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Illicit business is big business. It covers a diverse range of activities from money laundering, drug trafficking and human trafficking through to the manufacture of counterfeit goods and the multiple activities in informal and shadow economies. This book introduces the world of illegal business.The authors contextualise the evolution in practices of illegal business around the world, highlighting the importance of organised crime, shadow economies, and informal sectors. Incorporating scholarly insights with real world examples, the book provides a much-needed business and economics analysis of a subject that is otherwise dominated by criminologists.With a range of case studies, this book provides a global approach that will be valuable reading for students seeking to understand the business of crime.

This is the third edition of the widely respected text International Business, which offers a comprehensive yet critical overview of the phenomenon of globalisation and its impacts on key aspects of the business environment as it fundamentally alters corporate strategy. This updated edition covers the core international business topics and themes, including multinationals, internationalisation, and international market entry, as well as a new focus on risk, business models, and hyperglobalisation. With dedicated chapters on the role of non-market actors in international business, the book provides a multi-disciplinary worldview for readers. Featuring a wealth of case studies and pedagogy, the new edition examines the rise of India and China as well as growing levels of risk within the global system. The book looks at those developed economies which have been the core drivers behind the trend towards hyperglobalisation. The author explores and guides students through what this means for the study of international business. A comprehensive and engaging text, supplemented by online resources, this book is the ideal accompaniment to international and global business learning.

Employment: A Key Idea for Business and Society introduces a topic that many of us take for granted yet is central to how we understand business and management. Most people work for the majority of their lives and, in recent years, employment has become a topic of popular debate, particularly asking what the future of work could be. Much of this has focused on the role of technology and automation, as well as the growth of the gig economy and new forms of work.This book provides new ways to think about our own experiences of work and debates on employment. The book covers the history of employment, key changes to work, and a global perspective. The major debates in employment are introduced, providing theories for readers to develop their own perspectives. In particular, the book reappraises management theory, the role of workers'agency in changing work, surveys the state of current research and methods, and sketches out the key changes on the horizon for employment. This book will provide students with a critical introduction to employment, equipping them with the resources to research, understand, and rethink the topic.

Veblen has been claimed and rejected both by sociologists and economists as being one of theirs. He enriched and attacked both disciplines, as he did so many others: philosophy, history, social psychology, politics, and linguistics. Because he took all knowledge as necessary and relevant to adequate understanding, Veblen was a holistic analyst of the social process.First published in 1904, this classic analysis of the U.S. economy has enduring value today. In it, Veblen posited a theory of business fluctuations and economic growth which included chronic depression and inflation. He predicted the socioeconomic changes that would occur as a result: militarism, imperialism, fascism, consumerism, and the development of the mass media as well as the corporate bureaucracy. Douglas Dowd's introduction places the volume within the traditions of both macroeconomics and microeconomics, tracing Veblen's place among social thinkers, and the place of this volume in the body of his work.

Sustainability for SMEs offers a comprehensive introduction to the key business cases and techniques for putting sustainability at the heart of your business strategy.Small businesses make a significant collective impact on the environment and society – but only a tiny percentage of SMEs complete a sustainability report. Sustainability Reporting for SMEs will enable any SME to get up to speed on sustainability reporting and plot a course of action for their business. Elaine Cohen distils the latest and best thinking on sustainability reporting for SMEs, and offers a process for reporting that will deliver significant business advantage, both in terms of more effective internal processes and in terms of reputation, customer loyalty and business-building.In many SMEs sustainability is one person's passion and responsibility. A large part of their job becomes selling sustainability to other people in the business. Strategic Sustainability offers arguments, information and tactics that will help that person get the buy-in they need to move sustainability forward in their business. Sustainability is of strategic importance to a business. This book makes an airtight case for why action is essential and how sustainability can help a business not only survive but thrive in competitive marketplaces.The major environmental impact of most businesses derives from energy usage. There are many ways to make your organisation's energy usage more sustainable. In Sustainable Energy Options for Business, Philip Wolfe outlines the best available options for (1) reducing energy use and (2) improving the sustainability of energy supply. After an introduction to regulatory drivers and management issues, Wolfe looks at energy opportunities in five key areas.

Darwin's Medicine is the sequel to Brian D. Smith's influential and critically acclaimed Future of Pharma (Gower, 2011). Whereas the earlier book predicted the evolution of the pharmaceutical market and the business models of pharmaceutical companies, Darwin's Medicine goes much deeper into the drivers of industry change and how leading pharmaceutical and medical technology companies are adapting their strategies, structures and capabilities in practice. Through the lens of evolutionary science, Professor Smith explores the speciation of new business models in the Life Sciences Industry. This sophisticated and highly original approach offers insights into: The mechanisms of evolution in this exceptional industry; The six great technological and social shifts that are shaping its landscape; The emergence of 26 distinct, new business models; and The lessons that enable firms to direct and accelerate their own evolution. These insights map out the industry's complex, changing landscape and provide an invaluable guide to those firms seeking to survive and thrive in this dynamic market. The book is essential reading for anyone working in or studying the pharmaceutical, medical technology and related sectors. It provides a unique and novel way of making sense of the transformation we can see going on around us and a practical, focused approach to managing a firm's evolutionary trajectory.

John Sheldrake's long experience of teaching business and management to engineers has highlighted a gap in the knowledge of students and practitioners alike, between their grasp of developments in science and technology and how these developments lead to the creation of successful products. Using case studies, Technology, Business and the Market explores the impact of new materials, techniques and technologies, and looks at the links between innovation, entrepreneurship, business (including finance), design, manufacturing, branding and marketing. The author examines the ways in which scientific endeavour is conditioned and even distorted by contextual issues such as finance and fashion. This demonstration of the synthesis of technology, business and the market has relevance for students, practitioners and policy makers in established and emerging markets.

First Published in 1977. This set of readings has been planned to demonstrate good examples of the writing of business history using a wide range of source material. Furthermore, the intention is to aid the development of critical perception and facilitate further analysis. The overriding criterion in selection has therefore been the framework of structure-conduct-performance for the industry, activity or firm. The emphasis is on the technical and organisational relationships between the governing factor input and output conditions and the objectives and control mechanisms of the decision-making personnel.

Virtually unknown just a few years ago, gamification is fast emerging as a user engagement and behaviour change tool that succeeds where other tactics and strategies have failed. It's the new'business tech trend to watch', and is already being tested in a diverse range of sectors.Not only useful for strengthening communication and engagement and as a potent behaviour change agent, it is also being advocated as a uniquely effective tool for stimulating innovative thinking and new ideas. In the environmental sector,'eco-gamification'is showing early promise in sustainable transport, employee engagement, energy and recycling, and its potential for other sectors is clear.This book contains all the information businesses and other organizations need to make an informed decision about whether to adopt gamification as part of their own business and sustainability strategies – and the tools to get started.Owen's expert investigation outlines the latest theory, tactics and strategies, draws together emerging best practice and points to stand-out successes in the health and fitness, medical research, and financial sectors, as well as early successes in'eco-gamification'.Whether the people you are engaging are customers, citizens, employees, shareholders, executives or board members, if you're an organization concerned with enhancing environmental sustainability, and you want your efforts to make a real and lasting difference, this book is for you.

With the creation of the Mediterranean partnership and the recent move towards the creation of the Union for the Mediterranean in 2008, a new emphasis is placed on the Mediterranean in the study of European Integration. This book brings together a collection of experts to address this important new area of study and discuss issues such as development, aid, labour, markets, human capital investment, Europeanization and institutional reform.

Organizations rely extensively upon a myriad of images and pictorial representations such as budgets, schedules, reports, graphs, and organizational charts to name but a few. Visual images play an integral role in the process of organizing. This volume argues that images in organizations are ‘performative', meaning that they can be seen as performances, rather than mere representations, that play a significant role in all kind of organizational activities. Imagining Organizations opens up new ways of imagining business through an interdisciplinary approach that captures the role of visualizations and their performances. Contributions to this volume challenge this orthodox view to explore how images in business, organizing and organizations are viewed in a static and rigid form. Imagining Business addresses the question of how we visualize organizations and their activities as an important aspect of managerial work, focusing on practices and performances, organizing and ordering, and media and technologies. Moreover, it aims to provide a focal point for the growing collection of studies that explore how various business artifacts draw on the power of the visual to enable various forms of organizing and organizations in diverse contexts.

The price of food has become very volatile in recent years for a variety of reasons, including a strengthened connection between the prices of agricultural commodities and other commodities such as oil and metals, more volatile production due to more frequent droughts and floods, and a rising demand for biofuels. Understanding the determinants of agricultural commodity prices and the connections between prices has become a high priority for academics and applied economists who are interested in agricultural marketing and trade, policy analysis and international rural development.This book builds on the various theories of commodity price relationships in competitive markets over space, time and form. It also builds on the various theories of commodity price relationships in markets that are non-competitive because processing firms exploit market power, private information distorts commodity bidding, and bargaining is required to establish prices when the marketing transaction involves a single seller and buyer. Each chapter features a spreadsheet model to analyze a particular real-world case study or plausible scenario, and issues considered include: the reasons for commodity price differences across regions the connection between the release of information and the rapid adjustment in a network of commodity prices the specific linkage between energy and food prices bidding strategies by large exporters who compete in import tenders The simulation results that are obtained from the spreadsheet models reveal many important features of commodity prices. The models are also well suited for additional'what if'analysis such as examining how the pattern of trade in agricultural commodities may change if shipping becomes more expensive because of substantial increase in the world price of oil. Model building and the analysis of the simulation results is a highly effective way to develop critical thinking skills and to view agricultural commodity prices in a rigorous and unique way. This is an ideal resource for economics students looking to gain develop skills in the areas of Agricultural Marketing, Commodity Price Analysis, Models of Commodity Markets, Quantitative Methods and Commodity Futures Markets.

Some of us work to live. Some of us live to work. Some of us, by design or default, don't work at all. Whatever your position, as a stakeholder in today's society, there is no avoiding the complex web that is the world of work. Everyone is affected to some degree by issues such as stress and work-life balance, teleworking, offshoring, stakeholder democracy, globalisation – the list goes on. But, as things continue to change at an ever-faster rate, what can we expect work to look like in the next five, ten, or twenty years? Above the Clouds is the result of a future studies project carried out by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), a not-for profit foundation that promotes excellence in European business. The project aimed to identify trends that will have an impact on the world of work over the coming decade. Work here is defined in terms of methods, organisation and future challenges. It took two years to create the full picture, which is now available in this book.'Trendspotting'sessions were organised across Europe as a means of gathering ideas on where work was heading in the future. The experience and insights of people from a diverse range of backgrounds were included in the project. Working with raw material from these sessions, researchers investigated each of the trends and their possible ramifications on the world of work. The resulting articles were posted for comment online. People from all around Europe responded and some of these views are quoted in this book. In addition, academics and leading CEOs and executives were asked for their reactions to these trends. Each of the 15 chapters of Above the Clouds analyses a trend in detail and includes perspectives from business, academia and comments from the European public. There are disagreements, but also a surprising amount of convergence on issues such as leadership, outsourcing, global risk, women, age, spirituality, stress and technology. Rather than trying to offer certainty, the book aims to equip people and organisations with the awareness and adaptability they will need to meet tomorrow's challenges to the way we work. It is fascinating reading for anyone interested in how the big issues of work are likely to impact on us all.

With a challenging new approach to its subject matter, this book addresses international business with globalization as its underlying theme. By illustrating globalization as a phenomenon that is fundamentally altering corporate strategy, this book critiques the complexities of globalization andits impact on international business. By doing so, it is entirely unlike other books on the subject.International Business addresses subjects often neglected by other books, such as MNEs, SMEs and the information economy, while encouraging business students to develop a more international perspective and discard parochial tendencies. With this lucid approach, International Business provides students with an integrated overview of the field that is both theoretical and highly practical.Case-studies include: · aiding the globalization of SMEs: the OECD's Bologna Charter· China and the WTO· the pharmaceutical industry and the developing world· RUGMARK: social labelling in action· the Argentinian financial crisis·environmental profile of Matsushita Electrical Industrial Company.

With a challenging new approach to its subject matter, this book addresses international business with globalization as its underlying theme. By illustrating globalization as a phenomenon that is fundamentally altering corporate strategy, this book critiques the complexities of globalization andits impact on international business. By doing so, it is entirely unlike other books on the subject.International Business addresses subjects often neglected by other books, such as MNEs, SMEs and the information economy, while encouraging business students to develop a more international perspective and discard parochial tendencies. With this lucid approach, International Business provides students with an integrated overview of the field that is both theoretical and highly practical.Case-studies include: · aiding the globalization of SMEs: the OECD's Bologna Charter· China and the WTO· the pharmaceutical industry and the developing world· RUGMARK: social labelling in action· the Argentinian financial crisis·environmental profile of Matsushita Electrical Industrial Company.