These are powerful times. Fundamental change is around the corner, but the concrete manifestations are unpredictable. Past trends will, less than ever, be a reliable orientation for desirable action. Adopting familiar game plans, reinforcing standard procedures and implementing strategies which were successful in the good old days of the second half of the 20th century are no longer a guarantee for an adequate solution. And even if they seem to alleviate a problem in the short term, they may lay the roots for failure in the longer term.What is needed in such a situation is the enhancement of resilience to facilitate the absorption of the unexpected and the unforeseeable; strengthening of the capacity to adjust innovatively and flexibly to rapidly changing political, economic, social and technological circumstances; and, in the political arena, to stretch what interest groups and the public believe is socially acceptable and thus politically feasible. This is the lesson to be learned from the 2,000 year long history of globalisation and the story of one city, Hamburg, which for 1,000 years has successfully remained on the side of the winners.

Regions and cities are the natural loci where knowledge is created, and where it can be easily turned into a commercial product. This book explains the logic behind the interactions and cooperative attitudes in regions and cities, with a particular focus on the importance of academic institutions in fostering development.

Presents a discussion of recent trends and prospects in science, technology and industry, based on comparative indicators, such as output, investment and productivity, research and development (R&D), patent activity and innovation and knowledge flows.

This book takes you on a journey through post-crisis regulatory reform, highlighting the unintended consequences of some of the measures on transaction banking, a business that provides the backbone of financial markets.

What does the globalized world that we live in mean for our Christian identity and for our struggle for social justice? That is the central question that is addressed in this book from a wide array of angles by members of the Association of Theological Institutions of Southern and Central Africa (ATISCA) and Justo Mwale Theological University College (Lusaka, Zambia). "This book is about the struggle for social justice in relation to the self-understanding of Christians from Southern and East Africa in a globalizing world. Among other concerns, it brings out the connection between theology and disability where disability is reflected as an issue that calls for self-identity and self-re-definition. This book is an important resource on contextualisation of theology and it is worthy reading" Dr. Samuel Kabue, Executive Director of the World Council of Churches network EDAN. "In a work long overdue theologians and other researchers in Christianity investigate, discuss and critique the influence of globalization on Christian identity in Southern Africa and its consequences in the struggle for justice. Despite all talk about a 'global village', the voices of Christians from Southern Africa are hardly ever heard. This book represents an important change in this respect. The book has been well edited by Hermen Kroesbergen and it is a must read for all theologians and ministers who want to reflect on our shifting identifies. " Christian Literature Fund

This book presents a thought-provoking case for looking at human resource management from an entirely different perspective. In the modern world, organizations have to optimally manage resources to achieve the best results, and the best way to do this is to identify humans as instruments of investment and not as resources. Humans use resources in an activity. Managing people, as a subject, was first studied as part of personnel management, and became known as human resource management (HRM) in the early 80s. However, the basic principles remained largely unchanged. The book argues that it is time that HRM is replaced by human investment management (HIM), where the entire approach of employee management in an organization shifts gears to human investment in activities. In this approach no human is considered bad in relation to an organization, if selected appropriately, and trained well. Everyone is productive, though the returns may differ. Humans can be invested in areas where they are best or can be trained to be the best according to various factors. Unlike any other investment instruments, humans’ value can be continuously upgraded for higher returns. Thus the core of HIM is to maximize the return from each employee as an individual or as a member of the group with minimum expenditure and effort in him or her. HIM can therefore reengineer and replace HRM slowly and steadily at the desired pace where maximum attention is paid to employee investment for improved results. This is unlike HRM, which primarily focuses on employee relations. Turning around HRM to HIM will be the first step in inclusively aligning strategic human resource management with the overall human management. As such, HIM should be seen as a process by which the asset or capital value of individual humans can be increased by turning them into capital humans, an entirely different outlook from the oft-used term human capital.

Since at least the Great Financial Crisis, authorities around the world have increasingly relied on macroprudential policy to help secure financial stability and complement monetary policy as an integral element of a broader macro-financial stability framework. In today's interconnected global financial system, policy actions taken by the major advanced economies can have spillovers on the rest of the world through their impact on capital flows and exchange rates, potentially generating vulnerabilities across borders. Conversely, in emerging market economies, macroprudential policy as well as foreign exchange intervention and/or capital flow management policy can help mitigate the corresponding impact. This can in turn generate spillbacks on advanced economies — spillbacks that have become more sizeable as the emerging market economies' heft in the world has grown. Yet little is known about these interactions.The contents of this book are based on a conference held on 26-28 May 2021 and jointly hosted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). It aims to contribute to existing literature on macro-financial policymaking by providing an overall conceptual framework and documenting the latest global trends and country experiences. In particular, it highlights the role of international spillovers and spillbacks, paying particular attention to emerging market economies. This book is essential reading for academics, graduate students and economic professionals. It can also serve as a handbook for policymakers at central banks, regulatory authorities and other government agencies tasked with designing and implementing macroprudential or more generally macro-financial stability policies. The book will also be of interest to researchers at international organisations.

Humanity is facing an unprecedented global catastrophe as a result of global warming. This book examines the reasons why international agencies, together with national governments, are seemingly unable to provide real and binding solutions to the problems. The reasons presented relate to the existing dominant global economic structure of capitalism as well as the fact that global warming is too often seen as an isolated problem rather than one of a suite of exceptional, converging and accelerating crises arising from the global capitalist political economy. This book adopts a political economy framework to address these issues. It accepts the science of global warming but challenges the predominant politics and economics of global warming. To illustrate the key issues involved, the book draws on South Africa – building on Samir Amin’s thesis that the country represents a microcosm of the global political economy. By taking a political economy approach, the book provides a clear explanation of the deep and pervasive problem of the denial which fails to acknowledge global warming as a systemic rather than a market problem. The book should be of interest to students and scholars researching climate change, environmental politics, environmental and ecological economics, development studies and political economics.