Asks what sorts and sources of knowing we should consider compelling as we seek to live morally responsible lives. Contends that Martin Luther's theology of the cross provides a solid theological and ethical basis for a surprisingly congenial conversation with feminist thought and scholarship on these issues.

This book examines the modules/elements required before implementing knowledge management solutions in typical manufacturing and service industry. The objective is to develop a framework, design and model suitable for all requirements and a strategy to properly implement. Related case studies from organizations are included, with the results provided to use as a solution to problems experienced when implementing knowledge management in the industry. Implementing a knowledge management system can be complex and dynamic, no matter how well planned and developed. Inevitably a degree of organizational inertia is focused on the current state rather than the new. Within an enterprise, personal and group involvement and interests process status and technology landscape can deflect the commitment needed to successfully implement such a system. Cumulative evidence from past research in knowledge management suggests that effective implementation of KM solution in any organization requires a robust designs and models for various critical elements of process, people and technology. Using the techniques provided in this book, readers should be able to design knowledge management strategies, to align objectives of the KM initiatives with their business goals.

A single seed is more than just the promise of a plant. In rural south India, seeds represent diverging paths toward a sustainable livelihood. Development programs and global agribusiness promote genetically modified seeds and organic certification as a path toward more sustainable cotton production, but these solutions mask a complex web of economic, social, political, and ecological issues that may have consequences as dire as death. In Cultivating Knowledge anthropologist Andrew Flachs shows how rural farmers come to plant genetically modified or certified organic cotton, sometimes during moments of agrarian crisis. Interweaving ethnographic detail, discussions of ecological knowledge, and deep history, Flachs uncovers the unintended consequences of new technologies, which offer great benefits to some—but at others’ expense. Flachs shows that farmers do not make simple cost-benefit analyses when evaluating new technologies and options. Their evaluation of development is a complex and shifting calculation of social meaning, performance, economics, and personal aspiration. Only by understanding this complicated nexus can we begin to understand sustainable agriculture. By comparing the experiences of farmers engaged with these mutually exclusive visions for the future of agriculture, Cultivating Knowledge investigates the human responses to global agrarian change. It illuminates the local impact of global changes: the slow, persistent dangers of pesticides, inequalities in rural life, the aspirations of people who grow fibers sent around the world, the place of ecological knowledge in modern agriculture, and even the complex threat of suicide. It all begins with a seed.

Required reading at Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School. Everyone wants to be more appealing and effective, but few believe we can manage the personal magnetism of a Bill Clinton or an Oprah Winfrey. John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut trace the path to influence through a balance of strength (the root of respect) and warmth (the root of affection). Each seems simple, but only a few of us figure out the tricky task of projecting both at once. Drawing on cutting-edge social science research as well as their own work with Fortune 500 executives, members of Congress, TED speakers, and Nobel Prize winners, Neffinger and Kohut reveal how we size each other up—and how we can learn to win the admiration, respect, and affection we desire.

How diversity and difference strengthen democracy and increase prosperity It is clear that in our society today, issues of diversity and social connectedness remain deeply unresolved and can lead to crisis and instability. The major demographic changes taking place in America make discussions about such issues all the more imperative. Our Compelling Interests engages this conversation and demonstrates that diversity is an essential strength that gives nations a competitive edge. This inaugural volume of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Our Compelling Interests series illustrates that a diverse population offers our communities a prescription for thriving now and in the future. This landmark essay collection begins with a powerful introduction situating the demographic transitions reshaping American life, and the contributors present a broad-ranging look at the value of diversity to democracy and civil society. They explore the paradoxes of diversity and inequality in the fifty years following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, and they review the ideals that have governed our thinking about social cohesion—such as assimilation, integration, and multiculturalism—before delving into the new ideal of social connectedness. The book also examines the demographics of the American labor force and its implications for college enrollment, graduation, the ability to secure a job, business outcomes, and the economy. Contributors include Danielle Allen, Nancy Cantor, Anthony Carnevale, William Frey, Earl Lewis, Nicole Smith, Thomas Sugrue, and Marta Tienda. Commentary is provided by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Patricia Gurin, Ira Katznelson, and Marta Tienda. At a time when American society is swiftly being transformed, Our Compelling Interests sheds light on how our differences will only become more critical to our collective success.

A joint effort from three thought leaders in educational research, linguistics, and literacy acquisition, this book explores the latest research that shows that compelling comprehensive input (CCI) is the baseline for all language and literacy development. It has been established that encouraging reading at all student levels supports literacy—not just literacy in terms of having basic reading and writing abilities, but in being able to perform advanced reading as well as having well-developed listening, speaking, and critical thinking skills. But what kind of reading has the most benefit for young learners? And why? Comprehensible and Compelling: The Causes and Effects of Free Voluntary Reading examines the most recent research and literacy testing results from around the world that document how reading materials must be comprehensible and compelling to bring success. It also presents research findings that show how libraries directly support literacy development, providing arguments and proof that will be invaluable in advocacy efforts for funding and program development.

A book about how businesses and other organizations can improve their performance by tapping the power of differences in how people think. What if workforce diversity is more than simply the right thing to do? What if it can also improve the bottom line? Because it can. The autuor presents overwhelming evidence: teams that include different kinds of thinkers outperform homogenous groups on complex tasks, producing what he calls diversity bonuses. These bonuses include improved problem solving, increased innovation, and more accurate predictions - all of which lead to better results. Drawing on research in economics, psychology, computer science, and many other fields, the book also tells the stories of businesses and organizations that have tapped the power of diversity to solve complex problems. The result changes the way we think about diversity at work-and far beyond

In Alone in the World? -- first given as the 2004 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh -- J. Wentzel van Huyssteen develops the interdisciplinary dialogue that he set out in The Shaping of Rationality (1999), applying this methodology to the uncharted waters between theological anthropology and paleoanthropology. Among other things, van Huyssteen argues that scientific notions of human uniqueness help us to ground theological notions of human distinctiveness in flesh-and-blood, embodied experiences and protect us from overly complex theological abstractions regarding the "image of God." Focusing on the interdisciplinary problem of human origins and distinctiveness, van Huyssteen accesses the origins of the embodied human mind through the spectacular prehistoric cave paintings of western Europe, fifteen of which are reproduced in color in this volume. Boldly connecting the widely separated fields of Christian theology and paleoanthropology through careful interdisciplinary reflection, Alone in the World? will encourage sustained investigation into the question of human uniqueness.

Luther's theology and practice have inspired and continue to inspire so many across confessional and even religious alignments worldwide, or else excite those for whom he displays a coveted, untamed audacity in living out convictions; it is the fabric, the texture that makes Luther a figura with the capability of being transfigured. Luther's theology--his view of language and understanding of creation, incarnation, the cross; his affirmation of freedom from ecclesial, economic, and/or political encroachments; his eschatology, and so forth--is seen in a new light in societies in which modernization does not necessarily mean secularization and the spirit is not set in dual opposition to things material. The dispute as to whether Luther is a late medieval theologian or a beacon of modernity is rendered largely superfluous when the Reformer is read and interpreted in contexts that do not share the peculiar cultural and political history of Europe, its orthodoxies, its pietisms, its enlightenments, and its secularisms. Transfiguring Luther lifts up and presents the significance of the Reformer--his figure as it is transfigured into diverse contexts, absorbing new contents instead of the traditional bastions that are remarkably in tune with the spirit of the Reformation, thus rekindling it.

There has been an outpouring of research on populist conservatism since the advent of the Trump presidency and extreme right movements in Europe. Much less studied, however, is the growing political conservatism in the American academy and how it relates to populist sentiment. The Academic Trumpists addresses a gap in the research literature by looking at the impact of Trumpism on conservative faculty. It compares 109 professors who publicly support Trump to 89 conservative professors who oppose Trump. All 198 function as public intellectuals who advocated publicly their views. Drawing on recent research in the sociology of intellectuals and Pierre Bourdieu’s analytical field perspective, this book offers a fielding political identities and practices framework to show how these two groups of professors (Trumpists and anti-Trumpists) differ in where they teach, their intellectual orientations, their scholarly productivity, their political rationales, where they network with think tanks, scholarly professional associations, and government agencies, and their stances on key controversies surrounding the Trump presidency (Covid-19, the two impeachments, the November 2020 election lost, and the January 6 mob assault on the United States Capitol). The academic Trumpists embrace the right-wing populist wave mobilized by Trump and the conservative critics resist this move. This polarization of views between these two groups of conservative professors is enduring and rooted in two distinct social networks that connect their positions in the academic field to affiliations with conservative think tanks that reinforce their respective political identities and radical right-wing anti-establishment thinking in America more generally. This book will appeal to readers interested in the politics of higher education, the sociology of intellectuals, political sociology, and research on conservative and right-wing populism politics in America today.