International Aid and Loans, explains the functions and history of loans between countries and the debt incurred in developing countries, along with providing a worldwide outlook on the future. In addition, firsthand accounts of real people are featured in which their stories are brought down to a personal level for the reader. Additional features include: a table of contents, glossary, index, color photographs, discussion points, and recommended books and websites for further exploration.
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia
As we continue in an era of simultaneous innovation and commoditization, enabled by digital technologies, managers around the world are asking themselves "how can we both adapt to rapid changes in technology and markets, and still make enough money to survive - and thrive?" To provide answers to these important and urgent questions, MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Michael Cusumano draws on nearly 30 years of research into the practices of global corporations that have been acknowledged leaders and benchmark setters - including Apple, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Toyota, Sony, Panasonic, and others in a range of high-technology, services, and manufacturing industries. These companies have also encountered major challenges in their businesses or disruptions to their core technologies. If we look deeply enough, he contends, we can see the ideas that underpin the management practices that make for great companies, and drive their strategic evolution and innovation capabilities. From his deep knowledge of these organizations, Cusumano distils six enduring principles that he believes have been - in various combinations - crucial to their strategy, innovation management practices, and ability to deal with change and uncertainty. The first two principles - platforms (not just products), and services (especially for product firms) - are relatively new and broader ways of thinking about strategy and business models, based on Cusumano's latest research. The other four - capabilities (not just strategy or positioning), the "pull" concept (not just push), economies of scope (not just scale), and flexibility (not just efficiency) - all contribute to agility, which is a mix of flexibility and speed. Many practices associated with these ideas, such as dynamic capabilities, just-in-time production, iterative or prototype-driven product development, flexible design and manufacturing, modular architectures, and component reuse, are now commonly regarded as standard best practices. These six enduring principles are essential in a new world dominated by platforms and technology-enabled services.
Almost twenty years after the Iron Curtain came down and the borders were opened within Western Europe, I was ready to go back to my place of birth. Hermann Walka's childhood was marred by war even before his life began. He was born on December 30, 1939, in Moravia of western Czechoslovakia. Four months prior, at the start of World War II, powerful German forces invaded his homeland. His family did the best they could to survive everyday life. But when everyday life included air raids and the threat of bombings, it was a struggle. Life was only made more difficult when months later, Hermann's father, the head of the family farm, was forced into the German military. It would be years before his family would see him again. The end of the war only brought more hardship as eastern Czechs, who harbored anger and resentment toward the western Czechs as a result of the war, forced Hermann's family and other townspeople into Austria into housing camps, where he was separated from the rest of his family. Often cold, hungry, dehydrated, and exhausted for long periods of time, Hermann developed Staying Power, the power to persevere, and the faith that things would get better. It was this positivity that would carry him through his entire life, long after the war was over. And it is this positivity that Hermann hopes will inspire readers in the times they struggle. Hermann Walka lives in Texas. Staying Power is his first book.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1951.
Questions surrounding the concept of freedom versus security have intensified in recent years due to the rise of new technologies. The increased governmental use of technology for data collection now poses a threat to citizens’ privacy and is drawing new ethical concerns. Ethical Issues and Citizen Rights in the Era of Digital Government Surveillance focuses on the risks presented by the usage of surveillance technology in the virtual public sphere and how such practices have called for a re-examination of what limits should be imposed. Highlighting international perspectives and theoretical frameworks relating to privacy concerns, this book is a pivotal reference source for researchers, professionals, and upper-level students within the e-governance realm.
