Alexander Dreiling investigates which information should be provided to management in order to prepare managers to make better decisions and act accordingly.

Industry professionals, government officials, and the general public often agree that the modern healthcare system is in need of an overhaul. With many organizations concerned with the long-term care of patients, new strategies, practices, and organizational tools must be developed to optimize the current healthcare system. Healthcare Policy and Reform: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a comprehensive source of academic material on the importance of policy and policy reform initiatives in modern healthcare systems. Highlighting a range of topics such as public health, effective care delivery, and health information systems, this multi-volume book is designed for medical practitioners, medical administrators, professionals, academicians, and researchers interested in all aspects of healthcare policy and reform.

Alexander Dreiling investigates which information should be provided to management in order to prepare managers to make better decisions and act accordingly.

Each chapter of this book takes as its starting point a myth, a legend, a story or a fable, and explores its contemporary relevance for a world of globalization, organizations and, consumerism. Each contributor is inspired by a relatively short but rich text which is then used as a springboard for an analysis of contemporary social and organizational realities. The idea behind this book is that by looking at contemporary society through the prism of pre-modern narratives, certain features emerge in sharp relief, while others are found to be entrenched in societies across the ages. The texts that have inspired the authors of this collection differ - some are myths, some are stories, one is a children's tale. The origins of these texts differ, from the scriptural to the folkloric, from high art to oral tradition. What all the texts have in common is a distinct and compelling plot, a cast of recognizable characters with an ability to touch us and speak to us through the ages, and, above all, a powerful symbolic aura, one that makes them identifiable landmarks in storytelling tradition. The driving force behind this project was each author's love for their narratives. It is not an exaggeration to say that the book is a true labour of love. The chapters are introduced by the editor and are arranged in four parts, each with its own introduction. The chapters in each part spring from stories that share a narrative character, and are labelled as Knowledge Narratives, Heroic Narratives, Tragic Narratives, and Reflecive Narratives. The book offers a set of probing, original and critical inquiries into the nature of human experience knowledge and truth, the nature of leadership, power and heroic achievement, postmodernity and its discontents, and emotion, identity and the nature of human relations in organizations. Different chapters deal, among other things, with the nature of leadership in the face of terrorism, friendship, women's position in organizations, the struggle for identity, the curse of insatiable consumption and the ways the hero and heroine are constructed in our times.

This book systematically explores how different theoretical concepts of myth can be utilised to interpretively explore contemporary international politics. From the international community to warlords, from participation to effectiveness – international politics is replete with powerful narratives and commonly held beliefs that qualify as myths. Rebutting the understanding of myth-as-lie, this collection of essays unearths the ideological, naturalising, and depoliticising effect of myths. Myth and Narrative in International Politics: Interpretive Approaches to the Study of IR offers conceptual and methodological guidance on how to make sense of different myth theories and how to employ them in order to explore the powerful collective imaginations and ambiguities that underpin international politics today. Further, it assembles case studies of specific myths in different fields of International Relations, including warfare, global governance, interventionism, development aid, and statebuilding. The findings challenge conventional assumptions in International Relations, encouraging academics in IR and across a range of different fields and disciplines, including development studies, global governance studies, strategic and military studies, intervention and statebuilding studies, and peace and conflict studies, to rethink ideas that are widely unquestioned by policy and academic communities.

Management and Langugage explores and develops the image of the manager as one who is aware of, and attends to, the way in which language is used in everyday managerial activity. Much managerial activity is achieved through language and a vital task for any manager is to generate with others an intelligible account of the various feelings that surround the contested issues in the organization. Such a process involves reading a context from different perspectives, constructing new meanings, framing the complexities and dilemmas faced into new 'landscapes' of possible future actions, and creating a persuasive argument for those landscapes amongst those who must work in them. For such a process to be conducted successfully a range of abilities and skills become relevant such as storytelling, metaphors and developing arguments. Management and Language is a timely publication with contributions from eminent academics in the field. This book will be engaging reading to academics and management teachers interested in critical management theory and those generally open to new and different approaches to management. It will also be of relevance to practising managers who wish to have a deeper understanding of how they use language in their everyday work.

First published in 1983, Nahuat Myth and Social Structure brings together an important collection of modern-day Aztec Indian folktales and vividly demonstrates how these tales have been shaped by the social structure of the communities in which they are told.

Is it possible to win and still keep one’s soul? The Mahabharat tells us we can. The ancient epic, which flourishes in the hearts and minds of many even today, deals with profound normative questions of (and advice on) morality, duty, virtue, law, justice and war. The text also does not shy away from pragmatic and strategic issues of negotiation, alliances, training and education, leadership, and more. Its unflinching look at bleak realities makes the Mahabharat a text uniquely applicable to our current times. Drawing on the timeless stories of the Mahabharat, this book applies its practical wisdom to questions of our personal lives. It explores winning strategies that are suited to the modern day and work together with ethical choices. Written for a broader audience of scholars, practitioners and other avid readers, Strategic Choices, Ethical Dilemmas will be useful for all those seeking to put the world to rights and provide some tasty food for thought for those who enjoy paradoxes and squared circles.

A fastidious investigation into the nature of self-identity, Silent Dilemmas of Project Managers uses the context of project management to challenge the perceived separation of objective experience from subjective perception. Positioning self-identity as the basis of one’s ongoing being-in-the-world, Djolic explores the relationship between our inner dialogues and the surrounding world, highlighting the problematic role our adopted self-notions play in producing negative experiences. In doing so, we are presented with a compelling case for viewing the subject’s self as the object of existential anxiety, as well as a framework for more comprehensive, existential therapy within business settings.