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How to narrow the gap between the old and new members of the European Union? A vast amount of statistical data on social and economic factors in selected European countries is analyzed along constructs such as civilizational competence; social capital; quality of governance, entrepreneurial spirit; social cohesion etc.
Offers a different perspective on global governance from the vantage point of a global knowledge society. Employing a case study of the global financial system and an analysis of several governance regimes, this work contends that markets, legal systems, and morality must evolve to cope with uncertainty, build capacities, and achieve resilience.
Translated into English for the first time, Luhmann's modern classic, Organization and Decision, explores how organizations work; how they should be designed, steered, and controlled; and how they order and structure society. Luhmann argues that organization is order, yet indeterminate. In this book, he shows how this paradox enables organizations to embed themselves within society without losing autonomy. In developing his autopoietic perspective on organizations, Luhmann applies his general theory of social systems by conceptualizing organizations as selfreproducing systems of decision communications. His innovative and interdisciplinary approach to the material (spanning organization studies, management and sociology) is integral to any study of organizations. This new translation, edited by one of the world's leading experts on Luhmann, enables researchers and graduate students across the English-speaking world to access Luhmann's ideas more readily.
Eva Becker assesses the US financial crisis as a crisis of regulatory data, information and knowledge. Based on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s interviews as well her own interviews, and drawing on Capture Theory and recent reformulations thereof, she develops “knowledge capture” as a theoretic framework to assess financial regulation under conditions of 21st century complexity.
This title reflects the general theme of the 2010 IACR annual conference that was held in Padova, Italy, the aim of which was to provide a fresh view on some cultural and structural changes involving Western societies after the world economic crisis of 2008, from the point of view of Critical Realism. Global society is often regarded as disrupting identities and blurring boundaries, one which entails giving up ideas of structure and fixity. Globalization supposedly introducesa "liquid" era of fluidity where everything is possible, and anything goes. Nevertheless, its current dynamics are developing into a harder reality: wars, economic crisis, the haunting risk of pandemics, the ever worseni...
Rather than treating concepts and their application in a static and iconic manner,Concepts in Action provides us with examples of the active and creative use of concepts for constructing and generating new knowledge. Examples of theoretic constructions and topics discussed refers to the function of theory in main stream sociology; concepts enabling us to expand the range of interpretations; a critical view and approach to general concepts of culture, nature and consumption; concepts dealing with organization, institutions and actors; and examples of travelling concepts such as class, gender, race and social recognition. Concepts in Action follows on the earlier Theory in Action (2016) as par...
The concepts and values that underpin traditional constitutionalism are increasingly being challenged by political realities that place substantial power beyond the state. Among the few certainties of a global economy is the growing incongruity between the political (the world of things that need to be ordered collectively in order to sustain society) and the state (the major institution of authoritative political decision-making during modern times). The consequences, and possible remedies, of this double disjunction of politics and state and of state and constitution form the centre of an open debate about 'constitutionalism beyond the state'. The essays gathered in this collection explore...
Managers and consultants consistently note that much of what has been planned is not implemented and that on the other hand other things that were not planned successfully emerge. The driving forces for innovation are for the main part hidden in the tacit knowledge of organizations. This is where Management Constellations come into place. They permit to gather information that is otherwise not immediately accessible. When it comes to making critical decisions there is hardly any tool that is so quick and accurate in pointing to the relevant factors. Furthermore various alternative actions can be simulated to evaluate the potential effects. This book is aimed at managers and consultants, who want to break new ground in developing the potential of their organization. In the first part the authors present the theoretical background of the methodology. Part two is meant as a field book for the practitioner who wants to integrate the method into his work as consultant or manager.
Enrico Michelini illustrates that sport plays a very marginal role in the contemporary health promotion. This is the main result of the present analysis of national strategies for the promotion of physical activity issued by the health ministries of France, Germany, and Italy. All these health-strategies are rather ambiguous on this subject: They mention sport systematically as an abstract term, but they marginalise it as a medium of health in its traditional-competitive form. As a consequence, while sport has generally been considered healthy over a long period in the past, most health organisations today recommend only moderate physical activity as conducive to good health. The author examines this paradigmatic change in the international discussion about the forms of health-enhancing physical activity through a theoretical framework based on Luhmann’s systems theory.
Based on the success of the World Scientific publication “Governing and Managing Knowledge” edited by Thomas Menkhoff, Hans-Dieter Evers and Chay Yue Wah in 2005, this unique volume presents 16 new theoretical-practical papers on the strategic aspects of developing knowledge-based economies with case studies from South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Uzbekistan. A key question which the book seeks to answer is what Asian policy-makers and leaders in government, economy and society can do to further enhance learning and capability formation so as to foster sustainable development in an increasingly globalized world. It addresses the politico-cultural and socio-economic challenges of effectively managing both knowledge resources and coping with the great digital divide created by globalization, continuous technology innovations and rapid external change. A key objective of the publication is to enable latecomers in the knowledge race to understand some of the critical success factors of sustainable knowledge-based development and what it takes to build a resilient knowledge-based economy.