Alison works with small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs to make them stand out from the competition and grow their businesses, clarifying strategy and creating effective content marketing, including print and ebooks. She also provides executive coaching and consulting services to the traditional publishing sector.

After an MA in English Language and Literature from Edinburgh University and an MBA from the Open University, Alison pioneered digital publishing over a 22-year career in publishing, most recently as Director of Innovation Strategy with Palgrave Macmillan.

She set up Alison Jones Business Services and the Practical Inspiration Publishing imprint in 2014 to establish a new model: position, or brand, publishing. She is an associate lecturer with Oxford Brookes University, teaching on their MA in Publishing, and an affiliate lecturer with the University of Falmouth.

Visit the Online Resource Centre at www.macmillanihe.com/bratton-wob-4e to watch Alison talking about perceptions in the workplace, and then answer the following question:

yy What can managers do to counteract the influence of perceptions of personality on selection procedures?