Failed argues that some of the most important economic developments of recent years, including prolonged economic failures and alternatives, are widely misunderstood. Topics include the Eurozone, growth in the developing world, Latin America's "second independence" in the 21st century, and the International Monetary Fund's policies and loss of influence.
Although there are as many answers to the question of how organizations can gain competitive advantage in today's global economy as there are books and experts, one lesson seems very clear: traditional answers and resources are no longer sufficient. This seminal book offers not only an answer regarding how to gain competitive advantage through people, but also a brand new, untapped human resource--psychological capital, or simply PsyCap. Generated from both the positive psychology movement and the authors' pioneering work on positive organizational behavior, PsyCap goes beyond traditionally recognized human and social capital. But PsyCap is not a vague or unscientific concept: to be included in PsyCap, a given positive construct must be based on theory, research, and valid measurement, must be open to development, and must have measurable performance impact. The positive constructs that have been determined to best meet these PsyCap criteria, efficacy (confidence), hope, optimism, and resiliency, are covered in separate chapters in Psychological Capital. After exploring other potential positive constructs such as creativity, wisdom, well being, flow, humor, gratitude, forgiveness, emotional intelligence, spirituality, authenticity, and courage, the authors summarize the research demonstrating the performance impact of PsyCap. They go on to provide the PsyCap Questionnaire (PCQ) as a measurement tool, and the PsyCap Intervention (PCI) as a development aid. Utility analysis indicates that investing in the development of PsyCap as presented in this book can result in a very substantial return. In total, Psychological Capital provides theory, research, measurements, and methods of application for the new resource of psychological capital, a resource that can be developed and sustained for competitive advantage.
This publication examines the social impact of an unprecedented crisis. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have spread to all areas of human life, altering the way we interact, crippling economies and bringing about profound changes in societies. The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the major structural gaps in the region, and it is clear that the costs of inequality have become unsustainable and that it is necessary to rebuild with equality and sustainability, aiming for the creation of a true welfare state, long overdue in the region.
At last, the first systematic guide to the growing jungle of citation indices and other bibliometric indicators. Written with the aim of providing a complete and unbiased overview of all available statistical measures for scientific productivity, the core of this reference is an alphabetical dictionary of indices and other algorithms used to evaluate the importance and impact of researchers and their institutions. In 150 major articles, the authors describe all indices in strictly mathematical terms without passing judgement on their relative merit. From widely used measures, such as the journal impact factor or the h-index, to highly specialized indices, all indicators currently in use in the sciences and humanities are described, and their application explained. The introductory section and the appendix contain a wealth of valuable supporting information on data sources, tools and techniques for bibliometric and scientometric analysis - for individual researchers as well as their funders and publishers.
This edited collection provides the first in-depth analysis of social policies and the risks faced by young people. The book explores the effects of both the economic crisis and austerity policies on the lives of young Europeans, examining both the precarity of youth transitions, and the function of welfare state policies.
Demand for less skilled workers decreased dramatically in the US and in other developed countries over the past two decades. We argue that pervasive skill-biased technological change rather than increased trade with the developing world is the principal culprit. The pervasiveness of this technological change is important for two reasons. First, it is an immediate and testable implication of technological change. Second, under standard assumptions, the more pervasive the skill-biased technological change the greater the increase in the embodied supply of less skilled workers and the greater the depressing effect on their relative wages through world goods prices. In contrast, in the Heckscher-Ohlin model with small open economies, the skill-bias of local technological changes does not affect wages. Thus, pervasiveness deals with a major criticism of skill-biased technological change as a cause. Testing the implications of pervasive, skill-biased technological change we find strong supporting evidence. First, across the OECD, most industries have increased the proportion of skilled workers employed despite rising or stable relative wages. Second, increases in demand for skills were concentrated in the same manufacturing industries in different developed countries.
Does gender condition politicians’ discourse strategies in parliament? This is the question we try to answer in A Gender-based Approach to Parliamentary Discourse: The Andalusian Parliament. This book, written by experts in the field of discourse analysis, covers key aspects of political discourse such as gender, identity and verbal and nonverbal strategies: intensification, enumerative series, non-literal quotations, pseudo-desemantisation, lexical colloquialisation, emotion, eye contact and time management. It provides a large number of examples from a balanced gender parliament, the Andalusian Parliament, and it focuses mainly on argumentation, since parliamentary discourse is above all argumentative. This book will prove invaluable to students and teachers in the field of discourse analysis, and more specifically of political discourse, and will also be very useful to politicians and anyone interested in communication strategies. As of January 2019, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched.
"From a leader in the field of psychotherapy this new book is the first dedicated to the topic of the fear of contamination. The book starts by defining the disorder, before considering the various manifestations of this fear, examining both mental contamination and contact contamination, and feelings of disgust. Most significantly it develops a theory for how this problem can be treated, providing clinical guidelines - based around cognitive behavioural techniques."--BOOK JACKET.
Recoge: 1. General political context - 2. Current political developments - 3. Institutional framework - 4. Initial vocational training - 5. Continuing vocational education and training - 6. Training of VET teachers and trainers - 7. Skills and competence development - 8. Validation of learning - 9. Guidance and counselling - 10. Financing vocational training - 11. European and international dimension.