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Alasdair MacIntyre’s path-breaking book After Virtue launched him into a place of prominence in social and moral philosophy. Two central, and still relevant, themes are identifiable in the corpus of MacIntyre’s work. First, advanced modernity is in a perilous state because of the philosophical creation of the emotivist self. Second, virtue must be reclaimed if the crisis in moral philosophy is to be addressed and an institutional world worthy of what we are as human beings is to be built. MacIntyre’s heroic effort in this regard is a new presentation of a Thomistic Aristotelianism but he was not naïve about the chances of his project’s success. Emotivism has made it extremely difficult for a virtue perspective to even gain a hearing. MacIntyre proposed a way forward different from abstract theorising. He felt that at this point we could, and had to, learn how to act from accounts of exemplary lives. This chapter presents the wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden as a contribution to aid in the recovery of virtue. The central claim being made is that it is long overdue that John Wooden should take his rightful place in the virtue tradition in ethics. This work gives John Wooden’s conception of leadership that flows from his understanding of virtue the attention it deserves. The examination of John Wooden’s life undertaken bridges virtue theory and leadership. Several other key elements of MacIntyre’s thought set the structure of the inquiry. The chapter begins with a biographical sketch of Wooden’s life because of the stress that MacIntyre places on tradition and narrative unity. The basis of Wooden’s reflection on virtue, the tradition informing his practical reasoning, is a selected canon of Western civilisation, its great literature and the Bible. The Midwestern values of hard work, honesty, faith, and caring for one’s family are also significant. MacIntyre places great emphasis on the need to understand the story of a life and, in particular, the need to understand how development was aided or hindered in childhood and what kind of apprenticeship into a practice was available. The singular influence John Wooden’s father had on his life is documented. The role that John Wooden’s teachers, coaches and mentors played in initiating him into the practice of coaching is reviewed. The experiential base for Wooden’s derivation of his emotionally healthy definition of success and his well thought out conception of the virtues is thus put in place. MacIntyre summarises the teleological structure of human life and the role of virtue in human flourishing by contrasting man-as-he-happens-to-be with man-as-he-should-be-if-he-realised-his-essential-nature. John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success identifies the combination of personal qualities and values, virtues, that fulfil MacIntyre’s second term, that are intrinsic to reaching one’s potential as a person. The 15 qualities Wooden gives – industriousness, enthusiasm, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, self-control, alertness, initiative, intentness, condition, skill, team spirit, poise, confidence, competitive greatness – are defined and illustrated. The rationale for the qualities and for their placement into a coherent whole is discussed. Basic elements of John Wooden’s leadership genius are then brought out. Leaders need to get the culture right, build cohesive teams, and be guided by a moral topline.

Problem alcohol use (PAU) is common and associated with considerable adverse outcomes among patients receiving opioid agonist treatment (OAT). The purpose of this paper is to describe a qualitative feasibility assessment of a primary care-based complex intervention to promote screening and brief intervention for PAU, which also aims to examine acceptability and potential effectiveness.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 patients and eight general practitioners (GPs) who had been purposively sampled from practices that had participated in the feasibility study. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically.

Six key themes were identified. While all GPs found the intervention informative and feasible, most considered it challenging to incorporate into practice. Barriers included time constraints, and overlooking and underestimating PAU among this cohort of patients. However, the intervention was considered potentially deliverable and acceptable in practice. Patients reported that (in the absence of the intervention) their use of alcohol was rarely discussed with their GP, and were reticent to initiate conversations on their alcohol use for fear of having their methadone dose reduced.

Although a complex intervention to enhance alcohol screening and brief intervention among primary care patients attending for OAT is likely to be feasible and acceptable, time constraints and patients’ reticence to discuss alcohol as well as GPs underestimating patients’ alcohol problems is a barrier to consistent, regular and accurate screening by GPs. Future research by way of a definitive efficacy trial informed by the findings of this study and the Psychosocial INTerventions for Alcohol quantitative data is a priority.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first qualitative study to examine the capability of primary care to address PAU among patients receiving OAT.

Deliberate practice (DP) is an innovative training method for improving psychotherapy skills acquisition and expertise in the twenty-first century. I introduce the reader to the principles and processes of DP and the rationale for its use. The concept of DP is not new, indeed it is used to support the improvement of performance in diverse areas, from sport to music. However, its application to psychotherapy is still in its infancy. Firstly, I provide the rationale for including DP as a method of therapist training based on research that illustrates that many of the current criteria that we use to identify expertise have little to no added impact on client outcomes. Additionally, some of the limitations of current traditional training regimes are outlined, along with the emerging evidence base for DP as a training method that can help improve the acquisition of therapeutic skills and expertise.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Research on Economic Inequality Volume 12 is the outgrowth of University of Alabama Poverty and Inequality Conference, May 22–25, 2003. The motivation for the conference was to honor John P. Formby upon his retirement. The conference, funded by the University, was designed to bring together three groups of people; first, some of the most recognized scholars in the field, second, current and former colleagues of John Formby’s working in this field, and third, Dr. Formby’s former Ph.D. and post-doctoral students. Seventeen papers were presented, 11 of which are authored or co-authored by Dr. Formby’s former students. Peter Lambert and Yoram Amiel also participated in the conference. Dan Slottje, John Creedy, Shlomo Yitzhaki and Quentin Wodon did not attend but contributed papers.

Purpose – Past literature suggests that the performance and turnover of the subordinate are affected by the support, abuse, and feedback provided by the supervisor. In this study, we posit that support, abuse, and feedback in an accounting firm, are in turn, affected by the supervisor's personality, as defined by the Big Five personality factors.

Methodology/approach – We conducted a web-based study with 115 accountants from a top 100 US accounting firm. The accountants completed questionnaires related to the personality of their supervisors along with questionnaires related to the support, abuse, and feedback they received from their supervisors. We analyzed the data using factor analysis and multiple regression.

Findings – We hypothesize that Openness and Agreeableness increase support; Neuroticism increases abuse, but less so if the supervisor is an Extravert; and Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase feedback. Among the hypothesized relationships, all are supported except the relationship between Openness and support. Additional findings are that Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase support; Agreeableness and Conscientiousness decrease abuse; and Agreeableness increases feedback.

Research implications – Our study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the relationship between the personality traits of supervisors and their behavior toward subordinates in an accounting setting. The results of our study can be used in identifying the supervisors who have the right personality for the position, which will likely improve the work environment and reduce turnover.

The use of data in the twenty-first century to improve expert decision-making has radically transformed what it means to be an expert in multiple fields, including behavioural healthcare. This chapter summarises the impact on information technology on the field, including use of digital platforms to enable video therapy and online cognitive behavioural therapy programmes. The chapter is intended for practitioners seeking information on how to be a twenty-first century expert, where years of education and experience matter less compared to evidence of performance in the form of solid outcome data. Key to the use of outcome data is expertise in how to use questionnaires in therapy and how to interpret results, both at the individual client level as well as overall results across multiple clients. A twenty-first century expert measures are not simply to measure outcomes but to improve results over time. Failure to incorporate the use of data into routine practice ignores an evidence based practice with decades of evidence as to its effectiveness, potentially resulting in suboptimal care.

The emerging roles of management accountants as either hybrid accountants or business partners are a cause for much debate in the literature. Of the two characteristics related to these roles, namely information provider and interpreter, and decision-maker, the latter remains under-researched. The present study adds to the decision-maker debate by examining business decision-making involvement. Survey responses from a diverse sample of mostly Institute of Management Accountants (USA) and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) members were obtained and analysed to examine their current business decision-making involvement, including an investigation guided by role theory into possible contextual factors associated with different levels of decision-making involvement. The business decision-making involvement of management accountants varies significantly, and is less pervasive than widely believed. A significant proportion (53%) of management accountants in traditional management accounting positions report no, or limited, business decision-making involvement. Management accountants employed in smaller firms, and middle-aged professionals, are more likely to be involved in making business decisions. The inverted u-shaped association between age and decision-making involvement identified in this study, requires further investigation. The large cross-sectional analysis of the present study extends prior research which was mostly narrowly focussed due to its case study nature. The varying levels of decision-making involvement, and contextual variables associated with higher level involvement, shed some light on the intricacies of the role of management accountants. Professional associations and educators should note that the roles of today’s management accountants vary greatly between information provider and decision-maker.