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This study aimed to explore how forensic mental health service users make sense of their past adverse experiences. Secondly, it aimed to explore whether service users considered their adverse experiences to be related to their current stay in a forensic mental health setting.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse interviews with eight service users in low and medium secure care. Six of the participants were male and two were female.

Four super-ordinate themes emerged from the data: “Living amongst adversity”; “Managing adverse experiences”; “Making sense of going into secure care”; and “Coping with the past in the present”. All participants referred to multiple adverse experiences throughout their lives and used harmful coping strategies to manage these. Individual differences in how they related their past experiences to their detention in secure care were evident.

Author guidelines state that this section is optional. Implications for clinical practice are discussed at length in the discussion section.

This study offers an insight into the way in which forensic mental health service users make sense of their past traumas in relation to their current admission to secure services. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research has previously addressed this from the perspective of service users.

Purpose – In this chapter, we review the research on status hierarchies in groups and teams to assess the relative validity of two major models – the dominance and functionalist theories of status hierarchies. We find that these models cannot fully account for empirical evidence in the literature, and thus propose a new model of status hierarchies, Micropolitics.

Methodology/approach – We examine the relative validity of current major theories by reviewing the literature on status hierarchies in groups.

Findings – We find that, although most of the literature supports the functionalist theory of status hierarchies, this theory cannot explain some of the existing empirical evidence. Drawing on both functionalist and dominance perspectives, we propose a new theory of status, the Micropolitics model, to account for this evidence. Specifically, we propose that in the “micro” context of groups and teams, individuals attain status by convincing their group that they possess the skills and abilities needed to take charge – just as political candidates must convince voters they are the right people for the job.

Originality/value of paper – This paper proposes a new theory of status hierarchies in groups that may provide additional explanatory power for status researchers. It suggests that groups strive to attain meritocracy, but may put the wrong people in charge.

The purpose of this study was to examine the dimensions of athletic star power associated with Generation Y sports consumption. Multivariate analyses revealed that athletic star power factors (Professional Trustworthiness, Likeable Personality, Athletic Expertise, Social Attractiveness and Characteristic Style) were positively (p < .05) predictive of the sport consumption factors (Event Consumption and Merchandise Consumption).

This paper presents the theoretical rationale for further development of a model for the assessment and management of intraorganizational conflict. The purpose of such a model would be to assist employees, managers, human resources practitioners, and external service providers in selecting the most appropriate conflict management strategy for a given conflict. The framework presented builds on the previous work of Sheppard (1984) and Elangovan (1995, 1998) in suggesting that a contingency‐based model of strategy selection must include attention to characteristics of the conflict, desired outcomes of the participants, and awareness of available conflict management strategies. By expanding the range of conflicts and conflict management strategies typically included within a single model, the framework presented here forms the basis of a comprehensive model for dealing with intraorganizational conflict.

The quality of strategic decisions made at the helm of corporations matters a great deal. Predominantly, research on strategic decision-making has focused on CEOs as if they decide alone. Yet in reality, even the most powerful CEO makes strategic decisions together with an executive board. This chapter offers a theoretical explanation of strategic board decision-making through the emotional contagion between the CEO and board members.

We used both previous research and qualitative material – two case studies and interviews with several dozen CEOs of large corporations as well as the board members of one of them – to build our theoretical model.

Our inBoard Emotional Contagion Model (inBECM) specifies the following individual–collective emotional dynamics: After a strategic affective event has triggered an affective discussion within the boardroom, the emotionally intelligent CEO communicates verbally in order to – through an emotional contagion – homogenize board members’ emotional states leading to shared sense-making of the event and – potentially – to improved decision-making.

Suggestions are made for the inBECM contribution to emotion theory. Implications are stated for the key role of emotion in improving board decision-making and strategizing.

Power relations affect all aspects of our lives. MacGregor Burns states that “Power is ubiquitous; it permeates human relationships … Power shows many faces and takes many forms”. The purpose of this paper was to explore women principals’ experiences with power relations in the schools during times of increase in decentralization and accountability. The findings of this phenomenological study were that the six principals viewed power as an enabling, and a positive energy for change and growth in schools rather than a source of “top‐down” domination. Their descriptions of power also asserted that “power is not reducible to any one source”, and that an understanding of poststructuralist and structuralist theories of power will be essential for school leaders facing the dilemmas and challenges of the twenty‐first century.

In the second part of this two‐part feature, four models of inter‐professional collaboration are explored, each of them representing points on a continuum from lower to higher levels of collaboration.The four are:• Communication: interactions are confined to facilitating the exchange of information.• Co‐ordination: individuals remain in separate organisations and locations, but develop formal ways of working across these boundaries.• Co‐location: members of different professions are physically located alongside each other.• Commissioning: professionals with a commissioning remit develop a shared approach to the activity