Trade Wars, Pandemics, and Chaos

Trade Wars, Pandemics, and Chaos
Author: Dr Elouise Epstein
Publisher:
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781736998106

This book is an in-depth look at how to strategize, evaluate, and approach the wildly exciting world of digital procurement. More than any other enterprise function, procurement has grown from back-office cost control to strategic business partner. Today's procurement practitioners are at the forefront of innovation, sustainability, and social responsibility, making change by directing where and how enterprises spend their money. The transformation has been spurred by the billions of dollars invested in digital procurement solutions, which is fundamentally changing the traditional ways of operating. Within these pages you'll find a blueprint for approaching the complexity of procurement and making smart technology investments. You'll also become acquainted with the significant organizational implications of digital done well, and with success measures, watch-outs, and innovations in the offing. Taken together, a strong digital procurement capability will enable businesses to not only be prepared, but to thrive when confronted with tomorrow's disruption.

Disruptive Procurement

Disruptive Procurement
Author: Michael F. Strohmer
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2020-04-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030389502

Disruptive Procurement is a radical new approach to creating value and innovation by challenging the status quo in the entire product and service line. It requires going far beyond conventional desktop procurement to understand the value the company brings to its customers as well as the value that suppliers bring to the company. By combining knowledge of these two dimensions, companies become far more flexible and they move closer to disrupting the environment in ways that create value. To move toward Disruptive Procurement, companies need a holistic view and a complete new set of capabilities for staff in marketing, sales, R&D, manufacturing, innovation, and, of course, procurement. This will only happen if procurement is fully backed by the Chief Executive Officer and companies embrace digital tools that will help make procurement slimmer and smarter.

Learning from SARS

Learning from SARS
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2004-04-26
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309182158

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in late 2002 and 2003 challenged the global public health community to confront a novel epidemic that spread rapidly from its origins in southern China until it had reached more than 25 other countries within a matter of months. In addition to the number of patients infected with the SARS virus, the disease had profound economic and political repercussions in many of the affected regions. Recent reports of isolated new SARS cases and a fear that the disease could reemerge and spread have put public health officials on high alert for any indications of possible new outbreaks. This report examines the response to SARS by public health systems in individual countries, the biology of the SARS coronavirus and related coronaviruses in animals, the economic and political fallout of the SARS epidemic, quarantine law and other public health measures that apply to combating infectious diseases, and the role of international organizations and scientific cooperation in halting the spread of SARS. The report provides an illuminating survey of findings from the epidemic, along with an assessment of what might be needed in order to contain any future outbreaks of SARS or other emerging infections.

Changemakers

Changemakers
Author: Adam Arvidsson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1509538917

This book argues that, as industrial capitalism enters a period of prolonged crisis, a new paradigm of ‘industrious modernity’ is emerging. Based on small-scale, commons-based and market-oriented entrepreneurship, this industrious modernity is being pioneered by the many outcasts that no longer find a place within a crumbling industrial modernity. This new industriousness draws on the new planetary commons that have been generated by the globalization of industrial capitalism itself. The outsourcing of material production to global supply chains has made the skills necessary to engage in commodity production generic and common, and the globalization of media culture and the internet have generated new knowledge commons. Together these new commons have radically reduced the capital requirements to engage in economic activity, and are providing new, highly efficient tools of productive organization at little cost. This timely analysis of the new forces of change in our societies today will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the impact of digital technologies and the future of capitalism.

The Case for a Four Day Week

The Case for a Four Day Week
Author: Aidan Harper
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2020-12-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509539662

Not so long ago, people thought that a ten-hour, six-day week was normal; now, it’s the eight-hour, five-day week. Will that soon be history too? In this book, three leading experts argue why it should be. They map out a pragmatic pathway to a shorter working week that safeguards earnings for the lower-paid and keeps the economy flourishing. They argue that this radical vision will give workers time to be better parents and carers, allow men and women to share paid and unpaid work more equally, and help to save jobs – and create new ones – in the post-pandemic era. Not only that, but it will combat stress and illness caused by overwork and help to protect the environment. This is essential reading for anyone who has ever felt they could live and work a lot better if all weekends were three days long.

Future War

Future War
Author: Christopher Coker
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2015-11-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509502351

Will tomorrow's wars be dominated by autonomous drones, land robots and warriors wired into a cybernetic network which can read their thoughts? Will war be fought with greater or lesser humanity? Will it be played out in cyberspace and further afield in Low Earth Orbit? Or will it be fought more intensely still in the sprawling cities of the developing world, the grim black holes of social exclusion on our increasingly unequal planet? Will the Great Powers reinvent conflict between themselves or is war destined to become much 'smaller' both in terms of its actors and the beliefs for which they will be willing to kill? In this illuminating new book Christopher Coker takes us on an incredible journey into the future of warfare. Focusing on contemporary trends that are changing the nature and dynamics of armed conflict, he shows how conflict will continue to evolve in ways that are unlikely to render our century any less bloody than the last. With insights from philosophy, cutting-edge scientific research and popular culture, Future War is a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the shape of war to come.

Global Transformations

Global Transformations
Author: David Held
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 548
Release: 1999
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780804736275

In this book, the authors set forth a new model of globalization that lays claims to supersede existing models, and then use this model to assess the way the processes of globalization have operated in different historic periods in respect to political organization, military globalization, trade, finance, corporate productivity, migration, culture, and the environment. Each of these topics is covered in a chapter which contrasts the contemporary nature of globalization with that of earlier epochs. In mapping the shape and political consequences of globalization, the authors concentrate on six states in advanced capitalist societies (SIACS): the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and Japan. For comparative purposes, other states—particularly those with developing economics—are referred to and discussed where relevant. The book concludes by systematically describing and assessing contemporary globalization, and appraising the implications of globalization for the sovereignty and autonomy of SIACS. It also confronts directly the political fatalism that surrounds much discussion of globalization with a normative agenda that elaborates the possibilities for democratizing and civilizing the unfolding global transformation.

Work's Intimacy

Work's Intimacy
Author: Melissa Gregg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2013-04-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745637469

This book provides a long-overdue account of online technology and its impact on the work and lifestyles of professional employees. It moves between the offices and homes of workers in the knew "knowledge" economy to provide intimate insight into the personal, family, and wider social tensions emerging in today’s rapidly changing work environment. Drawing on her extensive research, Gregg shows that new media technologies encourage and exacerbate an older tendency among salaried professionals to put work at the heart of daily concerns, often at the expense of other sources of intimacy and fulfillment. New media technologies from mobile phones to laptops and tablet computers, have been marketed as devices that give us the freedom to work where we want, when we want, but little attention has been paid to the consequences of this shift, which has seen work move out of the office and into cafés, trains, living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. This professional "presence bleed" leads to work concerns impinging on the personal lives of employees in new and unforseen ways. This groundbreaking book explores how aspiring and established professionals each try to cope with the unprecedented intimacy of technologically-mediated work, and how its seductions seem poised to triumph over the few remaining relationships that may stand in its way.

Waste

Waste
Author: Kate O'Neill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2019-09-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0745687431

Waste is one of the planet’s last great resource frontiers. From furniture made from up-cycled wood to gold extracted from computer circuit boards, artisans and multinational corporations alike are finding ways to profit from waste while diverting materials from overcrowded landfills. Yet beyond these benefits, this “new” resource still poses serious risks to human health and the environment. In this unique book, Kate O’Neill traces the emergence of the global political economy of wastes over the past two decades. She explains how the emergence of waste governance initiatives and mechanisms can help us deal with both the risks and the opportunities associated with the hundreds of millions – possibly billions – of tons of waste we generate each year. Drawing on a range of fascinating case studies to develop her arguments, including China’s role as the primary recipient of recyclable plastics and scrap paper from the Western world, “Zero-Waste” initiatives, the emergence of transnational waste-pickers’ alliances, and alternatives for managing growing volumes of electronic and food wastes, O’Neill shows how waste can be a risk, a resource, and even a livelihood, with implications for governance at local, national, and global levels.

Cocoa

Cocoa
Author: Kristy Leissle
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-02-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509513205

Chocolate has long been a favorite indulgence. But behind every chocolate bar we unwrap, there is a world of power struggles and political maneuvering over its most important ingredient: cocoa. In this incisive book, Kristy Leissle reveals how cocoa, which brings pleasure and wealth to relatively few, depends upon an extensive global trade system that exploits the labor of five million growers, as well as countless other workers and vulnerable groups. The reality of this dramatic inequity, she explains, is often masked by the social, cultural, emotional, and economic values humans have placed upon cocoa from its earliest cultivation in Mesoamerica to the present day. Tracing the cocoa value chain from farms in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, through to chocolate factories in Europe and North America, Leissle shows how cocoa has been used as a political tool to wield power over others. Cocoa's politicization is not, however, limitless: it happens within botanical parameters set by the crop itself, and the material reality of its transport, storage, and manufacture into chocolate. As calls for justice in the industry have grown louder, Leissle reveals the possibilities for and constraints upon realizing a truly sustainable and fulfilling livelihood for cocoa growers, and for keeping the world full of chocolate.