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Women in public accounting firms are still proportionally much fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men, whereas recruitment at junior level tends to be increasingly gender‐balanced. This paper aims to analyse the relationships between the glass ceiling and motherhood. The mechanisms explaining the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers in their hierarchical progression within the Big Four in France are identified.

From 24 interviews with male and female auditors of various hierarchical levels, one seeks to reveal the specificity of the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers.

It is argued that, throughout their careers, they are confronted with a dilemma that often leads to their being excluded and excluding themselves from the group of “those who may become partners”. It is shown that public accounting firms place both implicit and explicit obstacles in their way, tied to a desire to neutralise the effects, deemed costly, of motherhood. Moreover, the expectations of the organisation and society as a whole conflict on many points and confront female auditors with a dilemma: how to be a good mother and have a bright career? It appears that women who want to better manage this dilemma shape working practices imposed on the whole team and implement tactics to adapt their work‐life balance (specialisation and lateral move to staff departments). This leads to individual trajectories that break out of the organisational model and account for the scarcity of women in the upper management levels in audit firms.

The paper gives voice to male auditors and shows that managing the professional life/private life dilemma is difficult for fathers as well as mothers, in the long term. Moreover, rather than thinking in terms of horizontal and vertical segregations, this paper invites one to question the concept of the glass ceiling and consider the construction of the scarcity of women in the accounting profession.

Human Development Human Development Report 1991, published by the United Nations Development Programme, is available from the Marketing Department, Microinfo Ltd, PO Box 3, Omega Park, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 2PG. It contains six chapters: Measuring Human Development and Freedom, The State of Human Development, Financing Human Development, Efficiency in Human Development, The Politics of Reform, and A New Human Order. For the first time the report includes a human freedom index which makes an attempt to quantify this elusive concept. The cost of the report is £15 + £3 p&p.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s (2001) concept of symbolic violence in his work on Masculine Domination, the purpose of this paper is to examine how perceptions of legitimacy surrounding the presence of female directors are constructed in the boardroom, and the role of symbolic violence in the process.

The authors carried out the investigation through a series of 32 interviews, mostly with board members in government-owned, commercially focussed companies in Québec. The study was conducted in the aftermath of the adoption of a legislative measure aiming to institute parity in the boardroom of government-owned companies.

The analysis suggests that perceptions of legitimacy are predicated on two main discourses, as conveyed through board members when interpreting the presence of female directors. In the first discursive representation, feminine gender is naturalized and mobilized by participants to support (quite oftentimes in a rather apparent positive way) the distinctive contributions that femininity can make, or cannot make, to the functioning of boards. In the second discourse (degenderizing), the question of gender disappears from the sense-making process. Women’s presence is then justified and normalized, not because of their feminine qualities, but rather and uniquely for their competencies.

While, from a first level of analysis, the main discourses the authors unveiled may be considered as potentially enhancing women’s role and legitimacy within boards, from a deeper perspective such discourses may also be viewed as channels for symbolic violence to operate discreetly, promoting certain forms of misrecognition that continue to marginalize certain individuals or groups of people. For example, the degenderizing discourse misrecognizes that a focus on individual competency contests overlooks the social conditions under which the contesters developed their competencies.

Provides awareness and a basis for directors to understand and how symbolic power covertly operates in apparently rationalized structures of corporate governance and challenge assumptions.

Implications in terms of policy making to promote board diversity are discussed. This is particularly relevant since many countries around the world are considering affirmative-action-type regulation to accelerate an otherwise dawdling trend in the nomination of women on boards.

The research is the first to empirically address the notion of gendering in the boardroom, focussing on the construction of meanings surrounding the “legitimate” female director. The study is also one of few giving access to a field where a critical mass is attained, allowing the authors to investigate perceptions regarding the extent to which the order of things is altered in the boardroom once formal parity is established. Finally, the study sensitizes the authors further to the pertinence of investigating how symbolic power covertly operates in today’s society, including within apparently rationalized structures of corporate governance.

Over the last two decades Bill George has been researching the basic ingredients of authentic leadership through one of the most extensive empirical studies of leadership ever undertaken. He and his team have extended their research to include both international and rising generation leaders and parlayed their findings into a development process aimed at helping current and aspiring leaders to become both more authentic and effective. His latest book, True North: Leading Authentically in Today’s Workplace (Emerging Leader Edition), is co-authored with Zach Clayton.

Interview with authors Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, and Zach Clayton, CEO of Three Ships, conducted by Brian Leavy, Emeritus Professor of Strategy at Dublin City University Business School, a Strategy &Leadership contributing editor and author of the S&L masterclass, “ Effective leadership today – character, not just competence.

Authentic leaders engender trust and develop genuine connections, which enables them to motivate people to achieve high levels of performance.

“I believe the hardest person you will ever have to lead is yourself.” -- Bill George

“The authors interviewed hundreds of CEOs and found that the self-awareness that they develop in the process of self-discovery is the most essential determinant of their effectiveness as a leader.”

An interview with Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy. His new book is the articulation of key leadership principles for the next era of capitalism, and how to put them into practice, in both the best and hardest of times.

Joly believes “Work is a quest for meaning. Maximizing profit does not answer that quest.” His “purpose first” approach enabled the acclaimed turnaround of the company during his 2012-to-2019 tenure

Best Buy’s purpose was ‘to enrich our customers’ lives through technology.

According to Joly, “When we ask Best Buy employees what drives them, no one ever says ‘shareholder value.’”

Joly is a CEO who believes in and practices the approach that it is critical for leaders to understand what drives the individuals around them–and how it connects to the purpose of the organization. He believes business is fundamentally about purpose, people and human relationships. When common purpose aligns with individual searches for meaning, it can unleash a kind of human magic that results in outstanding performance.

The growing numbers of older people represent an important market segment for retailers, particularly the food retail sector. The dominance of the food multiples and their growth strategies have been criticised for contributing to some older consumers being disadvantaged. This paper considers the satisfaction levels of older consumers in Scotland, with their food‐shopping experience. Drawing upon previous work by the author which identified the factors influencing satisfaction, 220 volunteers were recruited from various locations in Scotland and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The survey focused on the main shopping trip. Results indicate that, whilst there is a general trend towards satisfaction, there are key areas of dissatisfaction, such as aspects of the products for sale (merchandise), the practices and procedures of the retailer (retail practices) and factors in the community which affected the shopping trip (external shopping factors). This suggests that policy‐makers seeking to encourage the participation of food retailers in health promotion need to recognise vulnerable sub‐groups of the older population and recognise that not all older consumers can signal their preferences in the marketplace.

This study aims to explore the demographic and reconviction data of individuals who had engaged in an established Intensive Intervention and Risk Management Service, a community service within the offender personality disorder pathway (OPD).

Demographic information and reconviction data from the Police National Computer was accessed for all participants (n = 69) released to the service over a 10-year period (2008– 2018), 45 of who met criteria to be included in the study. Their intervention period spans custody to community, with an expected period of 2 years engagement upon release.

Participants in the service had experienced significant traumatic histories, with four or more adverse childhood experiences. Individuals had a mean of 17 convictions for violent and/or sexual offences and an average of 11 years in custody prior to release. The average length of intervention at Resettle in the community was almost 19 months, with an additional minimum of six months in-reach prior to release. A total of 60% of individuals were recalled back to custody at least once during their intervention, with this being more likely for those who had been convicted of a violent rather than sexual offence. Within the group who were reconvicted, the reconvictions were for less serious offences than the index offence, with only 16% being convicted of an indictable offence. Almost two-thirds (64.4%) did not receive a further conviction post-intervention in the follow-up period.

This follow-up study focused upon demographic and reconviction data from one established IIRMS. Although findings are not necessarily generalisable to other IIRMS and OPD pathway services, the demographic and reconviction data has important learning for how services may reflect upon engaging with individuals whose needs and risks had not previously been adequately met and managed upon release. This data are useful learning, for what may help individuals with complex needs upon release into the community after long sentences and how to best meet their needs. There are aspects of the Resettle IIRMS approach which could be applied to non-specialist services to encourage a holistic, compassionate and relational approach to reaching those with complex needs who pose significant risks to others.

This follow-up study has provided access to participants’ engagement with an established IIRMS. Although participants “opt in” to the service whilst in custody, engagement on release becomes a probation licence condition; a fixed boundary regarding attendance and engagement which, although enables robust risk management and reduces the likelihood of drop-out, also raises consideration about choice and control. The four day per week service provides an intensive intervention, for those with complex needs and limited prior experience of living safely (with minimal risk to self or others) in the community. Participants were previously offered little hope of release or effective support because of their risk, need, complexity and, in some cases, concern about whether their risk could be effectively managed. Although not a panacea for all, the results are suggestive of a service that is navigating the boundary between “care and control” to good effect for future resettlement and desistance.

The findings are important for service providers, commissioners and the public purse. The results are useful for the national development of IIRMS. The findings are also important for prisoners and people on probation to inform their decision-making regarding intervention choices and hope for what may be achievable.

Power without authority is fragile; to be effective, leaders must appear to deserve their positions. This sense of legitimacy is the most important end product of going through Prep school. This sense of legitimacy is magnified by the sense of collective identity that Prep schools generate among their students, and much of the bonding process essential to upper‐class solidarity begins in this institution. This is the social glove that holds together the privileged classes, often at the expense of individuality but to the long‐term gain of upper‐class hegemony.

The purpose of this paper is to help readers to better understand and manage the key drivers of business model performance.

This paper investigates research on business model performance to identify and illustrate five static and dynamic performance drivers.

While performance mechanisms linked to traditional business model components remain instrumental for business model success, the authors argue that managers need to adopt a more dynamic view, emphasizing how changing combinations of drivers matter over a firm’s life cycle.

The proposed approach combines insights from multiple theoretical perspective into an actionable framework for management practitioners.

This paper aims to propose a conceptual framework to integrate a maturity model to the supply chain (SC) strategy, in order to understand how a maturity model can be useful in diagnosing and developing the capabilities of SC business processes (BPs) to meet SC's strategy.

The proposed framework was based on an SC strategy framework, in which a maturity model was added in order to diagnose and identify SC process capabilities that need to be developed, per maturity level, according to the type of SC strategy and the competitive strategy. A grid was proposed to analyze the relationship between them. An exploratory case study (multiple cases) was applied to verify the applicability of the model.

Findings indicate that a maturity model can delimit and align, as far as the company needs to reach, the SC strategic interests with the company's competitive objectives. However, some barriers and facilitating factors implicit can impact on this alignment. It is also noted that the maximum level of SC management (SCM) maturity may not be in the strategic interest of the company.

Due to the few empirical studies on the value of maturity models, this research contributes to the understanding of the usefulness of an SC process maturity model for the SC strategy. Moreover, the framework can show how a maturity model can serve as a parameter and guide to develop the capabilities of processes, resources and activities to meet the SC strategy and the reach of the competitive strategy.