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In recent years, the focus in historical studies has moved away from asking what knowledge ancient people produced to asking how and why it was produced. The present volume follows up with these developments, positioning “knowledge construction” as a concept mediating between different facilitators of knowledge production such as intellectual investment and social trends, technological innovations, and expanding trade.

This open access book focuses on Switzerland-based medium-sized companies with a longstanding export tradition and a proven dominance in global niche markets. Based upon in-depth documentation and analysis of 36 Swiss companies over their entire history, an expert team of authors presents several parallels in the pathways and success factors which allowed these firms to become dominant and operate from a high-cost location such as Switzerland. The book enhances these insights by providing detailed company profiles documenting the company history, development, and how their relevant global niche positions were reached. Readers will benefit from these profiles as they compile a diverse selection of industries, mainly active within the B2B sector, with mostly mature companies (60 years to older than 100 years since founding) and different types of ownership structures including family firms. ‘Masterpieces of Swiss Entrepreneurship’ brings unique learning opportunities to owners and leaders of SMEs in Switzerland and elsewhere. Findings are based on detailed bottom-up research of 36 companies -- without any preconceived notions. The book is both conceptual and practical. It fosters understanding for different choices in development pathways and management practices. Matti Alahuhta, Chairman DevCo Partners, ex-CEO Kone, Board member of several global listed companies, Helsinki, Finland Start-up entrepreneurs need proven models from industry which demonstrate the various paths to success. “Masterpieces of Swiss Entrepreneurship” provides deep insights highlighting these models and the important trade-offs entrepreneurial teams must consider when choosing the path of high growth or of maximum control, as they are often mutually exclusive. Gina Domanig, Managing Partner, Emerald Technology Ventures, Zurich

Over recent decades, historians have become increasingly interested in early modern Catholic missions in Asia as laboratories of cultural contact. This book builds on recent ground-breaking research on early modern Catholic missions, which has shown that missionaries in Asia cooperated with and accommodated the needs of local agents rather than being uncompromising promoters of post-Tridentine doctrine and devotion. Bringing together some of the most renowned and innovative researchers from Anglophone countries and continental Europe, this volume investigates how missionaries’ entanglements with local societies across Asia contributed to processes of localization within the early modern Catholic church. The focus of the volume is on missionaries’ adaptation to four ideal-typical social settings that played an eminent role in early modern Asian missions: (1) the symbolically loaded princely court; (2) the city as a space of especially dense communication; (3) the countryside, where missionary presence was only rarely permanent; (4) and the household – a central arena of conversion in early modern Asian societies. Shining a fresh light onto the history of early modern Catholic missions and the early modern Eurasian cultural exchange, this will be an important book for any scholar of religious history, history of cultural contact/global history and early modern history in Asia.

In early modern China, Jesuit missionaries associated with the male elite of Confucian literati in order to proselytize more freely, but they had limited contact with women, whose ritual spaces were less accessible. Historians of Catholic evangelism have similarly directed their attention to the devotional practices of men, neglecting the interior spaces in Chinese households where women worshipped and undertook the transmission of Catholicism to family members and friends. Nadine Amsler’s investigation brings the domestic and devotional practices of women into sharp focus, uncovering a rich body of evidence that demonstrates how Chinese households functioned as sites of evangelization, religious conflict, and indigenization of Christianity. The resulting exploration of gendered realms in seventeenth-century China reveals networks of religious sociability and ritual communities among women as well as women’s remarkable acts of private piety. Amsler’s exhaustive archival research and attention to material culture reveals new insights about women’s agency and domestic activities, illuminating areas of Chinese and Catholic history that have remained obscure, if not entirely invisible, for far too long. The open access publication of this book was made possible by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

Im Handlungsfeld Coaching stellt die Digitalisierung alle Beteiligten vor massive Herausforderungen. Ein flächendeckendes Umdenken findet spätestens seit der weltweiten Corona-Pandemie statt – mit folgenreichen Konsequenzen für die Coachingbranche. Coaching hat sich in den letzten Jahren signifikant weiterentwickelt und sieht sich mit umwälzenden Effekten einer zunehmenden Digitalisierung und gesellschaftlichen Transformation konfrontiert. Kommunikation stößt kaum mehr auf Grenzen und verbindet auf Knopfdruck entlegene Kontinente. Unternehmen aus allen Branchen setzen auf neue Organisationsformen. Die Anforderungen an Arbeitnehmer*innen verändern sich permanent. Agilität wird zum Schlagwort. Im Kontext dieser Entwicklung stellen sich für Coaching u. a. folgende Fragen: Wie wirkt sich die Digitalisierung auf den Bedarf von Coaching aus? Wie verändert die Digitalisierung das Beratungsformat Coaching? Wie wirksam ist Digital Coaching im Vergleich? Wie positioniert sich Coaching als Profession im Zuge dieser gesellschaftlichen Transformation? Der Sammelbandband beinhaltet wichtige Thesen und Antworten innerhalb dieser Debatte.

Religious Discourse in Modern Japan explores the transportation of the Western concept of “religion” in in the modern era; the emergence of discourse on Shinto, philosophy, and Buddhism; and the evolution of the academic discipline of religious studies in Japan.; Readership: All interested in Japanese religion and modern Japan, especially State Shinto and the Emperor System, and anyone concerned with the concept of religion in terms of postcolonial conditions, postsecularism, and nation-state building in East Asia

The essays in this volume present art historical methods for research on the conditions in which books were produced and decorated in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. The consideration of the multiple factors impacting on the production and dissemination of illustrated books serves to improve our understanding of the works and helps to place them more accurately in the cultural discourse of their time., Die in diesem Band zusammengestellten Aufsätze präsentieren kunsthistorische Methoden zur Untersuchung der Entstehungsbedingungen mittelalterlicher und frühneuzeitlicher Buchmalerei. Die Berücksichtigung der verschiedenen Faktoren, die beim Herstellungsprozess der Bücher und bei deren Verbreitung eine Rolle spielen - von Auftraggeberwünschen über Arbeitsumstände der Buchmaler bis hin zur Organisation des Buchhandels - führt zu einem besseren Verständnis der Werke und zu ihrer präzisieren Platzierung im damaligen kulturellen Diskurs.

Neurology & clinical neurophysiology