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Great Reset—Opportunity or Threat?: Business Systems Laboratory International Symposium, Palermo, Italy, 2024 (Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics)
by Elena-Mădălina Vătămănescu Gandolfo DominiciThis book gathers revised papers presented at the 2024 International Symposium of the Business Systems Laboratory, held in Palermo, Italy on January 11–12, 2024. In the last four years, the world has seen dramatic changes in virtually every aspect of global society. We have seen a rapid transformation of social systems and, since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, an unprecedented acceleration of the socioeconomic upheavals already in place - disruptive socioeconomic changes that have since been dubbed “The Great Reset" by the World Economic Forum. The book applies scientific rigor to discuss and debate these disruptive transformations and identify new ways to address the global economic and social challenges of our time from a systemic perspective. It sheds light on the various interactions between natural, social, and economic systems in these turbulent times by pursuing a multidisciplinary but integrative approach that encompasses e.g. management, information science, psychology, economics, engineering, and political science. Accordingly, the book will be of interest to readers from these fields, from both an academic and managerial standpoint.
The Great Revenue Robbery: How to Stop the Tax Cut Scam and Save Canada
by Canadians for Tax FairnessAny attempt to restore responsible environmental policies, revive and expand our social programs, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, and boost our flagging economy will be inadequate unless we also address the need to increase governments’ fiscal capacity. The tax system can also play a key role in closing the gap between rich and poor––a gap that is undermining the health of our economy and threatening damage to our democracy. Until recently, many progressive groups, including progressive political parties, have shied away from advocating for tax fairness and tax reform, fearing that the issue is political dynamite. Right wingers have encountered little opposition to their calls for deep tax cuts, especially for the rich and for corporations. But the tide is turning. Public opinion polls tell us that faced with growing inequality and cutbacks to government programs, Canadians now strongly support tax fairness, including higher taxes on the rich and on corporations. The Great Revenue Robbery is a collective effort to stimulate much-needed discussion about how tax policy can help rebuild our social programs, reduce the gap between rich and poor, restore environmental responsibility, and revitalize our country’s democracy.
The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets
by Thomas PhilipponAmerican markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on competition. Thomas Philippon blames the unchecked efforts of corporate lobbyists. Instead of earning profits by investing and innovating, powerful firms use political pressure to secure their advantages. The result is less efficient markets, leading to higher prices and lower wages.
The Great Skills Gap: Optimizing Talent for the Future of Work
by Jason Wingard and Christine FarrugiaAn extraordinary confluence of forces stemming from automation and digital technologies is transforming both the world of work and the ways we educate current and future employees to contribute productively to the workplace. The Great Skills Gap opens with the premise that the exploding scope and pace of technological innovation in the digital age is fast transforming the fundamental nature of work. Due to these developments, the skills and preparation that employers need from their talent pool are shifting. The accelerated pace of evolution and disruption in the competitive business landscape demands that workers be not only technically proficient, but also exceptionally agile in their capacity to think and act creatively and quickly learn new skills. This book explores how these transformative forces are—or should be—driving innovations in how colleges and universities prepare students for their careers. Focused on the impact of this confluence of forces at the nexus of work and higher education, the book's contributors—an illustrious group of leading educators, prominent employers, and other thought leaders—answer profound questions about how business and higher education can best collaborate in support of the twenty-first century workforce.
The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better: A Penguin eSpecial from Dutton
by Tyler CowenAmerica is in disarray and our economy is failing us. We have been through the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, unemployment remains stubbornly high, and talk of a double-dip recession persists. Americans are not pulling the world economy out of its sluggish state -- if anything we are looking to Asia to drive a recovery. Median wages have risen only slowly since the 1970s, and this multi-decade stagnation is not yet over. By contrast, the living standards of earlier generations would double every few decades. The Democratic Party seeks to expand government spending even when the middle class feels squeezed, the public sector doesn't always perform well, and we have no good plan for paying for forthcoming entitlement spending. To the extent Republicans have a consistent platform, it consists of unrealistic claims about how tax cuts will raise revenue and stimulate economic growth. The Republicans, when they hold power, are often a bigger fiscal disaster than the Democrats. How did we get into this mess? Imagine a tropical island where the citrus and bananas hang from the trees. Low-hanging literal fruit -- you don't even have to cook the stuff. In a figurative sense, the American economy has enjoyed lots of low-hanging fruit since at least the seventeenth century: free land; immigrant labor; and powerful new technologies. Yet during the last forty years, that low-hanging fruit started disappearing and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau and the trees are barer than we would like to think. That's it. That is what has gone wrong. The problem won't be solved overnight, but there are reasons to be optimistic. We simply have to recognize the underlying causes of our past prosperity--low hanging fruit--and how we will come upon more of it.
The Great Stewardess Rebellion: How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet
by Nell McShane WulfhartThe empowering true story of a group of spirited stewardesses who &“stood up to huge corporations and won, creating momentous change for all working women.&” (Gloria Steinem, co-founder of Ms. magazine)It was the Golden Age of Travel, and everyone wanted in. As flying boomed in the 1960s, women from across the United States applied for jobs as stewardesses. They were drawn to the promise of glamorous jet-setting, the chance to see the world, and an alternative to traditional occupations like homemaking, nursing, and teaching. But as the number of &“stews&” grew, so did their suspicion that the job was not as picture-perfect as the ads would have them believe. &“Sky girls&” had to adhere to strict weight limits at all times; gain a few extra pounds and they&’d be suspended from work. They couldn&’t marry or have children; their makeup, hair, and teeth had to be just so. Girdles were mandatory while stewardesses were on the clock. And, most important, stewardesses had to resign at 32. Eventually the stewardesses began to push back and it&’s thanks to their trailblazing efforts in part that working women have gotten closer to workplace equality today. Nell McShane Wulfhart crafts a rousing narrative of female empowerment, the paradigm-shifting &’60s and &’70s, the labor movement, and the cadre of gutsy women who fought for their rights—and won.
The Great Strikes of 1877 (Working Class in American History)
by Joshua Brown Steven J Hoffman Michael Kazin David Miller Richard Schneirov David O. Stowell Shelton StromquistA spectacular example of collective protest, the Great Strike of 1877--actually a sequence of related actions--was America's first national strike and the first major strike against the railroad industry. In some places, non-railroad workers also abandoned city businesses, creating one of the nation's first general strikes. Mobilizing hundreds of thousands of workers, the Great Strikes of 1877 transformed the nation's political landscape, shifting the primary political focus from Reconstruction to labor, capital, and the changing role of the state. Probing essays by distinguished historians explore the social, political, regional, and ethnic landscape of the Great Strikes of 1877: long-term effects on state militias and national guard units; ethnic and class characterization of strikers; pictorial representations of poor laborers in the press; organizational strategies employed by railroad workers; participation by blacks; violence against Chinese immigrants; and the developing tension between capitalism and racial equality in the United States. Contributors: Joshua Brown, Steven J. Hoffman, Michael Kazin, David Miller, Richard Schneirov, David O. Stowell, and Shelton Stromquist.
The Great Super Cycle
by David SkaricaThe United States has a problem - a big problem. Due to costs associated with the massive bailout of financial institutions deemed "too big to fail," on-going armed conflicts, and a move towards socialism, another even bigger bubble is about to burst - the debt bubble. The Great Super Cycle: Profit from the Coming Inflation Tidal Wave and Dollar Devaluation is an intriguing look at the relationship between Washington and Wall Street; the history of political shifts in power and how those shifts influenced the global economy; and, the ways investors can profit as economies move away from U.S. dollar and debt. The book:Discusses how a socialist America will result in the U.S. economy becoming far less competitive, while causing funds to move offshoreDetails how investors can profit by investing in gold, oil, and Asian marketsExplains major cyclical movements from the mega cycle of world power to stock market cycles which last 10-20 years.As the United States begins to deal with its massive debt bubble, The Great Super Cycle just might prove the most powerful tool an investor has for making money in the turbulent years to come.
The Great Surge
by Steven RadeletThe untold story of the global poor today: A distinguished expert and advisor to developing nations reveals how we've reduced poverty, increased incomes, improved health, curbed violence, and spread democracy--and how to ensure the improvements continue.We live today at a time of great progress for the global poor. Never before have so many people, in so many developing countries, made so much progress. Most people believe the opposite: that with a few exceptions like China and India, the majority of developing countries are hopelessly mired in deep poverty, led by inept dictators, and living with pervasive famine, widespread disease, constant violence, and little hope for change. But a major transformation is underway--and has been for two decades now. Since the early 1990s more than 700 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, six million fewer children die every year from disease, tens of millions more girls are in school, millions more people have access to clean water, and democracy--often fragile and imperfect--has become the norm in developing countries around the world. The Great Surge tells the remarkable story of this unprecedented economic, social, and political transformation. It shows how the end of the Cold War, the development of new technologies, globalization, courageous local leadership, and in some cases, good fortune, have combined to dramatically improve the fate of hundreds of millions of people in poor countries around the world. Most importantly, The Great Surge reveals how we can fight the changing tides of climate change, resource demand, economic and political mismanagement, and demographic pressures to accelerate the political, economic, and social development that has been helping the poorest of the poor around the world.
The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business
by Richard BrooksInvestigative journalist and former tax-inspector Richard Brooks charts how the UK has become a global tax haven that serves the super wealthy, all with the Government's help. Discover: Why thousands of British state schools and NHS hospitals are owned by shell companies based in offshore tax havens How British companies like Vodafone strongly influence tax laws Why multinationals like Google and Starbucks can operate almost tax-free in the UK How the taxman turns a blind eye to billions in illegally evaded tax in secret Swiss bank accounts How footballers like Wayne Rooney use image rights companies to reduce their tax liabilityUnpicking the tangled mess of loopholes that well known multinationals, bankers, and celebrities use to circumvent tax, this is a bold manifesto for a system where we all contribute out fair share.
The Great Tax Robbery
by Richard BrooksInvestigative journalist and former tax-inspector Richard Brooks makes a mockery of government promises to "crack" the problem of tax avoidance. Discover why thousands of British state schools and NHS hospitals are owned by shell companies based in offshore tax havens; how "British" companies like Vodafone are designing their own tax laws; and how the taxman turns a blind eye to billions in illegally evaded tax in secret Swiss bank accounts. This ground-breaking exposé charts how the UK has become a global tax haven that serves the super wealthy, while everyone else picks up the bill. From offshore City bonus schemes to the exploitation of developing countries, Brooks unpicks the tangled mess of loopholes that well known multinationals, bankers, and celebrities use to legally circumvent British tax. Shocking and riveting, this is a bold manifesto for a tax system where we all contribute our fair share.
The Great Tax Robbery
by Richard BrooksInvestigative journalist and former tax-inspector Richard Brooks charts how the UK has become a global tax haven that serves the super wealthy, all with the Government's help. Discover: Why thousands of British state schools and NHS hospitals are owned by shell companies based in offshore tax havens How British companies like Vodafone strongly influence tax laws Why multinationals like Google and Starbucks can operate almost tax-free in the UK How the taxman turns a blind eye to billions in illegally evaded tax in secret Swiss bank accounts How footballers like Wayne Rooney use image rights companies to reduce their tax liability Unpicking the tangled mess of loopholes that well known multinationals, bankers, and celebrities use to circumvent tax, this is a bold manifesto for a system where we all contribute out fair share.
Great Teachers
by Barbara Bruns Javier LuqueThe seven million teachers of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are the critical actors in the region's efforts to improve education quality and raise student learning levels, which lag far behind those of OECD countries and East Asian countries such as China. This book documents the high economic stakes around teacher quality, benchmarks the current performance of LAC's teachers, and delineates the key issues. These include low standards for entry into teacher training, poor quality training programs that are detached from the realities of the classroom, unattractive career incentives, and weak support for teachers once they are on the job. New research conducted for this report in close to 15,000 classrooms in seven different LAC countries - the largest cross-country study of this kind to date - provides a first-ever insight into how the region's teachers perform inside the classroom. It documents that the average teacher in LAC loses the equivalent of one day of instructional time per week because of inadequate preparation, excessive time on administration (taking attendance, passing out papers) and a surprisingly high share of time physically absent from the classrooms where they should be teaching. Teachers also make limited use of available learning materials, espcially those using information and communications technology (ICT), and are unable to keep the majority of their students engaged. The book sets out the three priority lines of reform needed to produce great teachers in LAC: policies to recruit better teachers; programs to groom teachers and improve their skills once they are in service; and stronger incentives to motivate teachers to perform their best throughout their career. In every area, the book distills the latest evidence from inside and outside the region to provide practical guidance to policymakers in the design of effective programs and sustainable reforms. A final chapter analyzes the politics of recent major teacher reforms in Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, chronicling the prominent role of teachers' unions and the political and communications strategies that have underpinned successful reforms.
Great Teams: 16 Things High Performing Organizations Do Differently
by Don YaegerWhat makes a team great? Not just good and not just functional—but great?Over six years, long-time Sports Illustrated editor Don Yaeger was invited by some of the greatest companies in the world to speak about the habits of high-performing individuals. From Microsoft and Starbucks to the New England Patriots and San Antonio Spurs, what do some organizations do seemingly better than most of their opponents?Don took the challenge. He began building into his travel schedule opportunities to interview our generation&’s greatest team builders from the sports and business worlds. During this process, he conducted more than 100 interviews with some of the most successful teams and organizations in the country. From those interviews, Don identified 16 habits that drive these high-performing teams.Building on the stories, examples, and first-hand accounts, each chapter in Great Teams comes with applicable examples on how to apply these characteristics in any organization. Great Teams includes:Life lessons from some of the most notable names in sports and business applied to team-making in any situation Interviews from well-known players from Peyton and Eli Manning to Kevin DurantSkills to allow culture to shape who you recruit, manage dysfunction, friction, and strong personalitiesAdvice on how to win in critical situations, embrace change, build a mentoring culture, and see value others missGreat Teams is the ultimate intersection of the sports and business worlds and a powerful companion for thought leaders, teams, managers, and organizations that seek to perform similarly. The insight shared in this book is sure to enhance any team in its pursuit of excellence.
Great TED Talks Leadership: An Unofficial Guide with Words of Wisdom from 100 TED Speakers (Great TED Talks)
by Harriet MinterThe words of 100 prominent TED Conference speakers will help you achieve your personal and professional goals. In 2006, TED Talks became accessible online, and have since been viewed more than a billion times by people across the world. Great TED Talks: Leadership highlights the words of 100 TED Conference speakers and discusses how their ideas can be applied to your own life. Whether you’re a leader of a business group or the organizer of a small social club, the advice in this book will help you visualize and achieve your goals. Included in each section are URLs directing readers to the TED website so they can watch the original videos in their entirety.
The Great Texas Wind Rush: How George Bush, Ann Richards, and a Bunch of Tinkerers Helped the Oil and Gas State Win the Race to Wind Power
by Kate Galbraith Asher PriceFrom two environmental journalists, &“the improbable story of how the oil and gas state became the nation&’s wind-power leader&” (The Texas Observer). In the late 1990s, West Texas was full of rundown towns and pumpjacks, aging reminders of the oil rush of an earlier era. Today, the towns are thriving as 300-foot-tall wind turbines tower above those pumpjacks. Wind energy has become Texas&’s latest boom. How did this dramatic transformation happen in a state that fights federal environmental policies at every turn? In The Great Texas Wind Rush, environmental reporters Kate Galbraith and Asher Price tell the compelling story of a group of unlikely dreamers and innovators, politicos and profiteers. The tale spans a generation and more, and it begins with the early wind pioneers, precocious idealists who saw opportunity after the 1970s oil crisis. Operating in an economy accustomed to exploiting natural resources and always looking for the next big thing, their ideas eventually led to surprising partnerships between entrepreneurs and environmentalists, as everyone from Enron executives to T. Boone Pickens, as well as Ann Richards, George W. Bush and Rick Perry, ended up backing the new technology. In this down-to-earth account, the authors explain the policies and science that propelled the &“windcatters&” to reap the great harvest of Texas wind. They also explore what the future holds for this relentless resource that is changing the face of Texas energy. &“Enjoyable to read. . . . I learned something on every page.&” —Michael Webber, Associate Director, Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Texas at Austin &“A thoughtful, valuable story for anyone who cares about renewable energy or climate change.&” ―The Associated Press
Great Tips for Your Small Business: Increase Your Profit and Joy in Your Work
by Julie V. WatsonThrough this easy reading, multi-faceted book, business author Julie V. Watson offers up invaluable tips and hints for home-based, micro, and small businesses. Her suggestions will help you save time and money, use creative planning and new ideas to increase profitability, create a rewarding business environment, and increase sales through effective marketing and promotion. Drawing on her more than 20 years of experience as a home-based entrepreneur, as well as the stories of a number of other successful business owners across Canada, Watson offers up practical, priceless advice. "These are jump-start-your-brain-type offerings that get people thinking creatively about a new business, or about improving and streamlining the one they have," says the author. "My belief is that we constantly need to trigger our brains, refresh what sets us apart, to create a business that compliments the lifestyle we want to achieve."
The Great Tradeoff: Confronting Moral Conflicts in the Era of Globalization
by Steven WeismanThe global financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 has blasted livelihoods, inspired protests, and toppled governments. It has also highlighted the profound moral concerns long surrounding globalization. Did materialist excess, doctrinaire embrace of free trade and capital flows, and indifference to economic injustice contribute to the disaster of the last decade? Was it ethical to bail out banks and governments while innocent people suffered?In this blend of economics, moral philosophy, history, and politics, Steven R. Weisman argues that the concepts of liberty, justice, virtue, and loyalty help to explain the passionate disagreements spawned by a globally integrated economy.
The Great Train Robbery and the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad
by Geoff PlattThe Squad that investigated The Great Train Robbery. "The Old Grey Fox" or "One Day Tommy" (Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Butler) selected six of the best officers on the elite Metropolitan Police Flying Squad to investigate the Crime of the Century, but whilst many books have been written by and about every criminal arrested for this crime, NONE have been written about the detectives who traced and tracked them. Tommy Butler delayed his retirement to complete the job, but died a few months after he retired at 57 years of age, the only detective of his rank in the late 1950s and 1960s not to publish an autobiography.This book provides a detailed account of the men tasked with tracking down the most notorious thieves in British history. It examines the investigation in detail and asks how it would contrast with the methods used today should a similar incident take place.Geoff Platt examines what happened to these men after the investigation was closed and the effect it had on both their personal and professional lives.
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
by Karl PolanyiOne of the twentieth century's most thorough and discerning historians, Karl Polanyi sheds "new illumination on ... the social implications of a particular economic system, the market economy that grew into full stature in the nineteenth century." -R. M. MacIver
The Great Transformation: China's Road from Revolution to Reform
by Odd Arne Westad Chen JianThe first thorough account of a formative and little understood chapter in Chinese history &“Almost every page contains an eye-opening detail. . . . The Great Transformation evokes the multiple paths, ideas and possibilities that have shaped, and continue to shape, China&’s present.&”—Julia Lovell, Financial Times Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao&’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world. In this rigorous account, Westad and Chen construct a panorama of catastrophe and progress in China. They chronicle China&’s gradual opening to the world—the interplay of power in an era of aged and ailing leadership, the people&’s rebellion against the earlier government system, and the roles of unlikely characters: overseas Chinese capitalists, American engineers, Japanese professors, and German designers. This is a story of revolutionary change that neither foreigners nor the Chinese themselves could have predicted.
Great Transformations
by Mark BlythThis book picks up where Karl Polanyi's study of economic and political change left off. Building upon Polanyi's conception of the double movement, Blyth analyzes the two periods of deep seated institutional change that characterized the twentieth century: the 1930s and the 1970s. Blyth views both sets of changes as part of the same dynamic. In the 1930s labor reacted against the exigencies of the market and demanded state action to mitigate the market's effects by 'embedding liberalism. ' In the 1970s, those who benefited least from such 'embedding' institutions, namely business, reacted against these constraints and sought to overturn that institutional order. Blyth demonstrates the critical role economic ideas played in making institutional change possible. Great Transformations rethinks the relationship between uncertainty, ideas, and interests, achieving profound new insights on how, and under what conditions, institutional change takes place.
The Great Transition
by Campbell BruceIn the fourteenth century the Old World witnessed a series of profound and abrupt changes in the trajectory of long-established historical trends. Transcontinental networks of exchange fractured and an era of economic contraction and demographic decline dawned from which Latin Christendom would not begin to emerge until its voyages of discovery at the end of the fifteenth century. In a major new study of this 'Great Transition', Bruce Campbell assesses the contributions of commercial recession, war, climate change, and eruption of the Black Death to a far-reaching reversal of fortunes from which no part of Eurasia was spared. The book synthesises a wealth of new historical, palaeo-ecological and biological evidence, including estimates of national income, reconstructions of past climates, and genetic analysis of DNA extracted from the teeth of plague victims, to provide a fresh account of the creation, collapse and realignment of Western Europe's late medieval commercial economy.
The Great Transition to a Green and Circular Economy: Climate Nexus and Sustainability
by Gitte HaarThe green transition is the way to a sustainable and fair planet, and necessary to secure supply chains, deliver predictable prices, and ensure access to raw materials despite resource scarcity through sustainable production and consumption.This book provides broad, essential insights into the main elements of the green transition, circular economy, and sustainability. Sustainability and the green transition will mean new market conditions for businesses. Companies will be subject to new legislation at the corporate and product level alike. They will need to meet new requirements, e.g., having to provide a tremendous amount of new non-financial ESG data to deliver transparency and traceability in the value chains of products and businesses. The book aims to close the gaps between science, society, and business. To do so, it describes the complexity of sustainability and the need for a holistic approach. In addition, it provides solutions, tools and methods to transform today’s linear economy, make businesses ready for the future, and create a society that no longer pushes the planet beyond its limits.
The Great Unheard at Work: Understanding Voice and Silence in Organisations
by Mark Cole John HigginsSilence always has something to say – it’s never neutral and speaks volumes if people are willing to hear. Our response to silence is often to dismiss or end it, to block it out with noise. Instead, silence needs to be taken seriously. This book explores the importance of understanding silence and shows how we can move from merely listening to truly hearing those around us. The interplay of voice and silence in organisational life is not straightforward. We can feel pressured to speak and compelled to keep our silence. Knowing how to read silence, to make sense of its generative and degenerative capacity, is a rarely developed skill among managers and leaders at all levels – who have been brought up to see silence as evidence of compliance or a weakness to be addressed. But it is a critical skill for managers and employees alike. Written by two experts in organisational development, this book explores different types of silence and their implications for organisational practice, digging into the theoretical roots and engaging with real stories and voices. It provides everyone at work with an understanding of the different meanings of silence and how to engage well with it. When to stay with it, when to join in with it, and when to be struck by what’s not being said and do something about it. The Great Unheard at Work is essential reading for corporate leaders, HR professionals in all sectors, business students, professionals, and anyone interested in leadership development.