This book provides a comprehensive treatment of how happiness and wellbeing are measured. It presents an accessible summary of the philosophy, methodology, and applicability of the various measurement techniques that have been generated by the leaders of the happiness movement. It traces the history of development of the core ideas, and clarifies the unexpectedly wide range of techniques that are used. The book provides an unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and differentiates the contributions that have been made by psychologists, economists, environmentalists, and health scientists. It examines applications at a personal scale, in the workplace, at a societal scale, and on the world stage. It does so in an easy-to-read anecdotal writing style that will appeal to a wide range of academic and lay readers who enjoy popularized non-fiction that address matters of social concern.

This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to our understanding of infrastructure, and it’s influence on happiness and wellbeing, by examining the concept from economic, human development, architectural, urban planning, psychological, and ethical points of view. Providing insights from both research and practice the volume discusses how to develop happier cities and improve urban infrastructure for the wellbeing of the whole population. The book puts forth the argument that it is only in understanding the true nature of infrastructure’s reach – how it connects, supports, and enlivens human beings – that we can truly begin to understand infrastructure’s possibilities. It connects infrastructure to that most elusive of human qualities – happiness – examining the way infrastructure is fundamentally tied to human values and human well-being. The book seeks to suggest novel approaches, identify outmoded undertakings, and define new possibilities in order to maximize infrastructure’s impact for all people – with a focus on diversity, inclusion and equity. In seeking to define infrastructure broadly and examine its possibilities systematically this book brings together theory and evidence from multiple disciplinary perspectives including, sociology, urban studies, architecture, economics, and public health in order to advance a startling claim – that our lives, and the lives of others, can be substantively improved by greater adhesion to the principles and practices of infrastructure design for happiness and wellbeing.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This timely book addresses the conflict between globalism and nationalism. It provides a liberal communitarian response to the rise of populism occurring in many democracies. The book highlights the role of communities next to that of the state and the market. It spells out the policy implications of liberal communitarianism for privacy, freedom of the press, and much else. In a persuasive argument that speaks to politics today from Europe to the United States to Australia, the author offers a compelling vision of hope. Above all, the book offers a framework for dealing with moral challenges people face as they seek happiness but also to live up to their responsibilities to others and the common good. At a time when even our most basic values are up for question in policy debates riddled with populist manipulation, Amitai Etzioni’s bold book creates a new frame which introduces morals and values back into applied policy questions. These questions span the challenges of jobless growth to the unanswered questions posed by the role of artificial intelligence in a wide range of daily life tasks and decisions. While not all readers will agree with the communitarian solutions that he proposes, many will welcome an approach that is, at its core, inclusive and accepting of the increasingly global nature of all societies at the same time. It is a must read for all readers concerned about the future of Western liberal democracy. Carol Graham, Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution and College Park Professor/University of Maryland In characteristically lively, engaging, and provocative style Etzioni tackles many of the great public policy dilemmas that afflict us today. Arguing that we are trapped into a spiral of slavish consumerism, he proposes a form of liberal communitarian that, he suggests, will allow human beings to flourish in changing circumstances. Jonathan Wolff, Blavatnik Chair of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

This open access book defines happiness intuitively and explores several common conceptual mistakes with regard to happiness. It then moves on to address topical issues including, but not limited to, whether money can buy you happiness, why happiness is ultimately the only thing of intrinsic value, and the various factors important for happiness. It also presents a more reliable and interpersonally comparable method for measuring happiness and discusses twelve factors, from A to L, that are crucial for individual happiness: attitude, balance, confidence, dignity, engagement, family/friends, gratitude, health, ideals, joyfulness, kindness and love. Further, it examines important public policy considerations, taking into account recent advances in economics, the environmental sciences, and happiness studies. Novel issues discussed include: an environmentally responsible happy nation index to supplement GDP, the East Asian happiness gap, a case for stimulating pleasure centres of the brain, and an argument for higher public spending.

This volume analyses the quantification of the effect of factors measuring subjective well-being, and in particular on the metrics applied. With happiness studies flourishing over the last decades, both in number of publications as well as in their exposure, researchers working in this field are aware of potential weaknesses and pitfalls of these metrics. Contributors to this volume reflect on different factors influencing quantification, such as scale size, wording, language, biases, and cultural comparability in order to raise awareness on the tools and on their conditions of use.

Learn how to measure success at the individual and organizational levels. By measuring success in multiple dimensions using multivariate methods you will be able to determine what works and what doesn’t. The key is to measure and promote progress in terms of organizational vision, mission, and overarching goals. Business leaders too often succumb to the working assumption that they only have to show shareholders and boards of trustees that they are turning a profit—the higher the profit, the more successful their stewardship of the company. Wrong! To truly thrive and endure, all organizations—corporate, government, small, large, nonprofit, or startup—need to define and pursue the underlying purpose for their existence. To measure success, leaders today are missing a key meta-analytic in their toolbox. In this book, metrics consultant Martin Klubeck provides it to them. Success Metrics steps you through the process of identifying and combining the right measures to gauge, narrate, and guide your organization's progress toward true success. All organizations have a common goal to be successful. All leaders want to make data-informed decisions and use measures to improve processes, communicate progress, and gain support. The problem is that proxy or partial measures don’t measure overall success and can be misleading. They measure performance parameters, progress on a specific task, customer feedback, and other piecemeal indices—which taken separately fail to describe an organization’s progress toward overall success. The author's integrated measures of success can be used to communicate organizational progress to stakeholders, shareholders, boards of trustees, corporate leaders, the workforce, and the customer base and thereby galvanize broad commitment to organizational success. Klubeck shows how his principles and methods of measuring overall success can be applied at all levels: individual, team, group, department, division, and organization. What You Will Learn: Understand why you should measure success instead of performance Understand what to measure and what not to measure Integrate the measures of success to tell a complete story Share measures of success with different audiences Who This Book Is For Organizational leaders at all levels from the executive suite to middle management, analysts and consultants who are tasked with designing metrics programs for organizations, individuals interested in adapting the author's framework to measure overall personal success in multiple dimensions

This book is written in light of the latest developments in the field of multidimensional poverty measurement. It includes clear presentations of more than a dozen different quantitative techniques and provides empirical illustrations based on data sources from developed or developing countries.

Although most traditional economic theory puts the individual at the centre of analysis, more recent approaches have acknowledged the importance of a wider sense of identity as a determinant of individual behaviour. Whether it is ethnicity, religion or gender, group membership is a central part of human life. This book presents new advances in areas which consider both the individual and the group when measuring inequalities and well-being. The first part of the book covers topics such as relative deprivation and happiness, domains where even economists have now recognized the importance of reference groups in the assessment of individuals’ well-being. The second part is devoted to the concept of polarization, a growing field of inquiry among economists. The third part looks at income and wage intra-generational mobility, while the fourth part reports on recent advances in measuring the significant differences between and within groups. The book concludes with several chapters devoted to poverty and social exclusion, stressing in particular the need for a multidimensional approach to these topics. This collection offers a fresh look at the way individual well-being should be measured, by emphasizing the role of reference groups and the idea of polarization, as well as stressing the impact on well-being of changes over time to the relative position of individuals. This book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in the field of development economics, inequality and poverty.

Summary Software Development Metrics is a handbook for anyone who needs to track and guide software development and delivery at the team level, such as project managers and team leads. New development practices, including "agile" methodologies like Scrum, have redefined which measurements are most meaningful and under what conditions you can benefit from them. This practical book identifies key characteristics of organizational structure, process models, and development methods so that you can select the appropriate metrics for your team. It describes the uses, mechanics, and common abuses of a number of metrics that are useful for steering and for monitoring process improvement. The insights and techniques in this book are based entirely on field experience. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Book When driving a car, you are less likely to speed, run out of gas, or suffer engine failure because of the measurements the car reports to you about its condition. Development teams, too, are less likely to fail if they are measuring the parameters that matter to the success of their projects. This book shows you how. Software Development Metrics teaches you how to gather, analyze, and effectively use the metrics that define your organizational structure, process models, and development methods. The insights and examples in this book are based entirely on field experience. You'll learn practical techniques like building tools to track key metrics and developing data-based early warning systems. Along the way, you'll learn which metrics align with different development practices, including traditional and adaptive methods. No formal experience with developing or applying metrics is assumed. What's Inside Identify the most valuable metrics for your team and process Differentiate "improvement" from "change" Learn to interpret and apply the data you gather Common pitfalls and anti-patterns About the Author Dave Nicolette is an organizational transformation consultant, team coach, and trainer. Dave is active in the agile and lean software communities. Table of Contents Making metrics useful Metrics for steering Metrics for improvement Putting the metrics to work Planning predictability Reporting outward and upward

The Measurement of Health and Health Status: Concepts, Methods and Applications from a Multidisciplinary Perspective presents a unifying perspective on how to select the best measurement framework for any situation. Serving as a one-stop shop that unifies material currently available in various locations, this book illuminates the intuition behind each method, explaining how each method has special purposes, what developments are occurring, and how new combinations among methods might be relevant to specific situations. It especially emphasizes the measurement of health and health states (quality-of-life), giving significant attention to newly developed methods. The book introduces technically complex, new methods for both introductory and technically-proficient readers. - Assumes that the best measure depends entirely on the situation - Covers preference-based methods, classical test theory, and item response theory - Features illustrations and animations drawn from diverse fields and disciplines