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Tear down the walls. Send your workers home. The company of the future, say the seers at a number of forward‐looking companies. Is not housed in some corporate castle on the hill. It's spread across the land, in cars and living rooms, in clients offices and hotel‐like modules. And the result of this virtual restructuring of the workplace? Nothing less than increased sales, faster customer response time, lower overhead, and greater productivity.

In an environment where the challenge for businesses to stay ahead of the curve calls for new ways of strategizing for future success, design holds some important clues. By broadening the definition of “design” and expanding the application of design methodologies and mindsets to business, enterprises can identify new possibilities for breakthrough multi-dimensional market solutions, step change growth strategies and organizational renewal. The purpose of this paper is to describe how to leverage design thinking into business strategies through a set of principles and practices encapsulated in the “three gears of strategic business design”.

While the methods and economic value of design in terms of objects, services, spaces, experiences and communications is well-supported, the methods for extending “design thinking” to define broader business strategies and build new models is a more recent development. In developing a more concrete development framework and substantiation for this methodology, this paper draws on evidence from two main sources. First, an in-depth review of breakthrough successes has revealed a pattern of thinking and practices that supports the core components of the strategic business design process. Second, experience in working on a variety of projects with clients across a range of industries and sectors, using the complete end-to-end methodology for business design as presented in this paper has helped construct a framework for business teams to apply in getting to bigger breakthroughs faster.

This paper demonstrates how the practice of design in a business strategy context can lead to breakthrough improvements in the delivery of human and economic value, inspire growth strategies and contribute to sustainable competitive advantage for an enterprise.

There is a growing acknowledgement of the value of design in business, and a growing interest in the value and application of design principles and practices to business in broader terms. This paper sets out to link the principles and practices of design to strategy development, and provide some concrete methods and examples of how design can be leveraged to shape more powerful strategies and breakthrough business models. This is relevant to leaders across all sectors and in any enterprise or organization seeking new ways to create high-value human-centric solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the accomplishments of those who realise addiction recovery. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first in a series of recovery stories, where candid accounts of addiction and recovery are examined. In doing so, shared components of recovery are considered, along with the change and growth necessary to facilitate it.

The CHIME (Connectedness, Hope, Identity, Meaning and Empowerment) framework comprises five elements important to recovery. It provides a standard to qualitatively study mental health recovery, having also been applied to addiction recovery. In this paper, an additional element for Growth has been introduced to the model (G-CHIME), to consider both recovery and sustained recovery. A first-hand account of addiction recovery is presented, followed by a semi-structured e-interview with the author of the account. This is structured on the G-CHIME model.

This paper shows that successful and sustained recovery from alcohol addiction can be effectively explained using the G-CHIME model. Each element was well represented in the described process of reaching recovery.

Each account of recovery in this series is unique, and as yet, untold.

The purpose of this chapter is to assess the social significance of digital technologies for researching and understanding active women's bodies, identities, practices, and politics. In critically surveying the rapidly expanding body of literature on women's social media use for sport and physical activity, the chapter highlights the multidisciplinary nature of much of this work and its feminist and social justice orientation toward understanding the uneven impacts of platformed engagement for women, particularly those who are socially marginalized.

The chapter synthesizes the current literature to identify feminist and sociological approaches to analyzing sporting women's social media use. It draws on the authors' own research as case study illustrations of key developments.

Findings identify opportunities and challenges for women navigating the complexities of social media encounters in their sporting and physical cultural lives, focusing on self-presentation, branding and digital labor, community-building, and activism. It proposes theoretical, methodological, and ethical directions for sociological interventions in this area of study.

Future research should investigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape, issues of social justice and marginalized voices, and the social conditions that sustain gender inequalities in sport and social media spaces.

The chapter contributes original insights on emerging directions in the study of women, sport, and social media. Furthermore, it addresses the challenges for social researchers responding to the uptake of new social media platforms by female athletes and physically active women.

The study applies a multimodal approach to position aesthetic innovation, i.e., the strategic use of aesthetic design attributes, such as color and shape, as an institutionalized aspect of competition, rather than as a firm-specific differentiation strategy, in settings that favor the symbolic meanings of products. Empirically, the study offers a detailed case study of the personal computer (PC) industry to examine the institutionalization of aesthetic innovation as a dimension of competition across industrial firms. The study examines the color and shape of PCs over the 1992–2003 period and situates changes to these attributes in the competitive conditions that characterized the industry, paying particular attention to the introduction of the Apple iMac in 1998. Furthermore, it examines the discursive manifestations of aesthetic innovation by content analysis of reviews of PCs and interviews with industry executives. Findings demonstrate that, in a period coinciding with a decline in demand for PCs and an overall mature market as well as with the introduction of the iMac, the majority of firms engaged in aesthetic innovation and used a greater number of aesthetic words in describing their PCs.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of formal religion in the early years of Outward Bound, a significant outdoor education organisation in Britain, from the 1940s to the 1960s.

This article is based on archival and other documentary research in various archives and libraries, mostly in the United Kingdom.

The article shows that religious “instruction” was a central feature of the outdoor education that Outward Bound provided. The nature and extent of this aspect of the training was a matter of considerable debate within the Outward Bound Trust and was influenced by older traditions of muscular Christianity as well as the specific context of the early post–Second World War period. However, the religious influences at the schools were marginalised by the 1960s; although formal Christian observances did not disappear, the emphasis shifted to the promotion of a vaguer spirituality associated with the idea that “the mountains speak for themselves”.

The article establishes the importance of organised Christianity and formal religious observances in the early years of Outward Bound, a feature which has generally been overlooked in the historical literature. It contributes to wider analyses of outdoor education, religious education and secularisation in the mid-twentieth century.

This participatory health research project of researchers and women prisoners examined housing and homelessness as perceived by incarcerated women to understand this public health concern and help guide policy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A participatory research team designed and conducted a survey of 83 incarcerated women in BC, Canada. Using descriptive statistics, the authors examined socio-demographic factors related to social support networks and family housing and women’s housing preference upon release.

In total, 44 percent of participants reported no family home upon release while 31 percent reported lost family ties due to their incarceration. Most vulnerable subpopulations were women aged 25-34, aboriginal women and those with multiple incarcerations. Housing preferences differed between participants suggesting needs for varied options. Further implementation, evaluation and appraisal of social programs are required.

This study surveyed one correctional facility: future research could utilize multiple centers.

Addressing housing instability among released incarcerated individuals is important fiscally and from a public health lens. Improved discharge planning and housing stability is needed through policy changes and social programs. A social support network, “Women in2 Healing,” has developed from the research group to address these issues.

Housing stability and recidivism are closely linked: providing stable housing options will lessen the social, fiscal and medical burden of individuals returning to crime, substance abuse, illness and poverty.

Housing instability addresses an important social determinant of health and focussing on incarcerated women builds upon a small body of literature.