This volume places Social Innovation between Human Resource Management (HRM) and Technology. There is a growing acceptance of the theory that HRM is strategically important for social innovation within organizations. To meet the requirements of globalization, diversity, "war for talent", and fast technological developments, HRM should allow a greater amount of flexibility and innovation in their policies and practices. In order for this to happen, however, HRM needs to be modernised by replacing inefficient and unsustainable HR practices and forms with flexible, sound, and pioneering ones, crossing inter and intraorganizational boundaries. Built within the Social Innovation research tradition, this volume views innovation of HRM from two ends of one continuum: At one end, HR practices and policies should be designed to support innovative organizational members, the creation of new ideas, an innovative organizational climate, and enlargement of the innovation capacity of organizations. At the other end, the HRM function evolves through applying new structures and new channels for delivery of the HR practices, and through involving new agents in the management of Human Resources.

Managing diversity plays a crucial part in enabling every member of the workforce to perform up to their full potential. Managers demand satisfactory performance from every member of their workforce and expect the best of their employees. But often, diversity and its management are not viewed as clear contributors to the organization's performance and bottom-line. Managing and leveraging diversity are set aside from the rest of the organization and hence, they are often undervalued amid all the other barriers that companies face. Whilst there is no single tried-and-tested "solution" to diversity and no easy way to manage implementation barriers, this edited collection of case studies from around the globe provides new insights for practitioners, managers, students and researchers. The book seeks to shed light on existing practices disseminating the value of diversity, whilst opening the road toward a wider perspective on its definitions. The contributors provide critical reflections of the current discourse on different types of diversity in heterogenous organizations around the world.

Nowadays, managing and promoting diversity is of paramount importance to the future of sustainability and the political and business agenda. Despite a tremendous growth in diversity management scholarship in recent years, a strong tendency has emerged whereby existing theories focus on a single level of analysis, using a limited range of mostly Western research settings, and on a narrow range of diversity types. Diversity research has insofar focused on prioritizing visible forms of diversity, such as gender or disability, with less emphasis placed on diversity in culture and values internationally. This edited book provides new practical and strategic insights for practitioners, managers, students and policy makers; it delves into the strategic nature of policy intervention with thought-provoking contributions written by experts from around the world. Contributors aim to provide critical reflection of current debate areas on workplace equality and diversity in under-researched countries to inform and support evidence-based decision making for a wide variety of academic and practice-oriented stakeholders.

Organisations, as well as individuals and societies, continue to struggle with the complexity associated with unprecedented demographic changes. Workforce ageing and increasing age diversity are not transient phenomena, and their implications are compounded by the combination of several global trends like workers' increased mobility and migration, as well as increasing gender and ethnic differences. This demographic pressure compels organisations to question conventional ways of management thinking, doing and being in order to capitalize on the benefits of an age-diverse workforce. This volume bridges theoretical and empirical approaches in order to illuminate the challenges of valuing employees at any point in their professional lives, from youth to retirement. Embracing perspectives that span from the individual to the organisational levels of analysis, the book explores the two distinct but intertwined phenomena of workforce ageing and increasing workforce age diversity. The volume is divided into two parts. Contributions in the first section raise questions about the meanings of age and age diversity, as well as how and when age matters in organisations. The second part of the book examines the role and contribution of HR practices in forging an age-inclusive workplace.

Social media have radically shifted the way people relate with each other and with organizations in technology-mediated ways; few areas are being impacted more strongly than Human Resources or Personnel Management. Attraction of candidates, internal communication with employees, communication with and among people; creation, design, testing and promotion of new services, new ways of organizing are appearing and changing the landscape at record speeds. This volume in the 'Advanced Series in Management' utilizes empirical and theoretical approaches to shed light on this exciting set of emerging, stimulating new uses of technology that stretch creativity beyond conventional limits.

Social media are changing the way businesses interact in technology-mediated ways with most of their stakeholders. Strategically-minded manager s, researchers and students cannot afford to ignore the new ways in which interactions with customers, employees, shareholders, and many other important constituents are taking place as a result of the widespread availability and creative use of these new technologies. Conventional wisdom is being challenged and virtual workspaces that had never been conceptualized are opening at blistering speed. This volume in the Advanced Series in Management series bridges empirical and theoretical approaches to identifying and demystify this set of emerging, exciting new family of user-gene rated content technologies. With contributions from and about a wide diverse range of countries, from emerging to established, researchers and informed practitioners will find intriguing, diverse perspectives on how the social media revolution challenging managers and management scholars. Involving disciplines as different as management, communications, information technology, personnel, finance and others, contributions in this boo k will be cited in future research projects or used in classrooms and other training settings by those more likely stay in the leading edge of this family of innovative tools.

International Business is vital to nations, to their economies. It brings wealth, it creates jobs, it opens views, it changes mindsets, and it creates economic and social stability. International Relations is important to nations too. It establishes relationships between nations, it exchanges political views between nations, it creates stability. International Business and International Relations are intertwined empirically as politicians need to boost economies through supporting entrepreneurship, international entrepreneurs need politicians and government representatives to get access to foreign markets, to deal with legal issues across borders. Commercial diplomacy is at the heart of the intersection between International Business and International Relations. Narrowly conceived, commercial diplomacy is the work of state officials in diplomatic service who carry out activities that support International Business. This book changes the conversation by studying the International Business - government relationship at the meso (organisational) and micro (individual) level, rather than focusing on the macro (national) level. This book aims to advance studies of commercial diplomacy by combing insights from two fields of study that to date have hardly spoken to each other. It brings insights from International Relations (and in particular the sub-field diplomatic studies) about the theory and practice of commercial diplomacy and it brings insights from business studies about the theory and practice of International Business. Combining the two, the book defines the field by being more holistic, it brings together in one place a thorough review of existing analysis of the subject from both fields, it outlines the basics of a new conceptual framework, it presents new empirical work based on data collected in five different countries (from the US to Indonesia), and puts forward a new research agenda.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. Smart industry requires better management. As industrial and production systems are future-proofed, becoming smart and interconnected through use of new manufacturing and product technologies, work is advancing on improving product needs, volume, timing, resource efficiency, and cost, optimally using supply chains. Presenting innovative, evidence-based, and cutting-edge case studies, with new conceptualizations and viewpoints on management, Smart Industry, Better Management explores concepts in product systems, use of cyber physical systems, digitization, interconnectivity, and new manufacturing and product technologies. Contributions to this volume highlight the high degree of flexibility in people management, production, including product needs, volume, timing, resource efficiency and cost in being able to finely adjust to customer needs and make full use of supply chains for value creation. Smart Industry, Better Management illustrates how industry can enabled by a more network-centric approach, making use of the value of information and the latest available proven manufacturing techniques.

This accessible and original book relates the fascinating story of successful women across the Americas: women who are managers, business owners, university professors and administrators, doctors, lawyers and government ministers. Based on extensive research, including more than 1,100 surveys and 300 interviews of women from Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Jamaica, Mexico, St Vincent and the Grenadines and the USA, the book aims to explain what these women have in common and how they differ. The workplace challenges and barriers to professional success faced by women are also analysed. Seeking to capture the voices of the women themselves, the authors - also from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures across the Americas - attempt to explain success in the face of personal, social, organizational, cultural and economic obstacles facing women everywhere. Successful Professional Women of the Americas will provide fascinating reading for academics, students and researchers focusing on gender studies or business and management. Professional women and managers worldwide will also find the book to be of great interest.