This volume deals with the human desire to live the good life, defined as seeking that which "is good, optimal, or ultimately desirable." While there may be different ways of achieving this goal, the pathways are similar in some ways. In exploring the ways in which these paths cross, Mortensen asserts that an ability to sustain optimal human relations--that is, healthy communication, interpersonal compatibility, and prosocial influence--is a standard against which the good life can be measured. Optimal Human Relations explores the favorable conditions for human beings to live the best possible way of life imaginable; it both argues the case for and documents recent advances in the study of social influences on everyday life. Social influences help to develop an expansive sense of intrinsic motivation in daily encounters with others. While optimal relations are not easily achieved or maintained, it is through healthy relationships that one may pursue pleasure and happiness--even meaning, importance, and significance with valued companions. The cultivation of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health through these relations generates an enhanced sense of well-being, growth, and maturity. Mature individuals are more likely to maintain optimal relations by counting daily blessings more than lamenting routine burdens. This inspirational conception of "the good life" invites productive inquiry into the conditions responsible for the pursuit of optimal conditions, fulfilled expectations, and a rich, vital, way of life. It is through this lens that Mortensen measures the good life, pointing to these aspects of human communication as a litmus test of the relative importance of individualistic and collective orientations. Along the way, the reader discovers who and what we are in relation to the quality of the world in which we reside alongside those who journey with us.

Library Journal Best Reference 2009 "An excellent gateway to further examination of any of the subdisciplines of relationship science, or as a research tool in its own right." —Library Journal Relationships are fundamental to nearly all domains of human activity, from birth to death. When people participate in healthy, satisfying relationships, they live, work, and learn more effectively. When relationships are distressed or dysfunctional, people are less happy, less healthy, and less productive. Few aspects of human experience have as broad or as deep effects on our lives. The Encyclopedia of Human Relationships offers an interdisciplinary view of all types of human associations—friends, lovers, spouses, roommates, coworkers, teammates, parents and children, cousins, siblings, acquaintances, neighbors, business associates, and so forth. Although each of these connections is unique in some respect, they share a common core of principles and processes. These three volumes provide a state-of-the-art review of the extensive theories, concepts, and empirical findings about human relationships. Key Features Compiles leading-edge information about how people think, feel, and act toward each other Presents the best in the field—authors who have contributed significant scientific knowledge about personal relationships over the past several decades. Offers a diverse approach to relationship science with contributions from psychology, sociology, communication, family studies, anthropology, physiology, neuroscience, history, economics, and legal studies Key Themes: Cognitive Processes in Relationships Communication Processes Creating and Maintaining Closeness Dating, Courtship, and Marriage The Dark Side of Relationships Emotion Processes in Relationships Family Friendship and Caregiving in Adulthood Health and the Biology of Relationships Methods for Studying Relationships Personality and Individual Differences Prevention and Repair of Relationship Problems Psychological Processes Sexuality Social Context of Relationships Social Relations in Childhood and Adolescence Theoretical Approaches to Studying Relationships Types of Relationships Our relationships influence virtually all aspects of our everyday existence and are of deep interest to students, researchers, academics, and laypeople alike. This Encyclopedia is an invaluable addition to any academic or public library.

Human resources are the most important and costliest assets in businesses of any nature and size, no matter where they are based in the world. Talent management is a key managerial function in MNCs and other organisations with a global presence, but its importance in small businesses and start-ups cannot be overlooked.At its most basic level, managing people in small businesses encompasses compliance with the applicable labour laws, hiring, and creating a channel for dealing with employee issues. The price of not having the right employees in a small business can be extremely high. Workers who are inefficient or in the wrong role can have critical consequences on the sustainability of a small business. While most entrepreneurs focus on marketing, finance, operations, and customers in their initial stages, this means that they at times fail to establish and address their HR function and the associated challenges that, if overcome, may help the organisation to meet all of its targets. This book aims to highlight these HR challenges and shed new light on how to answer them.

"The quantum leap beyond positive thinking, Optimal Thinking offers a whole new way of looking at life, business, and relationships. This prescriptive self-improvement book is filled with superlative information for every type of reader."

This book focuses on the requirements of the field of modern human resources (HR) to develop a new mathematical model that is not only organisational output-focused but also employee-focused. The book presents recommendations for understanding human resource practice and investigates and debates various measurement and evaluation approaches to human resource practice. Currently, HR professionals only use one or two aspects of HR practice that are linked to good employee performance and emphasise output-generating HR practices. This book facilitates the adoption of alternative approaches to human resources through its exploration of various measurement and assessment concepts.

Human resource departments have been a crucial part of business practices for decades and particularly in modern times as professionals deal with multigenerational workers, diversity initiatives, and global health and economic crises. There is a necessity for human resource departments to change as well to adapt to new societal perspectives, technology, and business practices. It is important for human resource managers to keep up to date with all emerging human resource practices in order to support successful and productive organizations. The Research Anthology on Human Resource Practices for the Modern Workforce presents a dynamic and diverse collection of global practices for human resource departments. This anthology discusses the emerging practices as well as modern technologies and initiatives that affect the way human resources must be conducted. Covering topics such as machine learning, organizational culture, and social entrepreneurship, this book is an excellent resource for human resource employees, managers, CEOs, employees, business students and professors, researchers, and academicians.

Jennifer Nedelsky claims that we must rethink our notion of autonomy, rejecting the usual vocabulary of control, boundaries and individual rights. If we understand that we are fundamentally in relation to others, she argues, we will recognize that we become autonomous with others.

In Reading Sartre’s Second Ethics, Elizabeth A. Bowman and Robert V. Stone provide a comprehensive, reconstructive, and critical interpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s mature dialectical ethics. The key Sartrean texts are two posthumously published lectures, one delivered at the Gramsci Institute in Rome in 1964, the other scheduled to be delivered at Cornell University in 1965 but cancelled by Sartre in protest of U.S. foreign policy. Though different in content, method, and intended audience, Sartre gave both lectures the shared title “Morality and History.” As Bowman and Stone argue, these texts comprise a single, systematic ethic in two parts. The Cornell lecture focuses primarily on a regressive and phenomenological analysis of normativity and its ambiguous place in lived moral experience; the Rome lecture focuses primarily on a progressive and dialectical synthesis of the ends or goals of historical conduct. Taken together, the two texts demonstrate that “integral humanity” is always possible because the means to it can always be freely invented.

Written by regional-based academics with intimate knowledge of the cultural and business landscapes, this excellent overview of current HRM practices in a changing region will be key reading for students of HRM and business and management

Informs pastors and designated leaders about the infrastructure of human resources, spanning the legal, informational, and procedural dimensions of the field.