The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) is an interregional forum for political dialogue, education and culture, security and business, aimed at enhancing relations between Asia and Europe to achieve a better interregional balance in the spheres of politics, economics and culture. Its members are the seven ASEAN countries and the 15 EU countries. This book addresses three questions of central importance to the ASEM process and to the involvement of the private sector: What role can Europe and Asia play in managing an integrated global economy? What will be the role of the private sector in boosting the ASEM process? And how can the full potential of ASEM be realised? The contributors to the volume are Asian and European academics, politicians and businessmen who have been involved in the process from the very beginning.

Addresses three questions of central importance to the involvement of the private sector: What role can Europe and Asia play in managing an integrated global economy? What will be the role of the private sector in boosting this process? And how can its full potential be realised? The contributors are Asian and European academics, politicians and businessmen.

Understanding the Professional Buyer is a practical guide for sales people, giving them insight into the behaviour and strategies of buyers, so that they are able to deal with them more successfully and regain power in the buyer-seller relationship. In recent years the balance of power between buyer and seller has swung dramatically in favour of the buyer. Sellers are now faced with more professional, more knowledgeable and more powerful buyers - and the sales techniques used in previous years are no longer working. This book shows how to understand this new breed of buyer, in order to interact with them on a more level playing field. Contents include developments in the industry; purchasing organizations; types of buyers; purchasing analysis; and crucially, buyer-seller relations.

"Enjoying religion" seems to be a contradiction because religion is generally perceived as a serious or even suppressive phenomenon. This volume is the first to study the increase of enjoying religion systematically by presenting eleven new case studies, occurring on four continents. The volume concludes that in our late modern secular societies the enjoyment of religion or of its loose elements is growing. In particular when scholars concentrate on "lived religion" of ordinary people, the cheerful experiences appear to prevail. Many people use pleasant (elements of) religion to add meaning to their lives, to find spiritual fulfillment or a way to salvation, and to experience belonging to a larger unity. At the same time, diverse cultural dynamics of late modern society such as popular culture, commercialization, re-enchantment, and feminization influence this trend of enjoying religion. In spite of secularization, playing with religion appears to be attractive.

This book investigates the potential contribution of transnational corporations (TNC) to the upgrading of systems of innovation in late-industrialising countries. It looks specifically at TNC-affiliates in Thailand's manufacturing sector and compares them with firms in Penang (Malaysia) and Singapore. Thereby, it examines the technological capabilities of TNC-affiliates vis- -vis local firms in order to assess whether or not TNC-affiliates are suitable learning and cooperation partners for local firms, and can, consequently, be considered as capable contributors to the improvement of the system of innovation.