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The purpose of this paper is to co-produce the meaning of the word recovery and highlight the challenges to recovery in a secure inpatient setting.

A conversational narrative between a service user and psychologist focussed on the topic of recovery.

It is a reflective account, therefore no findings are required.

This is a co-produced paper highlighting a service user’s and psychologist’s perspectives on recovery.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of co-producing a formulation alongside a service user and the clinical team within a secure inpatient service. This paper has been co-authored by the service user and members of the multi-disciplinary team (MDT).

An open-ended focus group discussion was facilitated with the service user and members of her MDT. The process of thematic analysis was applied to the focus group transcript.

The following themes highlighted important outcomes of co-producing a formulation within a secure inpatient setting; “Meaningful Collaboration”, “Co-Produced Understanding” and a “Shift in Power Differential”. This paper demonstrates the importance of meaningful co-production within a secure inpatient service whilst also highlighting the challenges and tensions of working in a co-produced way within this context.

This paper explores the process of co-producing and developing a formulation from the perspective of one service user and their MDT within a secure inpatient setting. It would be unhelpful to extrapolate broad assumptions from this case study although this study does raise important considerations for future research and encourages an emphasis on a co-produced design and dissemination.

This case study highlights the importance of co-production in clinical endeavours, service delivery and development perspectives and in the dissemination of this information.

The importance of co-producing and co-authoring alongside service users have been highlighted in this paper. This approach to co-production and co-authorship is highly recommended in future research endeavours.

This editorial aims to introduce the special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice.

The first part is a commentary on key issues in the study of the notions of meritocracy, difference and choice. The second part presents the six papers in the special issue.

Five of the six papers in this special issue explore the work experiences of women managers/directors in senior positions within a variety of organizations. All of these papers demonstrate that despite their economic empowerment, these women are still strongly connected to the domestic realm through their continued entanglement in the traditional roles of mother and homemaker. This has led them to interpret their work situation either through a consideration of what they understand by the notion of merit or a presentation of their situation through the lens of choice. A further paper which explores the experiences of sex workers exposes the gendered nature of agency, highlighting the limitations on “choice” that different types of workers experience.

The authors comment on how contemporary notions of merit and choice individualise women's experience within organisations, ignoring the structural and systemic elements inherent to women's continued disadvantage. This allows “blame” for women's absence in the upper echelons of organisations to lie with women themselves, explaining this in terms of their lack of skills or the traditional “choices” they make. The six papers which make up the special issue explore how women's “choices” are constrained, how the contemporary discourses of merit and choice conceal issues of structure and organizational process and how women struggle to make sense of their own and others' experiences.

The issues discussed in the papers have important implications for understanding women's experience of work and organizations. They highlight the need to introduce a structural and systemic element to the understanding of how women experience work at senior (and other) levels of organizations, why they take the decision to leave a senior position and why women appear to “choose” not to seek senior positions.

Gender and Management: An International Journal invited this special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice to draw attention to the ways in which women draw on these discourses as a means of understanding their organizational situations and how use of these discourses acts to conceal the structural and systemic element connected to their work experiences.

Professor Ruth Simpson has been a key contributor to the field of gender and organization studies (GOS) over the past 25 years. She has influenced debates on women in management, the gender of management education, masculinity and management and the “doing” of gender in organizational life. In this paper i review our joint work – informed by a poststructuralist feminist perspective – which considers the complex struggles around normativity in relation to management and entrepreneurship.

This review is based on a consideration of four pieces of work completed between 2005 and 2012, including (Simpson and Lewis, 2005, 2007) and (Lewis and Simpson, 2010, 2012).

Drawing on the concepts of voice and visibility, the research examines how the ability to exemplify the norm in relation to management and entrepreneurship must be constantly secured and how processes of inclusion and exclusion in relation to the norm are characterised by relentless agitation and turmoil.

We (Ruth and Patricia) developed the conceptual framework of the (In)visibility vortex as a means of connecting the individual to organizational processes, discourses and cultural norms

The purpose of this paper is to explore how women in senior management draw on discourses of merit and special contribution in making sense of the contradictions and tensions they experience in their working lives. It has a particular focus on how women explain possible experiences of disadvantage and the extent to which they see such experiences as gendered.

The research is based on an Australian study of women leaders in the private and tertiary sectors. Data are drawn from in‐depth interviews with 14 women.

Findings suggest that women draw on discourses of meritocracy and of “special contribution” in discussing their experiences at work. Inconsistencies between these competing discourses are mediated through notions of choice.

The research has implications for the understanding of how women at senior levels make sense of their experiences in organizations. A wider sample may give further corroboration to these results.

The paper highlights the significance of the discourse of choice in aligning discourses of “special contribution” with the reality of their lives whilst keeping intact the concepts of equality and meritocracy to which they strongly adhere.

This paper aims to examine how the work of Ruth Simpson and the subsequent collaborations have contributed to understanding of the gendered constructions of meritocracy, as they apply in organizations.

This paper is a personal analysis of the work of Ruth Simpson and her colleagues and the way in which her work has resonated with me and influenced our joint collaborations. The key questions our work has addressed, both when we work together and with others, include how merit is constructed. Is it gendered? How does it influence organizational outcomes? How is merit recognized? Is merit “performed”? Key theoretical constructs and frameworks are used to address these issues; including, gendered organizational structures and regimes (Acker, 1990; Ely and Meyerson, 2000; Gherardi and Poggio, 2001), the gendered nature of meritocracy (Thornton, 2007; Sommerlad, 2012, Brink van den and Benschop, 2012) and the performance and “stickiness” of meritocracy (Ashcraft, 2013, Bergman and Chalkley, 2007).

The paper reveals alternative ways of interrogating the discourse of meritocracy. Usually taken for granted, as an objective and fair mechanism for the allocation of scarce resources, the concept is examined and found to be much more contingent, unstable and subjective than had previously been considered. The gender-based implications of these findings are assessed.

The implications of the work are to broaden the field and develop frameworks within which we can understand more clearly the way in which merit is understood. Through the work we have done, we have highlighted that merit far from being an objective measure of ability is deeply rooted in contextual and we argue, gendered understandings of contribution, worth and desert.

The practical implications are that firms can no longer rely on discourses of meritocracy to evidence their commitment to equality and fairness. They will need to go further to show a direct link between fairness in the design of processes as well as fairness in the outcomes of these processes. Until these objectives are more clearly articulated, we should continue to shine a light on embedded inequalities.

The social implications are that a call for wider societal understanding of meritocracy should be made. Rather than simply accepting discourses of merit, key constituent groups who have not benefitted from the prevailing orthodoxy should seek to examine the concept and draw their own conclusions. In this manner, the author develops societal mechanisms that do not just purport to ensure equality of outcome for all; they achieve it.

This paper offers an examination of the development of ideas, how we can learn from the work of influential scholars within the field and, in turn, through collaboration, advance understanding.

Drawing upon notions of agency and the body, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of agency as a gendered concept through a consideration of women sex‐workers. Specifically, the paper analyses how far women sex‐workers may be regarded as social agents. It then considers how far notions of agency, in relation to sex‐workers' embodied boundaries, may be gendered.

The paper reviews existing literature on sex‐workers and sex‐work practices, looking at indoor sex‐work (massage parlours), outdoor sex‐work (street sex‐work) and trafficking. It considers these types of sex‐work in relation to agency, gender and the body.

The paper acknowledges the diversity of women's experience within different aspects of the sex trade. The paper recognizes claims that treating sex‐workers as “victims” could further jeopardize their social position. However, the paper finds that the “options” available to sex‐workers are severely constrained. Specifically, the lack of capacity among sex‐workers to set embodied “rules of engagement” with clients makes the notion of agency problematic. The paper contends that “agency” is itself a gendered concept not only in relation to sex‐work, but also in the context of women's work more broadly.

Through the idea of agency as a gendered concept, the paper offers alternative ways of exploring agency, the body and women's work.

The paper puts forward the notion of agency as a gendered concept. This opens up possibilities for further research on women's “choices”, and who “makes the rules” within different labour markets.

The aim of this paper is to explore how an elite group of senior women in banking represent and describe their understanding and experience of the role of meritocracy, within the context of their own career.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 33 senior female directors from six global investment banks. Template analysis was used in the qualitative analysis of the coding.

The paper found that the women's adherence to the notion of meritocracy diminished over time, as merit appeared to be less defined by human capital (ability and experience) and more by social capital (seen as political behaviour). The paper also reveals how the concept is construed on two levels: first, on a symbolic level, demonstrating how the organization defines and rewards success; second, on a personal level, how it affects the individual's cognitions, emotions and self‐belief.

This paper contributes to the small literature on the concept of meritocracy in the management field, with an emphasis on the experiences of successful female directors in global investment banks.

This paper is based on the experiences of 31 women who have recently left partner roles within an international management consultancy firm. The purpose of this paper is to explore discursively their perceptions of choice within their decisions to leave.

Data were collected from 31 women using semi‐structured telephone interviews, a 66 per cent response rate. A discursive approach to analysis was adopted.

The decision to leave is the culmination of many interacting factors at a time when a financial incentive for resignation is available. Findings present here focus on discourses of loyalty to and affection for the company and work‐life integration.

Limitations include access only to women who have left the firm, allowing for no comparison with those who were still partners. Additionally, we were unable to speak to any of the male partners who have left the firm in the same timescales, although in smaller proportions.

The findings indicate the need to review the excessive time demands placed on partners and provide further support for policies, which enable greater flexibility.

This paper uses data from a rare sample of women, those who have actually left senior roles within one organization.

The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination was commissioned to conduct a systmatic review of clinical audits undertaken to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the National Health Service (NHS) two‐week waiting time policy for cancer referrals in England and Wales. This paper highlights the logistical difficulties experienced by the review team in trying to obtain information from the NHS, and discusses what needs to be done in order to improve the reporting and usefulness of clinical audit reports.

A total of 650 key individuals within NHS Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities were contacted for copies of relevant audits. Other key individuals and organisations across the NHS were also contacted, web sites of key organisations searched, requests for audits on relevant e‐mail discussion lists posted and electronic databases and conference proceedings searched.

Finds that many trusts do not appear to hold a centralised record of what clinical audits have been performed within the trust. In many instances several follow‐up contacts were necessary. The majority of included audits were poorly reported, with fewer than half providing sufficient detail on methodological aspects for the audit to be reproducible.

There should be a system of recording ongoing and completed audits conducted within the NHS, to ensure that audit reports are produced and accessible. The NHS needs to make sure that not only are appropriate audit methods used but that audit reports are written up in sufficient detail to allow the reader to ascertain how the audit was conducted and to assess the validity of the results. Documentary evidence of action plans would make it easier for those not directly involved in the audit to assess if, and in what ways, the audit findings are being acted upon to improve existing practices and procedures.

This paper discusses what needs to be done in order to improve the reporting and usefulness of clinical audit reports.