In many modern economies, creativity, the essential prerequisite for innovation, tends to be assumed or neglected while the catchphrase "innovation" dominates the field of business as the key to national performance and competitiveness. Creativity and Innovation in Business and Beyond illustrates the ways in which creativity spurs innovation and innovation enables creativity – not only in the realms of business and management, where the innovation is regularly acknowledged and discussed, but throughout the social sciences. With contributions from experts in fields as far-flung as policy, history, economics, economic geography, sociology, law, psychology, social psychology and education, in addition to business and management, this volume explores the manifold avenues for creativity and innovation at many levels including nation, region, city, institution, organisation, and team across a multitude of sectors and settings.

Beyond the Marketplace is an interdisciplinary view of the relationship between markets and society. Do individuals behave in markets as neoclassical theory assumes they do? Can other social institutions and processes--e.g., family formation and voting behavior--be analyzed with the same analytic tools we use to study markets? How is economic behavior shaped by institutions beyond the marketplace? Do markets themselves have a social and cultural structure which is not adequately explained by the formal tools of neoclassical analysis? In Beyond the Marketplace, economists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, and anthropologists respond to these, and related, questions.

After years of official disrepute, industrial policy (IP) is back in vogue at regional, national and international levels driven by concerns over competitiveness, globalisation, de-industrialisation, unemployment and the comparatively slow growth of the EU economy especially in this post-recession phase. At the same time, IP has been seen as a catalyst for designing economic recovery strategies at regional, national and international levels, as well as being a concerted strategy to develop new ‘clean-tech’ industries to tackle environmental challenges. If anything, the recent global recession and credit crunch have highlighted the fragility of some states’ and localities’ economic development paths and the unbalanced nature of their economies, in terms of an over-reliance on sectors such as retail, financial services, and construction, to the detriment of manufacturing. This also suggests an accompanying need for greater economic diversity so as to avoid over-dependencies on certain sectors, and a better balance of ownerships forms. But what should be the shape of IP in the wake of the crisis and how can IP rebalance economies, help support sustainable development and catalyse new technologies and innovations whilst learning lessons from past experience and debate? This edited volume examines these questions through a wide range of diverse contributions from expert international authors. This book was originally published as a special issue of Policy Studies.

This book describes the access to justice crisis facing low- and middle-income Americans and the current reforms to address it.

For too long the subject of a glass ceiling on womens careers has dominated corporate sector debates and engaged practitioners attention. Scholars ascribe the many travails of females aspiring to top level roles to invisible barriers and hurdles that senior leaders failed to acknowledge, yet corporations have been known to suffer dire financial consequences for shutting women out of the corner office. Interactions with supervisors and juniors indicate that there are recurring limitations that could negate the core ethics of the workplace. While stakeholders in the public and private sectors continue to propose solutions and advocate for palliative and remedial steps to address the visible and invisible ceilings on female career progress, the number of female CEOs remain significantly unchanged. The question is why are only a few corporations pushing an agenda that seems to be the panacea to firm performance and sustainability? And why have the early warning signals of gender inequality remained in corporate corridors 40 years after the glass ceiling was identified? Advancing Beyond the Ceiling deviates from the traditional approach of limiting the gender barrier dilemma to societal, natural, and organizational practices. The book researches into other imposed limitations, including issues of self-esteem, character traits, and male dominance that could stall womens advancement. The author proposes reasons for females to spearhead their advancement through scholarship, partnership, mentorship, and sponsorship, amongst other practices in their quest to break the glass ceiling. As a C-level executive in the banking sector till 2010, and now the Founder of an investment firm post-2010, the author explores the struggles, setbacks, and stockades that limit senior to middle female officers in their career trajectory

Boylan and O'Gorman inject a fresh empiricist voice into the debate on economic methodology. They strike a reasonable middle ground between the extremes of scientific realism and the rhetoric of economics.

Technical Notes and Manuals are produced by IMF departments to expand the dissemination of their technical assistance advice. These papers present general advice and guidance, drawn in part from unpublished technical assistance reports, to a broader audience. This new series was launched in August 2009.

This book explores the increased necessity of organizations to encourage human talent in the globalized economy, with particular emphasis on the impact in Eastern Europe. Featuring contributions presented at the 7th Annual Griffiths School of Management International Conference on Business and Ethics (GSMAC) organized by Emanuel University of Oradea, this book presents in-depth analysis of the economic, social and religious implications of the transition from low cost of labor to increased human talent in Eastern Europe and offers multiple theoretical and practical solutions. In 2004, Klaus Schwab, president and founder of the World Economic Forum, stated that the old era of capitalism and socialism is being replaced by a new era of “talentalism”. The true competitive advantage of organizations and nations is increasingly becoming human talent, defined as the ability to “have new ideas that have value”. Nations and organizations are exploring ways to reform their education systems and organizational structures in order to train, foster and encourage human talent. In Eastern Europe since the fall of communism in 1989, the competitive advantage of the region has been low cost of labor. However, since the integration within the European Union, millions of Eastern Europeans have left their home countries rendering the “low-wage competitive advantage” almost obsolete. In addition, the migration of able-working individuals has left behind mainly children and pensioners, placing a disproportionately heavy burden upon public and government services. It is within this context that the contents of this book explore the impact of the increased need of high human talent on Eastern European countries. Featuring contributions around topics such as poverty, healthcare management, cross-border cooperation, education systems, and religious influence on economic development, this book will be of interest of scholars, researchers, students and policy-makers interested in the business development and economic growth of Eastern Europe.

This book presents recent research on probabilistic methods in economics, from machine learning to statistical analysis. Economics is a very important – and at the same a very difficult discipline. It is not easy to predict how an economy will evolve or to identify the measures needed to make an economy prosper. One of the main reasons for this is the high level of uncertainty: different difficult-to-predict events can influence the future economic behavior. To make good predictions and reasonable recommendations, this uncertainty has to be taken into account. In the past, most related research results were based on using traditional techniques from probability and statistics, such as p-value-based hypothesis testing. These techniques led to numerous successful applications, but in the last decades, several examples have emerged showing that these techniques often lead to unreliable and inaccurate predictions. It is therefore necessary to come up with new techniques for processing the corresponding uncertainty that go beyond the traditional probabilistic techniques. This book focuses on such techniques, their economic applications and the remaining challenges, presenting both related theoretical developments and their practical applications.

The major purpose of this book is to clarify the importance of non-technological factors in innovation to cope with contemporary complex societal issues while critically reconsidering the relations between science, technology, innovation (STI), and society. For a few decades now, innovation—mainly derived from technological advancement—has been considered a driving force of economic and societal development and prosperity. With that in mind, the following questions are dealt with in this book: What are the non-technological sources of innovation? What can the progress of STI bring to humankind? What roles will society be expected to play in the new model of innovation? The authors argue that the majority of so-called technological innovations are actually socio-technical innovations, requiring huge resources for financing activities, adapting regulations, designing adequate policy frames, and shaping new uses and new users while having the appropriate interaction with society. This book gathers multi- and trans-disciplinary approaches in innovation that go beyond technology and take into account the inter-relations with social and human phenomena. Illustrated by carefully chosen examples and based on broad and well-informed analyses, it is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of innovation in its non-technological dimensions.