The book provides a comprehensive, comparative treatment of the development of New Investment Funds (NIFs)—private equity, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds—and their impact upon labour and employment. Several countries are selected for in-depth treatment with a chapter devoted to each: US, UK, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Poland, and Japan. The book examines variations in the level and type of fund activity between countries, considers influences upon these variations, and analyses differences in the impact of these funds on labour and employment. This analysis is located in a broader discussion of the nature and development of corporate financialization and comparative capitalism. Financialization has supported the development and growth of these funds, and many aspects of these funds exemplify the process of financialization. Each chapter reports the evidence on the impact of these funds on labour and employment. Case studies conducted by the authors supplement other evidence. Much of the evidence shows that private equity funds can have adverse effects on labour, such as reductions in employment, but there is also evidence of more positive effects in some cases such as employment growth and adoption of high commitment human resource practices. There is much less evidence on the effects of activist HFs and SWFs, with the impact on labour typically being indirect. Between them, the chapters show that variations in national regulation have a significant impact on both the development of fund activities and their effects. With regard to labour effects, employment and labour regulations do not seem to be of prime importance in explaining the level of fund activity, but regulation supporting worker consultation and voice affects the capacity of labour representatives to influence the outcomes of fund activity on labour and employment.

The book examines the activities of often highly controversial investment funds, namely private equity, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds, in US, UK Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Poland, and Japan, exploring the importance of these funds and considering the evidence relating to their effects on work and employment.

Managing People and Organizations in Changing Contexts addresses the contemporary problems faced by managers in dealing with people, organizations and change in a theoretically-informed and practical way. This textbook approaches people management from the perspective of practising and aspiring managers, making it a valuable alternative to existing texts on organizational behaviour and human resource management. This new edition considers new emerging organizational forms such as e-lancing and recent management concerns such as employee engagement, de-professionalization and the growing challenges of social media. Built around a chapter framework that connects different themes to managerial action and practices, this textbook covers a wide range of topics including: managing at the individual, group and organizational levels change management managing creativity and innovation, and corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. There is an increased international flavour, reflected in the range of contemporary case studies and literature used throughout, which explore business and management problems in the private and public sectors. This text will be relevant to practising and aspiring managers studying people management, organizational behaviour and change management.

The Routledge Handbook of Natural Resource Governance in Africa provides a comprehensive analysis of African natural resource governance, stretching across the continent, and encompassing water, land, extractive resources, and mining. Africa’s natural resources are not only crucial for the continent from an economic, environmental, and political perspective, but they are also of significant geopolitical importance, with direct implication for meeting the global challenges outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Whether an abundance of natural resources proves to be a curse or a blessing depends on the nature, extent, and outcome of the effort and experience of an individual country in governing and managing such assets. It is with this in mind that this ground-breaking handbook brings together experts from across the field of natural resource development to reflect on the varied regime types and paradigms within the continent’s natural resource sectors, the specific challenges they face, and their role within global value chains. The book first considers governance for sustainable development and discourses of land and development financing, before going on to investigate the regulatory and policy impacts, and socioeconomic implications of natural resource management. Finally, the Handbook situates the African continent within the emerging global energy transition; examining trends in South-South cooperation, and new frontiers for the harnessing of critical tools in a sustainable future for natural resource governance and management. Overall, the Handbook’s in-depth analysis provides a unique blend of realism and optimism, highlighting the importance of building a new sustainable African resource narrative for shared prosperity. The handbook will be an essential read for researchers and policy makers with an interest in sustainable development and natural resource governance in Africa.

Management Buyouts (MBOs) first came to prominence in the US during the early 1980s, and have subsequently become a global phenomenon and a highly significant transaction within the corporate restructuring landscape Although much recent attention has focused on private equity (PE) backed buyouts, these are only a subset of the total MBO market. The Routledge Companion to Management Buyouts takes a much broader definition, reviewing the current state of research and theory and where further developments are likely to occur and incorporating PE and non-PE backed buyouts, as well as variations such as management buy-ins and management-employee buyouts. It goes beyond the purely financial perspective, exploring the many different aspects of management buyouts and incorporating related disciplines including strategy, organizational change, and HRM providing the first truly comprehensive authoritative resource on the topic. Expertly edited, and drawing on international scholarship, this unique volume will be an invaluable sourcebook on MBOs for researchers and advanced students as well as those interested in the broader areas of corporate restructuring and ownership change.

This book focuses on the dialectics between spatio-organisational gaps and local contexts that characterise cross-border investments. "Interspatial" investments – be it mergers & acquisitions (M&A) or greenfield investments – are usually characterised by what is referred to as "otherness", i.e. organisational and cultural distances of the firms involved in relation to their regional contexts. At the same time, economic, political and socio-cultural linkages are decisive for attracting cross-border investments to regions and for providing firms with conditions supportive of their market success. As a consequence of being locked into complex structures of proximities, cross-border investments are situated in contested terrain. This terrain triggers learning processes in both regional actors and investors, which can result in the convergence of mindsets and organisational issues. This book is unique in that it combines interspace (defined as the distance between the new owner and the cross-border venture), place (the target region), interpretation (perception and understanding of the investment by the actors involved) and context (institutions, actor networks and interaction), thus offering better understanding of recent processes of globalisation. Crossing disciplinary boundaries by integrating economic geography and management studies, the volume adopts an innovative and spatially informed perspective on foreign direct investments (FDI). This perspective will be of great value to scholars, students and practitioners. The volume is inventive in its approach in that it offers fresh readings from interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and combines these with valuable empirical insights from developed as well as Emerging Economies.

In the collective psyche, a financier is a capitalist. In managerial capitalism, the notion of the ‘manager’ emerged, and the role of the manager was distinct from the role of the ‘owner’. Financial capitalism is similarly underpinned by financiers who are not the holders of the financial assets they buy, sell, trade or advise upon. Finance at Work explores the world of financiers, be they finance-oriented CEOs, CFOs, financial journalists, mergers and acquisitions’ advisors or wealth managers. Part I investigates the professional trajectories of members of corporate boards and financialisation as the dissemination of financial logic outside its primary ‘iron cage’; Part II responds by studying financiers at work within financial occupations or financial operations involving external actors; while Part III pursues the issue of financial boundaries by seeking out the way financial logic crosses these boundaries. Part IV takes back the hypothesis of differentiations within finance presented in Part I, and analyses the internal boundaries of asset management, wealth management and leveraged buyout (LBO) acquisitions. This book is essential reading for researchers and academics within the field of finance who aim to understand the ‘spread of finance’ in contemporary societies.

Building on the bestselling The Unconscious in Social and Political Life, the first book in the Political Minds series, A Deeper Cut investigates such vital issues as left and right populisms, colonialism and racism, social care for the mentally ill, manipulation of the masses in the third world, Alice Miller on family politics, diversity, Orwellian thinking, trade unions, religious fundamentalism, NHS politics, activism, and tyranny. Featuring compelling contributions from Lord John Alderdice, Elizabeth Cotton, Tomasz Fortuna, Stephen Frosh, Samir Gandesha, Mary Joan Gerson, Liz Greenway, Roger Hartley, Luisa Passalacqua, Kate Pugh, Marco Puricelli, Edgard Sanchez Bernal, Elisabeth Skale, Mark Stein, and Margot Waddell. Galvanised by events outside of his consulting room, David Morgan began The Political Mind seminars at the British Psychoanalytical Society in 2015 and their successful run continues today. A series of superlative seminars that examine the effects of the current upheaval going on worldwide, this book is the second to bring these seminars from leading thinkers to a wider audience. Leading politicians, writers, educators, psychoanalysts, psychologists, philosophers, psychotherapists, and psychologists are gathered together in this fascinating volume that investigates social upheaval on the worldwide stage. Stimulating and thought-provoking, this is a must-read for every citizen asking just what is happening in the world today.

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) represent both an increasingly important - and potentially dominant - category of alternative investor, and a novel form for governments to project their interests both home and abroad. As such, they represent both economic actors and embody power vested in the financial and diplomatic resources they can leverage. Although at times they have acted in concert with other alternative investors, their intergenerational savings function should, in theory at least, promote more long-termist thinking. However, they may be impelled in towards greater short termism, in response to popular pressures, demands from predatory elites and/or unforeseen external shocks. Of all the categories of alternative investment, SWFs perhaps embody the most contradictory pressures, making for diverse and complex outcomes. The aim of this volume is to consolidate the present state of the art, and advance the field through new applied, conceptual and theoretical insights. The volume is ordered into chapters that explore thematic issues and country studies, incorporating novel insights in on the most recent developments in the SWF ecosystem. This handbook is organized into four sections and 23 chapters. The four sections are: Governance of SWFs, Political and Legal Aspects of SWFs, Investment Choices and Structures of SWFs, Country and Regional Analyses of SWFs.

The global financial crisis has called to attention the importance of financial development to economic growth as modern countries continue to struggle with debt, unemployment, and slow growth. However, a lack of agreement on how to define and measure financial development slows the development of global financial systems and markets. The Handbook of Research on Strategic Developments and Regulatory Practice in Global Finance creates a common framework for not only identifying but discussing the key factors in establishing a strong global market and financial system. This book will be a valuable reference for those interested in an in-depth understanding of the financial markets and global finance, including academics, professionals, and government agencies and institutions.