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Self‐directed work teams are playing an increasingly important role in companies around the world. In many respects they represent a fundamentally different way of conducting business at every level in the organization. Management development departments have the potential to take a leading role in introducing and fostering attitudes and skills necessary to be successful in this effort. They can do this by reframing their use of existing experiential activities. In the process, they can more fully harvest the participant′s time at the programme and create a teamwork signature for the management development curriculum.

Personal management styles tend to heavily influence strategic decision making. The authors identify six management styles and describe how each style can influence a company's strategic planning.

Entrepreneurship education is struggling to define itself, to create a meaningful knowledge base, and to develop, entrepreneurial skills in managers. As an integral part of this process, the utility and appropriate‐ness of various teaching methods are frequently explored. It is suggested that the behavioural simulation technology, which has been successfully used to teach strategic and organisational processes and to diagnose and develop managerial skills, may be appropriate for developing entrepreneurial skills. Empirical data are used to support the argument that behavioural simulations create an appropriate teacher‐learner environment to accomplish many of the learning objectives of entrepreneurship education.

Based on personal observations of several thousand managers, in both business and simulated business settings, four elements are identified that are frequently associated with leadership effectiveness. These elements are: (1) consistently and routinely applying a small number of key concepts, (2) developing skill at thinking and acting strategically, (3) taking advantage of knowing one′s personal style and its impact on others, (4) understanding the non‐linear and iterative nature of strategic management processes. These four elements ‐concepts, skills, personal style, and process – had the most impact on the organisations run by the managers in our study when the elements had been developed in proportion to each other. Too strong a focus on an element, or a noticeable lack of ability with respect to an element, was counterproductive.

Substance misuse (SMU) is widely prevalent in mentally disordered offenders and is linked with violence and offending behaviour. There is however, a scarcity of literature dedicated to investigating SMU and its clinical correlates in relation to patients detained within high secure hospital settings. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and severity of SMU and corresponding treatment needs in patients with a primary diagnosis of personality disorder (PD) in comparison with mental illness (MI) in a high secure hospital.

The responsible clinicians of all patients (n=240) detained in a high secure hospital were asked to record information using a SMU screening questionnaire over a ten-month period. Details requested included substance type, history of past use and assessment and treatment needs. Data were recorded and then analysed: descriptive statistics were conducted to report historical use of substances, cross tabulations and χ² analysis explored the relationship between SMU and treatment status and diagnosis and offending behaviour and a means comparison analysis was employed to explore length of stay and treatment of SMU.

A total of 230 questionnaires were returned (95 per cent of the patient population). A history of SMU was reported in 88.6 per cent of the sample, with alcohol and cannabis misuse being the most prevalent. At least one substance had been abused by 74.3 per cent of the sample. In two-thirds of the sample, SMU was linked with the onset of mental health problems and symptom exacerbation, including violence. Interestingly, patients with a diagnosis of MI as compared with PD were more likely to have used substances (93.3 per cent compared to 81.9 per cent) and were more likely to need treatment for SMU (64.3 per cent compared to 36.8 per cent). In those with an MI diagnosis, SMU was more likely to be linked with violence and index offence (74.3 per cent compared to 59.0 per cent).

SMU is significantly prevalent in high risk mentally disordered offenders and linked to onset of mental health problems and offending. Patients with schizophrenia have a higher prevalence of SMU than PD and are likely to be more in need of treatment. Violence and offending are more likely to be related to SMU in schizophrenia than in PD.

This study substantiates existing evidence that SMU contributes to mental health problems and criminogenic behaviour. Furthermore, the study reports new findings that characterize differences of the relationship of SMU to offending in schizophrenia and PD in forensic psychiatric patients presenting to a high secure hospital.

Organizations have become increasingly interested in developing their human resources. One tool that has been explored in this quest is mentoring. This has led to a surge in mentoring research and an increase in the number of formal mentoring programs implemented in organizations. This review provides a survey of the empirical work on mentoring that is organized around the major questions that have been investigated. Then a conceptual model, focused on formal mentoring relationships, is developed to help understand the mentoring process. The model draws upon research from a diverse body of literature, including interpersonal relationships, career success, training and development, and informal mentoring. Finally, a discussion of critical next steps for research in the mentoring domain is presented.

This study aims to explore whether female psychiatric homicide offenders form a distinct group when compared to women who have committed other types of serious violent offences.

A range of background and psychological characteristics for 13 homicide and 13 non‐homicide offenders, matched by date of birth, were compared. In addition, change in psychological and behavioural presentation after 12 months stay at a registered charity trust hospital in England was considered.

The findings indicate that the two groups were broadly similar, although the non‐homicide violent offenders had somewhat more troubled backgrounds. The two groups responded similarly to treatment, although the homicide offenders displayed significantly fewer aggressive risk behaviours whilst in care.

It is concluded that the two groups present with similar needs, with indications of greater treatment need for polynomial substance misuse for the non‐homicide group.

This is the first study to compare directly these two specific groups of violent female offenders, considering both static background variables, and behaviour whilst in security.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between attachment style, sub-clinical symptoms of psychosis and aggression in a general population sample.

Using both convenience and snowball sampling, participants in the community (n=213) completed an online questionnaire including previously validated measures of adult attachment, aggression and psychotic experiences.

Results suggested that there were statistically significant correlations between all study variables. Multiple linear regression demonstrated that total psychotic-like experiences and attachment scores significantly predicted variance in total aggression. Moderation approaches revealed that the relationship between psychotic-like events and aggression was stronger in individuals with more insecure attachment styles.

This generalisability of the results is compromised by the sampling methodology and the use of self-report tools. However, the significant results would support larger scale replications investigating similar variables.

This study suggests there is a relationship between psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and facets of aggression in the general population. These results suggest that attachment is a contributing factor to aggression associated with PLEs, and highlight the need for similar investigations within clinical samples. The results imply that attachment may be a useful construct for explanatory models of the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, psychotic experiences and aggression.