For the millions of midlife couples at a crossroads, this immensely practical book operates on the assumption that most people are looking for a way through the crisis and delivers step-by-step guidelines for making marriages more compassionate and rewarding.

As more and more companies gain a global reach, managing cultural differences is an increasingly important part of every job. This book demonstrates how culture affects management practice, from organisational structure to strategy and human resource management. Drawing upon evidence from the authors' research, it encourages managers to reconsider, explore and transfer alternative practices across national boundaries. As well as providing an insight into other cultures, this text provides readers with an increased awareness of their own. The third edition of this book serves to expand the discussion of the impact of culture on effective management and on utilising differences to create competitive advantage. Employing tools of observation, questioning and interpretation, the book challenges assumptions and encourages critical reflection on the influences of culture in business. Managing Across Cultures will appeal to both managers and executives working within an international business environment, as well as to students on a growing number of MBA and other undergraduate, postgraduate and post-experience courses. Key features * New and updated examples interspersed throughout the chapters * Strong theoretical foundations are linked to highly practical application * Expanded coverage of geographical perspectives - especially from the powerful emerging economies * Focus on the emergence of diversity as a strategic priority * Exploration of the impact of culture on 'virtual teams' * Improved design, layout and 'sign-posting' of content Susan C. Schneider is Professor Emeritus of Human Resource Management at HEC University of Geneva, Switzerland. She has been Visiting Professor at INSEAD and ESSEC (France), NOVA University (Portugal) and Zhejiang University (China). As well as her research into cross-cultural management, she has actively worked to internationalise the 'mindsets' of managers and companies. Her current research focuses on diversity and corporate responsibility. Jean-Louis Barsoux is Senior Research Fellow at IMD, Switzerland. He is the author of several books on culture and diversity in management, and has written for Harvard Business Review and Financial Times. Gunter K. Stahl is Professor of International Management at Vienna University of Economics & Business (WU Vienna). Prior to joining WU Vienna, he served for eight years as a faculty member at INSEAD and held visiting appointments at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Hitotsubashi University. He has published in lead ing aca demic and practitioner-oriented journals and has designed and taught cross-cultural management courses at the Masters, MBA, and Executive MBA levels for universities and business schools around the world.

A guide to AI's thorniest implications that asks: How shall we navigate our brave new world? We are at a monumental turning point in human history. AI is taking intelligence in new directions. The strongest human competitors in chess, go, and Jeopardy! have been beaten by AIs, and AI is getting more sophisticated by the day. Further, AI research is going inside the human brain itself, attempting to augment human minds. It may even create greater-than-human-level intelligence, leading to a new generation of artificial minds-Minds 2.0. Susan Schneider, a philosopher, argues that these undertakings must not be attempted without a richer understanding of the nature of the mind. An insufficient grasp of the underlying philosophical issues could undermine the use of AI and brain enhancement technology, bringing about the demise or suffering of conscious beings. Examining the philosophical questions lying beneath the algorithms, Schneider takes on AI's thorniest implications.

Hailed by the Washington Post as "a sure-footed and witty guide to slippery ethical terrain," a philosophical exploration of AI and the future of the mind that Astronomer Royal Martin Rees calls "profound and entertaining" Humans may not be Earth's most intelligent beings for much longer: the world champions of chess, Go, and Jeopardy! are now all AIs. Given the rapid pace of progress in AI, many predict that it could advance to human-level intelligence within the next several decades. From there, it could quickly outpace human intelligence. What do these developments mean for the future of the mind? In Artificial You, Susan Schneider says that it is inevitable that AI will take intelligence in new directions, but urges that it is up to us to carve out a sensible path forward. As AI technology turns inward, reshaping the brain, as well as outward, potentially creating machine minds, it is crucial to beware. Homo sapiens, as mind designers, will be playing with "tools" they do not understand how to use: the self, the mind, and consciousness. Schneider argues that an insufficient grasp of the nature of these entities could undermine the use of AI and brain enhancement technology, bringing about the demise or suffering of conscious beings. To flourish, we must grasp the philosophical issues lying beneath the algorithms. At the heart of her exploration is a sober-minded discussion of what AI can truly achieve: Can robots really be conscious? Can we merge with AI, as tech leaders like Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil suggest? Is the mind just a program? Examining these thorny issues, Schneider proposes ways we can test for machine consciousness, questions whether consciousness is an unavoidable byproduct of sophisticated intelligence, and considers the overall dangers of creating machine minds.

Featuring numerous updates and enhancements, Science Fiction and Philosophy, 2nd Edition, presents a collection of readings that utilize concepts developed from science fiction to explore a variety of classic and contemporary philosophical issues. * Uses science fiction to address a series of classic and contemporary philosophical issues, including many raised by recent scientific developments * Explores questions relating to transhumanism, brain enhancement, time travel, the nature of the self, and the ethics of artificial intelligence * Features numerous updates to the popular and highly acclaimed first edition, including new chapters addressing the cutting-edge topic of the technological singularity * Draws on a broad range of science fiction s more familiar novels, films, and TV series, including I, Robot, The Hunger Games, The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Brave New World * Provides a gateway into classic philosophical puzzles and topics informed by the latest technology

Set at first in late 19th century Eastern Europe, Fire in My Ears by Susan Schneider is a coming-of-age tale that begins with a beautiful young woman who makes a tragic far-reaching decision and the result is three generations of pain, disappointing and bitter struggle for happiness. We follow Mary as her adoring father loves her perhaps too much, as she is nearly jilted by the handsome Avram, and as she brazenly makes her way by train through Europe. We continue with her across the English Channel and see her settle in the east end of London and then travel steerage with three young children to America. We find ourselves finally in a mid-century American suburb amid all of Mary's damaged and miserable descendants. Mary's story is told by her grown up granddaughter Sarah who learned all her grandmother's lessons from nightly tales entrusted to her when she was a nine-year-old child in their shared bedroom. The book alternates between those stories that sometimes delight but often terrify Sarah, and the daily events of her own life. She listens intently for clues to understand the mean-spirited love she observes in the three generations of her family that gather at her house every Sunday. This is a matriarch's tale of a haunting past, dangerous choices and terrible secrets. It explores relationships seen through the eyes of both an old woman and her precious grandchild. Mary's determination to save her favorite grandchild from her own unhappy existence is perhaps her only noble gesture and it elevates her to the heroic heights her benighted beauty never could.

Once a lowly wedding writer, Leigh "Lucky" Quinn is thrust into power as Your Wedding magazine's new Editor-in-Chief on the same day that two of the magazine's major competitors fold. It's the "Big Day" for Lucky and Your Wedding, as well as for the deposed EIC, Grace Ralston, who has been at Your Wedding's helm from day one, and had taken Lucky under her wing. While the formidable Grace faces the humiliation of sudden failure and being forcibly removed from her office (and a future that looms as emptily as an unemployed, pre-cocktail-hour afternoon), Lucky must face the confusion and disappointment of her new staff, especially Felice and Sara, the Art and Fashion directors leftover from Grace's regime. In the wake of Lucky's ascension, for better or for worse, each woman confronts her past and deals with her hectic present in this juicy tale about work, love, loss and the world of bridal weddings.

A philosophical refashioning of the Language of Thought approach and the related computational theory of mind. The language of thought (LOT) approach to the nature of mind has been highly influential in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind; and yet, as Susan Schneider argues, its philosophical foundations are weak. In this philosophical refashioning of LOT and the related computational theory of mind (CTM), Schneider offers a different framework than has been developed by LOT and CTM's main architect, Jerry Fodor: one that seeks integration with neuroscience, repudiates Fodor's pessimism about the capacity of cognitive science to explain cognition, embraces pragmatism, and advances a different approach to the nature of concepts, mental symbols, and modes of presentation. According to the LOT approach, conceptual thought is determined by the manipulation of mental symbols according to algorithms. Schneider tackles three key problems that have plagued the LOT approach for decades: the computational nature of the central system (the system responsible for higher cognitive function); the nature of symbols; and Frege cases. To address these problems,] Schneider develops a computational theory that is based on the Global Workspace approach; develops a theory of symbols, "the algorithmic view"; and brings her theory of symbols to bear on LOT's account of the causation of thought and behavior. In the course of solving these problems, Schneider shows that LOT must make peace with both computationalism and pragmatism; indeed, the new conception of symbols renders LOT a pragmatist theory. And LOT must turn its focus to cognitive and computational neuroscience for its naturalism to succeed.