martha Stewart's 2005 release from prison following her conviction for obstructing an insider-trading investigation of her 2001 sale of personal stock. The scandal dealt a crippling blow to the powerful Martha Stewart brand and drove results at her namesake company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), deep into the red. But as owner of more than 90 percent of MSO's voting shares, Stewart continued to control the company throughout the scandal.

The company faced significant external challenges, including changing consumer preferences and mounting competition in all of its markets. Ad rates were under pressure as advertisers began fragmenting spending across multiple platforms, including the Internet and social media, where MSO was weak. New competitors were luring readers from MSO's flagship publication, Martha Stewart Living. And in its second biggest business, merchandising, retailing juggernauts such as Walmart and Target were crushing MSO's most important sales channel, Kmart. Internal challenges loomed even larger, with numerous failures of governance while the company attempted a turnaround.

This case can be used to teach either corporate governance or turnarounds.

Students will learn:

• How control of shareholder voting rights by a founding executive can undermine corporate governance

• The importance of independent directors and board committees

• How company bylaws affect corporate governance

• How to recognize and respond to early signs of stagnation

• How to avoid management actions that can make a crisis worse

• How weaknesses in executive leadership can push a company into crisis and foster a culture that actively prevents strategic revitalization

How control of shareholder voting rights by a founding executive can undermine corporate governance

The importance of independent directors and board committees

How company bylaws affect corporate governance

How to recognize and respond to early signs of stagnation

How to avoid management actions that can make a crisis worse

How weaknesses in executive leadership can push a company into crisis and foster a culture that actively prevents strategic revitalization

It is becoming more and more apparent that the war on terror will not be won on the battlefield. This war—like the Cold War—is primarily a battle of ideas. Success depends on building support in the global community for a positive vision of international relations that is a credible alternative to that promoted by the terrorists.

The United States should take the lead in mobilizing the financial resources of the international community to support a new and radical approach to foreign aid for Islamic countries. This approach – a shift from large‐scale aid to the countries themselves or in the form of massive state‐controlled projects, both managed by central governments – to smaller, community‐directed initiatives across countries – can reap dramatic benefits. There is strong evidence to suggest that supporting communities in achieving their selfdescribed goals will help secure the economic future of Morocco and Jordan, which are entering into a free trade era with theWest, will help resolve the seemingly intractable Israeli‐Palestinian conflict, and significantly further the economic and political reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. As the local development process unfolds, it would marginalize secular and religious extremists, thereby strengthening international security. And by providing through this form of aid a vehicle for successful public diplomacy, the United States would foster an environment where mutual understanding on broader geopolitical issues is attainable. If realized, these profound benefits will be achieved by local communities creating prosperity through a pluralist democratic process. The United States and other nations should make funding of community‐initiated development in Islamic nations the highest priority, which can pave the way towards a new era of Islamic‐Western relations.

Whereas most societal commentators continue to review the historical patterns of men’s leadership in search of models for 21st-century success, few have begun to recognize, let alone appreciate, the equivalent patterns of women’s leadership and the future contributions that women could potentially make as leaders. What could and are women bringing to society as global leaders? Why at this moment in history is there such a marked increase in the number of women leaders? Are we entering an era in which both male and female leaders will shape history, both symbolically and in reality? And if so, will we discover that women, on average, lead in different ways than men, or will we learn that role (global leader) explains more than gender? This chapter reveals the accelerating trends of women joining men in senior leadership positions, establishes the relationship of women leaders to our overall understanding of global leadership, and sets forth an agenda to accomplish much needed research and understanding.

If necessity is the mother of invention, what's a company that's fat with profits and smug with success to do? The answer, many strategists suggest, is to act as if your business could disappear tomorrow—and sometimes help it do so. Innovation keeps complacency at bay.

Who started it we will never know. But from the birth of newspapers, advertisers realised that the third party endorsement of apparently independent editorial reporting delivered their message more cheaply – and arguably more credibly – than paid advertising. Thus in the 17th century the publicist was born to service “the fellow who cannot lye sufficiently himself [who] gets one of these to do’t for him”. Any history of public relations is a running commentary on the techniques used to deliver third party endorsement as the media has evolved: from Ivy Lee’s simple packaging of information approach, through Bernays’ “engineering consent”, to today’s use of bloggers on the web or the more sophisticated “journo lobbying”, it is a record of how practitioners deliver public relations’ unique selling proposition, the plausible deniability which is third party endorsement.