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GE, Sony, Hallmark, Intel, Xerox, Procter & Gamble, IBM, some of these corporations dominate the business‐to‐consumer space. Others, business‐to‐business. What they have in common goes far beyond the fact that they are great companies or the fact that their great brands command a tremendous amount of equity.

The purpose of this paper is to present an interview with Michael Dunn, a leading global consultancy expert, author and one of Consulting Magazine's Top 25 Consultants of 2008.

This briefing is prepared by an independent interviewer.

Michael Dunn is Chairman and CEO of a leading global consultancy specializing in helping Fortune 500 clients and their senior executives more effectively use branding, marketing and innovation to drive profitable growthOriginality/valueThe interview provides insights into how to build and sustain a company‐wide innovation capability.

In this chapter, we theorize about online freelancers’ approaches to work flexibility. Drawing from an ongoing digital ethnography of US-based online freelancers pursuing work on digital platforms, our data question the common conceptualizations around the flexibility of online freelancing. We posit that the flexibility of where to work, not when to work, is the most important attribute of their work arrangement. Our data show (1) the online freelancers in our study prefer the stability and sustainability of full-time work over freelancing when both are offered as remote options; (2) full-time remote employment increases these workers’ freelancing control / flexibility; (3) these workers keep freelance work options open even as they transition to more permanent full-time work arrangements. We discuss how these findings relate to workplace culture shifts and what this means for contemporary working arrangements. Our insights contribute to the discourses on knowledge-based gig work and for what it means to study individuals online.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between leadership and gender in the UK’s Royal Navy (RN) to answer the research question “Do men and women lead in different ways?”.

The research collected factual data on personnel statistics and organisational structure in the RN. The primary research adopted a grounded theory approach using repertory grid and critical incident technique. The research design was to interview a snowball sample of 27 mid-ranking officers, equally split between men and women and drawn from the main branches in the RN.

There is a significant gender deficit in the RN officer cadre with no women senior-ranking RN officers currently in post. A model of RN leadership was developed from a content and statistical analysis of the primary data. This was broadly equivalent for both men and women, except in one regard: women are expected to manage the impact of their gender so that their self-presentation conforms to the prevailing androcentric norms. The analysis also identified the consequences of unreflective leadership for followers and developed the term “damagement” to conceptualise this.

The small-scale research design precluded any generalisable findings, but further research, if confirmatory, should make a substantive contribution to both the theoretical field of gender and leadership, and the practice of leadership in the RN.

These would relate the practice of leadership in the RN. Given further confirmatory research, the findings should inform the leadership selection, training and evaluation processes operated by the RN. It should also influence the Ministry of Defence’s policy on the wider deployment of women in the armed services, when the issue is next reviewed.

The research may have social implications for the wider acceptance of the valuable contribution that women can and should be making in the national armed services of the UK and beyond.

The research was primary. It has added value though both its contribution to the leadership and gender debate and also the conceptualisation of leadership in the armed services, particularly the RN. In addition, it developed a new concept, that of “damagement” that could be critical in the development of more effective leadership styles.

The purpose of this paper is to comment on Brown and Marchant's analysis of the complexity that can arise when applying the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) to the care and support provided to people with learning disabilities.

A theoretical approach to explore the implications of Brown and Marchant's paper for the relationship between the law and practice in this area.

The complexity accounted for by Brown and Marchant lies in the tension between the procedural requirements of the MCA and the practical realities of the support provided to individuals with complex and long‐term needs. This tension cannot be addressed simply by focusing on improving training or better implementing the law in practice.

It is important to further examine and explore the relationship between new legal principles to govern decision making and the complex ways in which people with learning disabilities and other individuals need to be supported in practical situations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the female British Army officer, to determine whether female Army officers lead in different ways to male Army officers.

The conceptual framework was transformational and transactional leadership theory. Data were gathered in semi structured interviews with 24 Army officers, split 50:50 between men and women using repertory grid, and critical incident methods.

Women and men Army officers interviewed do lead in different ways with women demonstrating a gender management aspect to their leadership. The research also identified that women officers experience an “armoured glass” ceiling in terms of career progression, the research developed a conceptual model of military leadership that differs from the transformational/transactional leadership model. It also disconfirms contemporary leadership theory that conflates leadership and change management.

The paper makes no claims for generalisability because of the unrepresentative sample. Further, research is needed on a representative sample basis.

The paper may inform policy on the management and development of female Army officers. It may also have utility in improving leadership development in the British Army and other UK Armed Services.

The paper makes a contribution in two areas; it adds to the growing body of research that indicates men and women lead in different ways and assessing the implications that flow from this. It is also a research‐based contribution to conceptualising leadership in the British Army officer cadre below 1 star level.