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Desistance is increasingly conceptualised as a theoretical construct which is used to explain how offenders orient themselves away from committing crimes. Previous studies suggest that successful desistance occurs due to one or a number of factors. These factors include things such as: faith (Giordano et al., 2007); a rite of passage (Maruna, 2010); gender (Giordano et al., 2002); psychosocial processes (Healey, 2010); personal and social circumstances which are space and place specific (Flynn, 2010); ethnicity and faith (Calverley, 2013); race and racialisation (Glynn, 2014). However, to date there has been little work undertaken to examine how notions of “intersectionality” may be a more appropriate theoretical lens through which to locate and contextualise the understandings of desistance when looking at marginalised populations such as black offenders. Intersectionality is an understanding of human beings as shaped by the interaction of different social locations. These interactions occur within a context of connected systems and structure of power. Through such processes independent forms of privilege and oppression are created. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper concludes with a perspective that envisions moving towards an “intersectional model of desistance for marginalised groups such as black offenders”.

It is the author’s view that the development of a intersectional model of desistance for black offenders may begin a dialogue that further pushes the study of re-entry and desistance into an area that transcends the criminal justice system and locates itself firmly within the civil and human rights of black offenders, and indeed, offenders as a whole. It is hoped that by using intersectional approaches when conducting inquiries we will be able to lead towards eradicating multiple oppressions faced by so many sections of the offender populations and the communities they come from.

This paper is positional inasmuch as it attempts to establish some, principled arguments to advance the study of desistance. Therefore, a testing of the views expressed in the paper is required.

It is the author’s contention that for those black offenders who desire to quit crime, there needs to be networks and activities that not only support their desire to desist, but a radical reframing of how interlocking oppressions that render them subordinate must become a key driver for the desistance project. How can/do black offenders acquire and tell their own authentic narrative when it has been shaped by a history of oppression? It is therefore right to assume that meaningful reintegration of black offenders back into communities requires a deeper commitment to culturally competent rehabilitative processes, that could lead towards a culture of desistance.

An “Intersectional Model of Desistance” also needs to challenge some white criminologists’ claims by validating the black contribution to criminological theorising. This position should embrace and include perspectives which unify theoretical positions that validate interlocking oppressions; racism, poverty, ethno-cultural group membership, etc., where the broader distribution of opportunities across society, and the ability to recognise them as such as opportunities for black men to desist are taken into consideration. As part of a process of rehabilitation, black offenders need to be engaged with intersectional institutional processes and practices that will lead to a challenge of their criminal values and behaviour, designed to increase their capacity to consider desistance. It is hoped that by using intersectional approaches when conducting inquiries we will be able to eradicate multiple oppressions faced by so many sections of the offender populations and the communities they come from.

Understanding how the experiences of black offenders, are impacted by examining interlocking oppressions of criminal justice processes; police, courts, incarceration, probation, etc., would critically assess how these intersections enhances or impedes the desistance trajectories of black offenders, in relation to offenders as a whole. As much of black offender lived reality centres on having to contend, not just with criminal justice process, but the additional oppression of racialisation, the outcomes become more heavily context dependent and driven.

This article is concerned with exploring the experience of black prisoners at HMP Grendon, the only prison in the country that operates wholly as a therapeutic community (TC).

The study involved undertaking semi‐structured interviews with 11 prisoners, all identifying themselves as “black”, who had committed a range of offences, as well as representing several geographical locations from the UK, Africa and the Caribbean. An adapted form of grounded theory was used to code the data collected from these interviews.

In total, four main themes emerged from the interviews undertaken: Grendon; Father deficit; Self‐concept; and Desistance.

Grendon may be the recipient of a culture of mistrust amongst black prisoners within the wider prison estate. Consequently, black prisoners' narratives could provide some much needed clarity on black prisoners operating from an “outsider within” perspective in the predominantly white TCs at Grendon.

The research suggested that elements of the prison's TC regime may not be culturally appropriate, appealing, or marketed correctly to black prisoners. This may be compounded by the social stigma attached to black men's mental health, combined with their overrepresentation within both the criminal justice and mental health systems.

While there is a developing body of knowledge of how prison TCs offer space for offenders to reflect, address, and then transform their offending behaviour, to date there has been limited consideration of the nature of the TC experience for black TC residents in the prison system of England and Wales. This article addresses this deficit.

Research pertaining to young people, frontline work and faith is fairly limited. This qualitative article proposes that often faith and “on road” youth work are intertwined. This paper aims to explore the experiences of nine frontline practitioners, those who work with young people in a range of settings. The crux of the discussion is focused on how the religious and cultural views of practitioners impact their frontline practice, as it relates to supporting the young person’s needs. The authors suggest that understanding frontline practice as it relates to faith is imperative to our ability to effectively engage with young people “on road”.

This paper took a qualitative approach, where semi-structured interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. This allowed the formation of the following three core themes: incarceration, religiosity and “on road” youth work; the nuances of religion and identity “on road”; and the “pains of ‘on road’ youth work”.

The findings within this paper suggest that faith and “on road” youth work are intertwined. In that frontline practitioners’ personal religious views, and importantly the understanding they have regarding the array of religious identities adopted by young people (YP) is helpful in engaging YP across the board. This paper highlights the complexities between identity, faith, faith-based support and hard-to-reach communities.

This paper explores the complexities between faith on “on road” criminology/“on road” youth work. This area of study is fairly under-researched. This paper seeks to build on existing research surrounding YP, further exploring religiosity from a UK context.

This paper aimed to explore the lived experiences of frontline practitioners in Birmingham UK, many of whom work with YP from Black, Asian or minority backgrounds. Therefore the findings cannot be generalised.

This paper’s intention is not to stereotype YP, but to raise awareness of the subjective experience of faith and religiosity on the frontline.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are few studies that explore the concept of “on road” criminology and “on road” youth work. Therefore, findings from this study are important to develop further understanding.

In the literature on product branding, significant attention is given to brand equity in the consumer context, but relatively little attention is paid to the application of the concept in the business-to-business (B2B) context. Even less research exists on the role of brand equity in the retailing context. Retailers are often seen as irrelevant to the source of brand value, resulting in manufacturers not targeting retailers to help them build stronger brands. Potential occurs, therefore, for some channel conflict to exist between manufacturers and retailers. On the one hand, retailers tend to focus on building their own, private brands to differentiate themselves from other retail competitors and to increase their power in relation to manufacturer brands. At the same time, most retailers still need to create a good image in the consumer marketplace by selling famous, manufacturer-branded products. In other words, retailers often have to sell famous brands even if they would prefer to sell other brands including their own. Manufacturers tend to focus their brand-building efforts on the consumer market to entice consumers to insist that retailers stock their brands, rather than placing any real emphasis on building a strong and positive brand relationship with the retailer directly.

Leaders are important social actors in organizations, centrally involved in establishing and maintaining institutional values, a view that was articulated by Philip Selznick (1957) nearly a half-century ago, but often overlooked in institutionalists’ accounts. Our objective is to build on Selznick’s seminal work to investigate the value proposition of leadership consistent with institutional theory. We examine public interview transcripts from 52 senior executives and discover that leaders’ conceptualizations of their entities align with the archetypes of organization (i.e., economic, hierarchical, and power oriented) and institution (i.e., ideological, creative and collectivist) and cohere around a set of relevant values. Extrapolating from this, we advance a theoretical framework of the process whereby leaders’ claims function as transformational mechanisms of value infusion in the institutionalization of organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how legacy organizational identity and death relate to each other and, thereby, contribute to closing the gap in knowledge on organizational identity constructions in times of death.

The paper opted for an exploratory study relying on primary data from in-depth narrative interviews with 20 organizational members of a bank that went bankrupt. The primary data, as well as documents like websites, newspapers, magazines, booklets, minutes, and reports, were complemented by secondary interviews with other members of the financial industry.

The paper finds that members of a dead organization construct a bankruptcy narrative that is also a legacy organizational identity narrative including a legacy organizational identity transformation and several identities that have positive and negative aspects and are conflicting but integrated into a coherent narrative. Furthermore, the paper provides empirical insights on how members of a dead organization draw upon their legacy organizational identity to justify their (lack of) past interpretations and responses to an unfolding bankruptcy. Finally, it provides empirical evidence on ways that legacy organizational identity from a dead organization play a substantial role in a living organization.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability.

The paper holds insight that can help practitioners understand members of a dying organization – including the ways they come to form and perform in a new organizational context; an understanding that is a prerequisite for helping and supporting these members in coming to perform satisfyingly in the new organization.

This paper addresses an apparent gap in the literature on identity and death; exploring identity narratives in a bankrupted bank, the paper considers constructions of legacy organizational identities in times of disruptive death.

We investigate how Salesforce’s key people used analogies and metaphors during the deployment of their (then) radical business model innovation. Our analysis shows how Salesforce’s entrepreneurial team skillfully used a mix of analogies and metaphors to communicate its innovations and differentiate the company from its competitors. We also show how business model innovators can weave together analogies and metaphors to create distinct meta-narratives that elicited strong emotions and helped construct a memorable organizational identity that galvanized stakeholders around the firm’s ecosystem appeal. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for business model and cognition research.

Market actors are simultaneously constrained and enabled by the structures they operate within, which opens opportunities for strategic actors. We build on cultural entrepreneurship and market category research to advance an agency-based perspective that brings together research streams on positioning for optimal distinctiveness and shaping with category strategy. We distinguish legitimating narratives for an individual position from initiatives aimed at category construction, and propose that linking these is a basis for strategic advantage. Market transformation involves strategic actors crafting differentiating stories that make an individual position compelling, and then extending these narratives to construct an abstract schema that creatively combines cultural defaults. We further highlight that transformative agency requires an engaged audience, such that stakeholders are willing to consider a new narrative.

This paper aims to explore the role of storytelling and impression management (IM) through the president’s letter in legitimizing the practices of an electricity company with regard to controversial issues during a period of change.

Drawing on a qualitative case study, this paper examines annual report letters from 1995 to 2013 using a methodological interpretative approach.

By promoting a success story using IM, the presidents give sense to particular actions related with controversial issues and attempt to influence expectations on strategic changes. The findings demonstrate that organizational actors use the flexibility of the president’s letter to tell the story and emphasize its self-laudatory nature. The study highlights that storytelling in these documents can be used to alleviate the tensions created by the inherent contradictions of social structures.

This research is useful for regulatory authorities, users of annual reports and academic researchers, making them attentive of the narratives companies may adopt to protect their legitimacy. The findings shed light on the need to evaluate the credibility of accountability mechanisms and can help stakeholders to develop a more critical view of the president’s letter.

This paper makes a contribution to research on communication issues by expanding literature on accounting and organizational storytelling. By demonstrating how presidents use sensegiving as a means of legitimacy-claiming, this study adds to the literature on legitimating accounts. In doing so, this paper bridges the gap between theories about organizational legitimacy, storytelling and IM. To sum up, the findings serve as an incremental step toward understanding the nature of accountability reporting.