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Business leaders, in increasing numbers, are looking to the creative power of the arts in their efforts to manage strategic change, to enhance innovation, or to strengthen corporate cultures. In this case study, we focus attention on what is widely regarded as one of the world's most extensive corporate arts‐based learning initiatives, the Catalyst program at Unilever.

In a wide‐ranging interview with James Hill, now a group vice‐president and Catalyst's leading executive sponsor, this paper explores the origins, operations, and outcomes of this innovative program.

Finds that Catalyst came about as a result of savvy leadership and a corporate willingness to take risks in developing an “enterprise culture;” it now flourishes in three divisions due to ownership at multiple levels of the organization as well as its ability to stimulate new product development, attract and retain creative people, and boost the company's marketing efforts; and it persists because its starting points are always actual business problems, the solutions to which improve financial performance and shareholder returns.

To management scholars, this case provides an additional data point in the ongoing study of strategy implementation and organizational change. To corporate executives seeking fresh ideas, the Unilever/Catalyst story offers a novel and intuitively appealing approach to the vexing challenges of leading strategic change, told from the perspective of an experienced executive.

A number of recent trends are influencing business schools towards better teaching and accounting for the role of “business in society” (BiS). The following article looks at selected results from the most comprehensive survey ever of BiS teaching and research in European academic institutions – undertaken in 2003 by the European Academy of Business in Society and Nottingham University Business School’s International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR), with the support of the European Foundation for Management Development (efmd). The survey found, among other things, that there is a clear demand from business and students for research, education and training on BiS issues; that teaching on the role of BiS is still far from being “mainstream” to the business curriculum; and that the diversity of European approaches and terms signal both a strength and a challenge for the BiS debate. The article looks at how a wide range of initiatives are being undertaken by both business schools and business, and often in unique partnerships, to address these challenges and move the BiS research and education agenda forward. Finally, the thorny issue of accreditation is tackled. Improving accreditation processes will play an important part in bringing the business education community up to speed with the new roles and responsibilities they are being asked to fulfill by a wide range of stakeholders (students, society, business and government). As both educators and mediators in the debate, business schools have a valuable contribution to make. In turn, they too are increasingly being made accountable for their own social and environmental impact. The article argues that business schools can choose whether they want to lead, respond, or partner with business to meet these challenges. However, it seems they can no longer afford to ignore it as a passing fad.

This paper aims to explore the extensive roots of peer support in mental health, and to identify the values and principles that the authors wish to hold onto as choices are made as to how and whether to engage with formal peer support within the National Health Service (NHS).

The authors attempt to cover the ground of three types of peer support, but with an emphasis on informal peer support and participation in consumer or peer‐run groups as providing the roots for the third more formal type, which is often known as intentional peer support (IPS).

Professionalisation of peer support may endanger the equality that lies at the root of peer support relationships. Independence may also be compromised if peer support becomes just another part of mainstream services. Whilst an individual/personalised approach to providing services has many strengths, one must be careful not to remove all opportunity for service users to meet together, support one another, plan and campaign.

The findings suggest that commissioners of services should aim for a plurality of peer support and be careful to ensure that informal peer support is flourishing as an essential basis for more formal peer support.

The paper shows that, with an increased interest in providing peer support as part of mainstream services, it is important to stress the basic values and principles that underpin informal service‐user led peer support.