The demand for economic inclusion has increasingly intensified, as manifested by the growing movements of farmers, workers, and social activists. Therefore, the question of adequate social representation of marginalized and underprivileged communities has to be made pivotal in the discourse of inclusion. This book investigates selected aspects of labour market informality in India. It examines the key factors that have expedited labour informality- contractualisation - in the manufacturing sector since the early 1990s. It analyses the features of informality and inclusion from the perspective of not just class but also the caste hierarchy in Indian society, thus offering readers an exhaustive overview of economic inclusion following the economic reforms and providing fresh insights into labour market informality through the lens of the social divisions in Indian society. Developed on a wide canvas of multiple processes, policies and factors that have contributed to this phenomenon, the book offers an elaborate analysis of contractualisation within the industry from the perspectives of labour legislation and the labour market. In addition, it contextualizes the issue of job informality for the post economic reforms era, from 1991 onwards. It examines the impact of the policies of economic reform on contractualisation across industries and states. Further, the book discusses the dynamics of the labour market reforms in India, given that there is a higher incidence of labour informality in India. It also highlights how the policy quest for inclusive growth has remained unfulfilled. This book will be a useful guide for advanced students, academic researchers, scholars and policy makers that are engaged with the issue of informal sector employment.

This book is the eighth volume in a series entitled "Contemporary Logistics in China," authored by researchers from the Logistics Research Center at Nankai University. In the spirit of the seven preceding annual volumes, this book carries on the ideal of providing a systematic exposition on the logistics development in China for the English-speaking community at large. Specially, this volume captures China's logistics development at a crucial turning point. This present report consists of ten chapters, organized into three sections. The introductory section, consisting of three chapters, depicts the current development status of the logistics market, the logistics facilities and technology, and the regional logistics market. The second section addresses the logistics characteristics of four rapidly expanding industries in China-the third-party logistics, the highway logistics, the express logistics, and the multimodal transport. The final section, consisting of three chapters, discusses some hot logistics topics in China. Chapter 8 studies the capital operation in China's logistics industry. The next chapter deals with the development of intelligent logistics in China. The last chapter of this section presents the development of regional logistics along the Belt and Road routes. As with the previous volumes, the ultimate aim of this book is to present a timely portrait of the rapid growth of China's logistics market and the status quo of its logistics industry. In so doing, the book offers an in-depth analysis of critical issues involved in the ongoing dynamic and multi-faceted development, and provides a valuable reference resource for interested readers in the academic and professional fields.

Breaking new ground in research on temporary organizations, this volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations brings together papers that examine how temporary organizations navigate the tensions and deal with the paradoxes that are the consequences of temporal limitation. This volume explores diverse forms of temporary organizations including: animation festivals, cultural celebrations, unconferences, start-up accelerators, humanitarian emergency response, strategic initiatives, projects and megaprojects, project portfolios and networks of projects. This volume uses 3 key questions to unify this empirical diversity: 1. The pace and rhythm of temporary organizing: how do conflicting temporal norms shape work and life in temporary organizations? 2. What are the tactics and practices that temporary organizations develop when dealing with the tensions and paradoxes they confront? 3. When relying for resources and working on behalf of permanent organizations, how do temporary organizations deal with the tensions between attachment to, and detachment from, permanent organizations.

Team-working, partnership, quality circles, works councils, industrial democracy, empowerment - are they distinct and innovative arrangements or is it a case of new wine in old bottles? In the post war period we have seen numerous forms of organizational participation sometimes as experiments, sometimes as negotiated expediency, and sometimes as hype. Different ideas have emerged from different parts of the world, in different industries, at different times with different objectives. In this book four experienced international analysts take the longer view and look at the changing forms of - and changing debates around - orgnaizational participation. The review an extensive literature of experiments and practical experiences through a critical evaluation of the available data to reach balanced conclusions about the importance and utility of this concept for organizations now and in the future.

This book examines failure in the urbanisation of Northwest China as a result of government industrial policies that have impacted on the economic development of the region. By looking at the under-researched provinces of Gansu, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia, which make up a quarter of China's territory, Zheng and Deng challenge the common story of China's miracle growth and reveal the dark side of the country's pursuit of modernity. Severe weather conditions, chronic drought, permanent lack of oxygen and unforgiving terrain in the Northwest make farming, manufacture and services difficult simply because people tend not to stay. Yet, China's current political system forces growth to take place even though basic conditions and prerequisites for market-based growth are missing. This volume analyses 'ghost cities' and social tension in the process of 'forced urbanisation' in which huge amount of resources are wasted, the local environment is systematically damaged and ordinary people's basic rights are brutally violated in the name of higher GDP and greater government glory.

This book contains the description of machines and systems as investments goods in production. These machines have a technological and economical life cycle over the time used. By explaining the paradigms of life cycle management, the book describes how the life cycle of such investment goods can be designed, operated and optimized to deliver maximum benefit in industrial environment. Additional examples from industry including case studies and calculations demonstrate practical applications and deliver benefit not only for academic or educational purpose but also for industrial practitioners.

Urban heritage, which is part of the conceptual expansion of cultural heritage, has become an extraordinarily complex notion. Any aspect of urban life and experience can become heritage and this heritage is then continuously re-interpreted and exploited as a source not only for a city's identification, but also for its cultural and economic innovation. This book provides a detailed overview of Central European urban heritage. It examines the key aspects of urban heritage - tangible/monumental, natural/landscape, world heritage/urban quarter and heritage experience/dark heritage. The 'regimes of urban heritage' approach retraces two hundred years of the development of European urban heritage to understand how it has become so significant and how it could integrate practically every area of urban existence. The novelty of the book is the interpretation of this development as a process of successive and integrating regimes, which are examined through the changing urban heritage agency and discourse. Through the examples of European cities and towns, such as Belgrade, Budapest, Gdansk, Krakow, Ljubljana, Subotica, Szentendre, Vienna, but also Edinburgh, Nordic cities and Rome, these changes reveal their inner complexities and become comparable in an interdisciplinary analysis. Further, a particular aspect of the history of these cities is revealed through the development of their own urban heritage. The book is primarily aimed at academics, researchers and postgraduate students of cultural and economic geography, cultural history, culture and heritage management, modern and contemporary history as well as urban history, planning and sociology.

When we talk about clusters, it's the fabulous destiny of Silicon Valley that first comes to mind - the place where entrepreneurs and policymakers alike flock. But do we really understand the complex mechanics of these clusters? What tools can economics and other related disciplines use to analyze their performance? When it comes to spending taxpayer money to support cluster development, do benefits actually exceed costs? This book provides a synthesis of cluster theory and presents methodologies to analyze their structure and performance. It also contains insights into how to renew regional innovation policy. The French edition of this volume was granted Best Book in Economics 2016 by The French Association of Economics (AFSE)

This enlightening text analyses the origins of Western complaints, prevalent in the late nineteenth century, that Japan was characterised at the time by exceptionally low standards of 'commercial morality', despite a major political and economic transformation. As Britain industrialised during the nineteenth century the issue of 'commercial morality' was increasingly debated. Concerns about standards of business ethics extended to other industrialising economies, such as the United States. Hunter examines the Japanese response to the charges levelled against Japan in this context, arguing that this was shaped by a pragmatic recognition that Japan had little choice but to adapt itself to Western expectations if it was to establish its position in the global economy. The controversy and criticisms, which were at least in part stimulated by fear of Japanese competition, are important in the history of thinking on business ethics, and are of relevance for today's industrialising economies as they attempt to establish themselves in international markets.

This book highlights cutting-edge research in the economics and management of networks as an interdisciplinary field, offering new theoretical, empirical and practical perspectives on the management, governance, ownership and control of cooperatives, franchising networks and strategic alliances. Further, it presents a strategic group perspective on franchisers and discusses both social entrepreneurship issues in franchising and franchising strategies for Indigenous entrepreneurship in Australia. Lastly, it offers a dynamic capabilities approach to alliance portfolio management and analyses the antecedents of the transitions taking place in the lifecycles of alliances.

Bringing together some of the world's leading thinkers, academics and professionals to provide practitioners, students and academicians with comprehensive insights into implementing effective service innovation. This book presents service innovation holistically and systemically across various service areas, including health, education, tourism, hospitality, telecommunications, and retail. It addresses contemporary issues through conceptual and applied contributions across industry, academia, and government, providing insights for improved practice and policy making. Featuring cutting-edge research contributions, practical examples, implementations and a select number of case studies across several growth service industries, this book also includes examples of failed service innovation attempts in order to demonstrate a balanced view of the topic and to make clear the pitfalls to be avoided. Culminating in a suggested step-by-step guide to enable service organization's managers to understand and implement the concepts of service innovation and manage its evolutionary processes effectively, this book will prove a valuable resource to a wide reaching audience including researchers, practitioners, managers, and students who aspire to create a deeper scientific foundation for service design and engineering, service experience and marketing, and service management and innovation. Includes endorsements from professionals in the field of service innovation.

This book tries to build a broad view on industrial processes of large economies and their integration in the world. It provides insight into the industrialization progresses of the quartet of USA, China, Germany and Japan, all attaining individual industrialization success by distinct trade, fiscal and industrial policy path, the underlying principles of which can be traced back to respective nation's roots in civilization. The combination of their industrial output led to the integrated formation of international industrial distribution. While being highly productive, the current distributed pattern yields benefits that are unevenly dispersed among different regions, industries and societal groups within each participating nation and among engaging economies. To address the uneven benefits distribution at both domestic and international levels, large industrial economies took a plethora of policy actions that will impact industrial ecosystem and portfolio results. The book aims to help readers to build better investment strategies and robust risk management practice under the context of uncertainty and successfully navigate through choppy waters in the years ahead.

This book investigates the potential of the Spanish Sociedades Laborales (SLs) as an instrument of active labour market policy for re-turning the unemployed to the labour market and also the transferability of the scheme to other EU Member States. Spanish Sociedades Laborales (SLs) - mostly small and micro enterprises - are a qualified form of conventional corporation, majority-owned by their permanent employees. Unemployed persons can capitalise their unemployment benefits as a lump sum to start a new SL or to recapitalise an existing SL by joining it. This makes SLs similar to start-up subsidies for the unemployed, an established instrument of active labour market policy across the EU. The new 2015 Law on Worker-Owned and Participatory Companies substantially modernised the concept of SLs 30 years after its inception. The book tackles two currently widely discussed policy issues at both the EU level as well as the national level, i.e., reactivating unemployed in the context of ALMP and encouraging employee co-ownership in the context of the economic reform agenda in particular with regard to corporate governance, regional economic stimuli and distributive justice.

This book illustrates two approaches for firms to shape successful circular strategies, namely, the Circular Economy and Circular Districts. The former considers firms' challenges when turning theoretical circular models into practice. Thus, it discusses the opportunities and difficulties in reshaping corporate strategies by reflecting on circular economy principles. The latter approach plays a new role within the new economy systems and this book conceptualizes and operationalizes its definition. The circular district can represent an effective way to accelerate the energy transition process by developing industrial collaborations and exploiting technology synergies to enhance circularity and achieve economic, environmental, and social targets. The book highlights how firms should adjust their strategic thinking, redesign their network of relationships, and reconsider the value creation process when the circular economy is a concrete option. Furthermore, it examines the evolution from circular economy to circular districts by revealing the motivations that push firms and supply chains to redesign their strategies by considering the perspective of a circular district. The book ends by analyzing business experiences in these two areas and proposes advancements for both the scientific community and the business world. The book offers a blend of theoretical frameworks and practical applications and will be of particular interest to scholars in the fields of sustainable operations, closed-loop supply chain, green supply chain management, and circular supply chains. Also, the operationalization of the concept of circular districts, offers a genuine and original theoretical contribution, thus targeting students from Executive programs, MBA programs, and PhD programs. The book will also attract managers, practitioners and professionals interested in real-world cases and experiences as well as practical developments in the domain.

This book analyzes the continuous operation of a power plant with condensing power units in combined heat and power mode (CHP-mode) over a period of one year. Focusing on the operation of one and two power-unit systems with differing heat exchanger configurations, this book uses mathematical modeling of the steam-water cycle of a 370 MW power unit to calculate the operating characteristics and mass-energy balance of the system. Featuring comprehensive thermodynamic analysis of the quasi-unsteady operation of power units in cogeneration for electrical power generation, as determined by the Polish Power System, this work also includes an economic analysis of the power plant, presenting the costs and economic effectiveness of such a system.

This book investigates how extractive capitalism has developed over the past three decades, what dynamics of resistance have been deployed to combat it, and whether extractivism can ever be transformed into being a part of a progressive development path. It was not until the 21st century that the extraction of natural resources and raw materials took on a decidedly capitalist form, with the global north extracting primary commodities from the global south as a means of capital accumulation. This book investigates whether extractivism, despite its well-documented negative and destructive socioenvironmental impacts and the powerful forces of resistance that it has generated, could ever be transformed into a sustainable post-development strategy. Drawing on diverse sectoral forms of extractivism (mining, fossil fuels, agriculture), this book analyses the dynamics of both the forces of resistance generated by the advance of extractive capital and alternate scenarios for a more sustainable and liveable future. The book draws particularly on the Latin American experience, where both the propensity of capitalism towards crisis and the development of resistance dynamics to 'extractive' capital have had their greatest impact in the neoliberal era. This book will be of interest to researchers and students across development studies, economics, political economy, environmental studies, indigenous studies, and Latin American affairs.

This book explores the twists and turns in Argentina's modern economic history and the debates that raged there around a problem common to all former colonies: how to achieve a level of economic growth for its population in a world characterized by unequal economic relations between the industrialized nations of the north and the commodity producers of the south. This new perspective examines the history of ideas surrounding industrialization and economic development in Argentina, drawing on a rigorous investigation of multiple sources. It demonstrates Argentina's role as a laboratory for and disseminator of ideas that would eventually become the common property of all the developing world. Influential thinkers such as Raul Prebisch and Aldo Ferrer, leading figures in twentieth century Latin American economic thought, developed important ideas such as unequal international trade relations, the promise and limits of Import Substitution Industrialization, the role of the state in the development of a national capitalism. These were the forerunners of similar concerns in other countries in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. The book will be of interest to historians, economists, sociologists of economic development, and related disciplines concerned with questions of global economic inequality.

Telecommunications are increasingly recognized as a key component in the infrastructure of economic development. For many years, there were state-owned monopolies in the telecommunications sector. In transition economies, they were characterized by especially poor performance and high access deficits, as telecommunications were considered to be a non-profit-oriented production process intended to support the socio-economic superstructures. As a result, the starting point for the reform processes in transition countries was quite poor performed public monopolies, functioned under completely different circumstances as the peers in the market economies.

The main question of this book is what the strategies for the successful future development of the telecommunications sector in transition countries are. The special focus is on Russia, the largest of the transition countries.

The book presents theoretical and empirical research on the integrated assessment of cartels' effects on national economies. The empirical analysis is based on three cases in Lithuania, a country chosen because it corresponds to the features of a small economy with a developing culture of competition. An integrated assessment of a cartel's impact by measuring the net economic effect created by its operations on the market is extremely important at the scale of national economies. If a cartel's true impact is not identified and evaluated, it is impossible to make important strategic decisions, for the whole economy instead of individual affected parties and to establish an optimum baseline for mitigating the harm done to the economy. Thus, an integrated cartel impact assessment can help to more proactively combat cartel agreements on the market and improve the economic welfare of the respective country.

This book sheds new light on the advancement of various industries in developing Asian countries through an application and re-examination of catch-up industrialization theory. With contributors presenting their own perspectives on the progression of a range of different industries in Asia, this volume provokes readers to reconsider their current understanding of industrialization in latecomer countries. More specifically, the chapters discuss Taiwan's semiconductor industry, Korea's steel industry, and Malaysia's palm oil industry, amongst others. The authors also explore the 'catch-down' innovation strategy in China and India. Varieties and Alternatives of Catching-up provides a thorough analysis of the strategies employed by numerous Asian countries to radically transform their low-income agricultural economies to middle-income industrialized ones. This book is essential reading for researchers and scholars interested in Asian economic development.

This book provides deep insight into the emergent Chinese innovation economy, as we head towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It describes, discusses and analyzes the period from China's opening up to foreign investment in the 1980s until the New Silk Road project, from 2013 onwards. The developments are assessed from a systemic thinking and evolutionary economic standpoint. The book presents the latest research findings on the direction and achievements of the Belt and Road Initiative, and the results both for China, the countries along the new Silk Road, as well as for Europe and the United States are brought to light. The author asserts that the phenomenon of the New Silk Road as an innovation generator can be understood and explained through the effects of various social mechanisms. He labels these five social mechanisms as: the locomotive force; the explosive force of the butterfly effect; the force of co-creation; the force of expectation; and the force of competence. The book presents 20 cases to substantiate the descriptions, analysis, theoretical reflections and the practical utility of the questions examined in each chapter. It utilizes economic history research methods, scenario thinking, futures research and conceptual generalization to offer different views on the research problem under investigation. Further, the book offers policy suggestions, which include promoting effective macroeconomic policies, and extending microeconomic cooperation schemes, related to the innovation economy. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and graduate students concerned with Chinese economic expansion, Chinese foreign policy and US- and Europe-China relations, as well as policymakers and political advisors.

If evolutionary economics is to compete with neoclassical economics as a general-purpose economic theory, it needs to incorporate new aspects of socioeconomic reality, such as institutions of all types, including technical, scientific, and political. Furthermore, evolutionary economics needs to be able to provide policy implications at least as interesting as those of neoclassical economics. Thus, as this book argues, evolutionary economics must become evolutionary political economy. Innovation plays a central role in the book, but not in the sense of providing a technologically determinist interpretation. Rather, the book argues that innovations do not emerge in isolation from other components of socioeconomic systems but coevolve with institutions, infrastructures and organizational forms. This concept of coevolution is absolutely central in the book and provides a link with theories of complexity. In addition to providing an epistemological basis for evolutionary economics, the link with complexity and coevolution offers the connection with evolutionary political economy. Innovations and technologies do not emerge and develop in an institutional vacuum, but interact with existing institutions and reshape them, in addition to inducing the formation of new institutions. In this process, technologies and institutions reinforce each other providing a potential mechanism to transform socioeconomic systems. The book also explores the policy implications of these innovative societies, where wealth is created but unequally distributed. The book is addressed to open-minded economists, social scientists who are dissatisfied with the approach of neoclassical economics, technologists and policy makers.

The organization of interfirm networks, such as alliances, cooperatives, franchise and retail chains, has become an important research topic in the field of economics, marketing, strategic management, and organization theory. This book contributes to the literature on formal and informal inter-organizational governance by providing new insights on contract design, ownership, evolution of cooperation, role of social capital and performance in franchising networks; includes topics of loyalty, reputation and organizational form as well as performance of cooperatives, and discusses the relationship between formal and relational governance in alliances, governance structures of innovation activities, dynamics of interfirm conflicts, and network externalities and alliance formation.

As paradoxical as it sounds, one of the toughest problems facing many of today's most successful companies is success itself. Like living organisms, companies are complex networks of interdependent systems-and unless managers recognize and swiftly implement the changes to those systems required by a sudden surge in demand, a booming business can easily go bust under the strain. Recent history abounds with examples of companies whose overnight success led to morning-after failure because their managers, like most managers, lacked the training or experience needed to manage explosive growth. Yet, surprisingly, until recently there have been few expert guides devoted exclusively to this crucial change management issue.
Managing Explosive Corporate Growth is a practical guide to piloting your company through periods of explosive growth with minimum damage and maximum sustainable profits. Author Steven Bragg explores the reasons why companies succeed or fail to adapt to explosive growth. He identifies the warning signs of impending explosions or declines in sales volume and zeroes in on the key growth issues specific to each functional area of the company-including accounting, auditing, IT, customer service, distribution, engineering, finance, HR, manufacturing, and sales and marketing. He also presents clear-cut guidelines on how to balance the demands of all organizational areas while guaranteeing customer satisfaction.
In addition to proven strategies for planning, financing, and managing explosive growth, he provides you with valuable explosive growth management tools, including checklists of key explosive growth indicators; metrics and reporting systems for controlling cashflow; multioption budgeting systems that address all growth levels; and reporting systems that help you monitor and control rapid expansion.
Managing Explosive Corporate Growth is an indispensable working resource for corporate managers, internal auditors, and entrepreneurs. It will also be of considerable interest to institutional investors who would like to learn the latest techniques for tracking the performance of current or potential investments.