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This article considers the implications of the introduction of legislation enabling the creation of the US concept of business improvement districts (BIDs) into the UK. Based on the US experience, it can be argued that local networks of small and medium‐sized retailers can benefit from establishing a BID in their immediate locale. A number of critical success factors for such BIDs are identified. These include strong leadership, a genuine desire for change, clarity of objectives and support from the local authority. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantages (and potential problem areas) of such localised SME retailer‐led BIDs.

Local shopping is a topic that has been neglected for many years by both retail researchers and policy makers. However, in recent years it has come on to the agenda again, mainly because a number of government policy areas – including social exclusion, regeneration and sector competitiveness – have recognised the vital community role played by small shops, and the problems of maintaining their vitality and viability. Within that context, introduces the special issue of IJRDM which presents a number of papers on the general theme of retailing for communities that were given at the CIRM Conference held in Manchester on 13 September 2002. They fall into three main groups: local shopping areas; business strategy and operations; and, learning, training and support for small retailers. The papers illustrate the diversity of research that needs to be undertaken in this area, and there are close parallels with work being undertaken in other management and social science disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of a novel service for the non-offending partners (NOPs) of men who have sexually offended against children.

The paper examines the rationale for the current service and the preliminary qualitative data that reflect how NOPs experience the group innovations.

Interviews and previous qualitative analyses demonstrate both the positive changes that the NOP programme supports regarding child protections skills and the value that NOPs perceive in incorporating male therapists and male offenders into the process.

Given these recent changes to the NOP group, and the small group sizes, the ability to examine how the NOPs perceive these innovations, the personal impact they have on change in NOPs, and more importantly, the impact on recidivism and reduction of further harm to children are yet to be fully investigated and these are central questions for the service to ensure that it offers a valid and reliable intervention programme and limits the extent to which the programme can be generalised. Further research will plug this gap.

The service offers new challenges for NOPs with the aim of making them better understand offending against children, their role in protecting children, and ultimately the protection of children in general. This may act as a model for the development of future services for these individuals.

There are few programmes aimed at providing support and intervention for an often marginalised group of individuals, the female NOPs of men who have sexually offended against children. This programme includes new approaches to working with the women providing them with new sources of support and insight.

As other researchers have done previously, we conceptualize innovation not as a linear process but as a cyclical one (e.g., Van de Ven, Polley, Garud, & Venkataraman, 1999), which consist periods of innovation initiation, implementation, adaptation, and stabilization (West, 1990). Within this cycle it is possible to distinguish two major components: the beginning of the cycle, which is dominated by the generation of ideas that is generally also designated as creativity; whereas the dominant activity at the end of the cycle which is the implementation of ideas (hereafter referred to as the implementation of innovation). Creativity is then likely to be most evident in the early stages of the innovation process, when those in teams are required to develop or offer ideas in response to a perceived need for innovation. Creative thinking is also likely when teams proactively initiate proposals for change and consider their initial implementation. As the innovation is adapted to organizational circumstances, there is less need for creativity. At the outset of the process, creativity dominates, to be superseded later by innovation implementation processes. Of course, it can be argued that creativity is important throughout the innovation process, but in general, the requirements for creative ideas will be greater at the earlier stages of the innovation process than the later stages.