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This paper examines the British fashion retailer Jigsaw in its strategy of “individualising” its outlets in the highly competitive British high street environment. In order to distinguish itself in the marketplace as an independent retailer with an acute sense of site and to maximise the impact of its outlets in a diverse range of locations, Jigsaw has deliberately commissioned a series of designers to create a series of memorable and challenging interiors with much resulting critical and financial success. This paper examines the work of two contrasting architects and their interior work, highlighting the individualistic approach to the high street taken by Jigsaw. This proactive attitude taken to both the place and face of design in its outlets has allowed Jigsaw both to tailor its image as required and to add perceived value to its merchandise. This paper examines the impact that design has had in facilitating this success.

This paper aims to explore the challenges and opportunities for expediting critical reflection in management education and development to highlight particularly how critical reflection has been facilitated within the context of a professionally focused doctoral programme.

The paper draws on empirical research conducted for a broader project, focusing here on two awaydays for DBA supervisors (n=25 in 2005 and n=16 in 2006) and a UFHRD workshop in 2007 (n=12) for members involved and/or interested in doctoral programmes in HRD, where the empirical research findings were presented and discussed. The paper presents selected findings from the perspective of staff through their own critical reflections, drawing on the data from the two awaydays and the UFHRD workshop. Detailed handwritten notes were taken and transcribed, in addition to flipchart material provided by the participants. These qualitative data are analysed using thematic analysis. The quotations presented are as accurate as possible (verbatim) and any ambiguous notes have been deliberately excluded.

Emerging findings include the need to clarify the concept for both staff and students, and embed critical reflection from the beginning of the programme and throughout written assignments. Insights into how staff perceive critical reflection within a DBA programme are offered, including how staff might assume (incorrectly) that advanced practitioners arrive with a high level of maturity to engage in critical reflection, and yet advanced practitioners “worry” about critique and perceive it as negative and/or failure.

It is acknowledged that the subjective experience of student participants is not central to this discussion, and, whilst a limitation of this paper, this presents an avenue for further research.

The paper presents a critical and reflexive account from a facilitator's perspective and offers practical suggestions for incorporating critical reflection within a DBA programme.

Given the dearth of literature of facilitating critical reflection in the context of professionally focused doctoral programmes, this paper makes a small and initial contribution to this field.

The Violent Offender Treatment Programme (VOTP) is a cognitive programme which aims to reduce risk of recidivism of mentally disordered offenders. Research has examined the use of various assessment tools to explore the effectiveness of the programme. Examination of service user feedback in relation to mental health service provision and violence risk has not been conducted. This study aims to explore service users' experiences of the VOTP.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis was utilised to explore interviews of seven service users' experiences of the VOTP, within a high secure psychiatric hospital.

Four broad themes were found: consistency, learning and application, the group experience, and programme structure. Findings indicate participants held positive views of the VOTP. They could relate to the material covered and felt this had enhanced their ability to manage violence and aggression. Recommendations to improve the programme included simplifying programme material, maintaining patient motivation, and ensuring effective communication.

The service users whose risk had substantially reduced and thus left the hospital were not included in this study. In addition, there were restrictions on the patients available as current mental health had to be taken into account. Implications include the importance service users place on group process.

Examining service user feedback in relation to mental health service provision had not previously been completed. Findings may be beneficial to other treatment programmes for violence and other group based psychological treatments in similar settings.

Examines the recent research on advertising in mainland China over the 1979‐1998 period. Suggests that findings show a sustained effort in academic research/publications on advertising in China is in the early stage of its development and whilst many areas have been researched, there are many more yet to be touched. Concludes that the research is seldom based on established theoretical or conceptual framework and the research methods and types of analysis used have not been very advanced when compared to general advertising research.

Considers the effects on the mass media of China’s transition to a more open economy and the strategies which advertisers might use to overcome the problems it presents. Describes the media available (including the unofficial “black route”, the official but restricted private sector “white route”, and the state “red route”) and lists the challenges which advertisers face in using them. Suggests some strategies and practices which can help to overcome them and some hypotheses on future media use. Calls for further research in this area.

Highlights the opinion that the importance of national culture in cross‐cultural management is diminishing, suggesting that the world is moving towards a single, global management culture that is basically Western and, more specifically, American. Attempts to test this hypothesis by examining values held by future managers from five different cultures. Uses the Kruskal‐Wallis One Way ANOVA and the Mann‐Whitney tests to show that future managers from different cultural backgrounds will neigher adopt a mirror image of current management style in their cultures nor a global unified management style regardless of local culture.

To demonstrate how teacher candidate narratives in response to videos depicting science and literacy instruction can be used to both teach and evaluate beginning teachers’ emerging conceptions of disciplinary literacy.

Teacher candidates viewed and responded to videos depicting exemplary practice in science education and then videos of their own practice. Qualitative discourse analysis was used to investigate the science teacher candidates’ interpretations of problems of practice, their views of scientific literacy and understandings of their students.

The teacher candidates displayed distaste for textbooks, reinforced by negative experiences with textbooks in school settings, and yet they viewed textbooks as essential for effectively teaching knowledge about science. At the same time, each viewed the natural world as the ideal “text” for teaching knowledge about science, at times compensating for the weaknesses of textbooks and at other times entirely replacing textbooks as the source of knowledge about science. We consider what this means for preparing teachers for effective subject matter and literacy practice.

Video reflections like these demonstrate that what teacher candidates understand about video representations of others’ and their own teaching are far from literal and are interpreted through the educational and background lenses of the teacher candidates’ themselves. We suggest that a great deal more work needs to be done to better understand how to use video reflection to best develop teacher candidates’ conceptions of subject matter and literacy practice.

This paper examines the growth of the public relations (PR) discipline in the UK with reference to some of the possible business drivers behind growth and the changing strategic role of communications in companies. Some of the factors at play are discussed, with particular reference to corporate social responsibility, transparency, stakeholder relationships and reputation management and the role of PR in creating the “employer brand” for those companies competing for the scare resource of new corporate talent. The paper also discusses the role of PR education in the UK in preparing aspirants to the profession for the working life of a PR practitioner and considers the expectations of companies for strategic PR management and whether the supply of practitioners meets the need and demand. Finally, the author draws upon experience in having undertaken a course of further formal PR education at Masters degree level and comments on the practical and strategic communications benefits to be gained from framing experience of PR in action within the growing body of PR and communications theory encountered during academic study.

Care management has developed in a variety of forms. This diary study explores differences in the approach taken to care management in three distinct social service settings: community‐based older people's teams, hospital social work teams also for older people and community‐based teams for adults with mental health problems. Conclusions are drawn both for social care and for health services developing case management for people with long‐term conditions.