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The purpose of this paper is to examine the results of New Zealand initiatives to reduce seclusion rates and report the attitudes of mental health nurses to seclusion, factors involved in seclusion use, and alternatives to seclusion.

A questionnaire was circulated to mental health inpatient staff. Data from the Ministry of Health for seclusion numbers and rates for Ma¯ori and non-Ma¯ori were also collected.

The major barriers to reducing the use of seclusion related to staffing issues, a lack of management and medical support, and physical characteristics of the facility. Data from the Office of the Director of Mental Health annual reports from 2007-2014 clearly show a reduction in the total seclusion events, the number of patients secluded, and the percentage of total patients secluded. However, the percentage of Ma¯ori secluded compared to the total number of patients secluded showed little change from 2007 to 2013.

Further analysis of the nurse’s responses showed that four of the six least-used strategies incorporated Ma¯ori cultural approaches. The authors surmise that an inability to provide culturally sensitive care, either through staffing or education factors, may be implicated in the lack of change in the seclusion rates for Ma¯ori. This may also be pertinent to seclusion rates for indigenous peoples in other countries.

Initial results are presented from an ongoing, work‐based collaborative inquiry between three medical consultants (a pathologist, a radiologist and a dermatologist) and three experienced visual artists into processes of clinical and aesthetic judgements in the visual domain. The doctors’ habitual conventions are challenged through the interventions of the artists, leading to a re‐education of the senses through a revitalised clinical imagination. Outcomes include self‐assessed improvement of clinical acumen through systematic review of the clinical reasoning process looking specifically at the aesthetic dimension. A central research interest is how forms and styles of judgement construct identities of the expert practitioner in work settings. The papers describes a change in practice from “looking” to “seeing” as the development of a “connoisseurship” of informational images informed by tolerance of ambiguity, creating a practice identity against the grain of the normative technical‐rational discourse of clinical reasoning.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a conceptual plan for innovative, integrated care designed for people living with long-term conditions (LTCs).

The conceptual plan delivers a partnership between the health system, the person with LTCs (chronic), their family, and the community. The partnership aims to support people at home with access to effective treatment, consistent with the New Zealand Government Health Strategy. This concept of people-owned care is provided by nurses with advanced practice skills, who coordinate care across services, locations and multiple LTCs.

With the global increase in numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions, health services are challenged to deliver good outcomes and experience. This model aims to demonstrate the effective use of healthcare resources by supporting people living with a chronic condition, to increase their self-efficacy and resilience in accordance with personal, cultural and social circumstance. The aim is to have a model of care that is replicable and transferable across a range of health services.

People living with chronic conditions can be empowered to manage their health and well-being, whilst having access to nurse-led care appropriate to individual needs.

Although there are examples of case management and nurse-led coordination, this model is novel in that it combines a liaison nursing role that works in partnership with patients, whilst ensuring that care across a number of primary and secondary care services is truly integrated and not simply interfaced.

Last year the Business Education Council issued a consultative document asking for advice from those concerned with education in distribution. Robert Marshall outlines some points he thinks worth raising—the relation between staff education and staff training; the need for adequate provision for distribution in any courses and awards set up by BEC; the desirability for simplicity in BEC courses and awards; and the need for accessibility to all employees of national awards under BEC auspices.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise a successfully defended doctoral thesis. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the scope, and main issues raised in the thesis so that readers undertaking studies in the same or connected areas may be aware of current contributions to the topic. The secondary aims are to frame the completed thesis in the context of doctoral‐level research in project management as well as offer ideas for further investigation which would serve to extend scientific knowledge on the topic.

Research reported in this paper is based on a quantitative study using inferential statistics aimed at better understanding the actual and potential usage of earned value management (EVM) as applied to external projects under contract. Theories uncovered during the literature review were hypothesized and tested using experiential data collected from 145 EVM practitioners with direct experience on one or more external projects under contract that applied the methodology.

The results of this research suggest that EVM is an effective project management methodology. The principles of EVM were shown to be significant positive predictors of project success on contracted efforts and to be a relatively greater positive predictor of project success when using fixed‐price versus cost‐plus (CP) type contracts. Moreover, EVM's work‐breakdown structure (WBS) utility was shown to positively contribute to the formation of project contracts. The contribution was not significantly different between fixed‐price and CP contracted projects, with exceptions in the areas of schedule planning and payment planning. EVM's “S” curve benefited the administration of project contracts. The contribution of the S‐curve was not significantly different between fixed‐price and CP contracted projects. Furthermore, EVM metrics were shown to also be important contributors to the administration of project contracts. The relative contribution of EVM metrics to projects under fixed‐price versus CP contracts was not significantly different, with one exception in the area of evaluating and processing payment requests.

These results have important implications for project practitioners, EVM advocates, as well as corporate and governmental policy makers. EVM should be considered for all projects – not only for its positive contribution to project contract development and administration, for its contribution to project success as well, regardless of contract type. Contract type should not be the sole determining factor in the decision whether or not to use EVM. More particularly, the more fixed the contracted project cost, the more the principles of EVM explain the success of the project. The use of EVM mechanics should also be used in all projects regardless of contract type. Payment planning using a WBS should be emphasized in fixed‐price contracts using EVM in order to help mitigate performance risk. Schedule planning using a WBS should be emphasized in CP contracts using EVM in order to help mitigate financial risk. Similarly, EVM metrics should be emphasized in fixed‐price contracts in evaluating and processing payment requests.

This paper provides a summary of cutting‐edge research work and a link to the published thesis that researchers can use to help them understand how the research methodology was applied as well as how it can be extended.

The authors present a case study of how Hewlett‐Packard is changing its culture under the direction of its new chief executive Carly Fiorina. Fiorina says her challenge is “to make sure HP represents the next century rather than the last one.” To prepare for the future, company leaders saw the need to create a “New HP Way.” Under the new way, all HP employees — but especially managers — must be leaders who generate enthusiasm and respond with extra effort to meet customer needs. They must personally accept responsibility and are encouraged to upgrade their skills and capabilities through ongoing training and development.

Using a complexity-informed approach, we aim to understand why introduction of a mobile service delivery model for osteoporosis across diverse organisational and country contexts in the UK National Health Service (NHS) met with variable success.

Six comparative case studies; three prospectively in Scotland using an action research-informed approach; and three retrospectively in England with variable degrees of success. The Non-adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread and Sustainability framework explored interactions between multi-level contextual factors and their influence on efforts to introduce and sustain services.

Cross-boundary service development was a continuous process of adaptation and evolution in rapidly shifting healthcare context. Whilst the outer healthcare policy context differed significantly across cases, inner contextual features predominated in shaping the success or otherwise of service innovations. Technical and logistical issues, organisational resources, patient and staff actions combined in unpredictable ways to shape the lifecycle of service change. Patient and staff thoughts about place and access to services actively shaped service development. The use of tacit “soft intelligence” and a sense of “chronic unease” emerged as important in successfully navigating around awkward people and places.

“Chronic unease” and “soft intelligence” can be used to help individuals and organisations “tame” complexity, identify hidden threats and opportunities to achieving change in a particular context, and anticipate how these may change over time. Understanding how patients think and feel about where, when and how care is delivered provides unique insights into previously unseen aspects of context, and can usefully inform development and sustainability of patient-centred healthcare services.

This study has uniquely traced the fortunes of a single service innovation across diverse organisational and country contexts. Novel application of the NASSS framework enabled comparative analysis across real-time service change and historical failures. This study also adds to theories of context and complexity by surfacing the neglected role of patients in shaping healthcare context.

Management literature commonly suggests authoritarian leadership (AL) as the ideal leadership style during crises and extreme situations. This study aims to question this view, exploring servant leadership (SL) as an alternative.

In the field of leadership research, surveys and interviews are the most dominant research methods. In light of this dominance, this paper draws on a rather unorthodox research approach: a historical examination.

The elaborations in this paper suggest that SL exerts a higher influence on followers than AL, when organizational structures are absent or disregarded. Consequently, the higher influence of SL implies a lower need for regulations and directives within organizations.

Bureaucracy and red tape can be reduced. Particularly in situations of crises, SL’s relatively reduced reliance on formalized organizational structures can be advantageous to leaders.

The relationship among leadership (SL and AL) and formalized organizational structures is elaborated and illustrated in a historical examination.

The paper seeks to build on a model from extant literature which utilized a similar historical analysis approach in a study of strategic decision making. Using the (unsuccessful) defence of Hong Kong in World War II as the historical case, the paper seeks first to apply Chung and McLarney's model in the analysis, and then extend the model so as to better handle the unique sequence of events that took place in 1941.

The paper employs a historical case event in an analysis of competitive strategies. The first section provides a descriptive historical account of the battle of Hong Kong. The second section describes the decision‐making model, while the third section applies the model to explain three sets of decisions: the decision to defend the colony, decisions made during the battle and the decision to surrender. The fourth section draws implications for strategic decision making in organizations, while the last section presents conclusions.

Organization theorists seem to be fascinated with planning and strategy formulation, at the expense of strategy implementation. While designing organizational strategy is often more glamorous than execution, it is the execution of strategy that ultimately determines an organization's competitive advantage. Clearly, the strategy of the Allied Forces in Hong Kong was not hard to figure out (Mintzberg). However, there is growing research on how lower organizational levels have a tremendous contribution in fundamentally changing, formulating organizational strategy and sometimes even obstructing strategy formulated at the top. The decision to defend Hong Kong in the face of the Japanese invasion, decisions made during the battle and the decision to surrender were all major, critical decisions, especially susceptible to such biases as overconfidence, problem framing, availability heuristics and confirming‐evidence. Overconfidence is particularly dangerous.

The study not only modifies and extends the model, but also contributes to the literature by augmenting the validity of previous case research.

Frederick Hayward has resigned from the Shuttleworth Collection, where he was general manager, to join Specialised Mouldings Limited as their marketing director.