Books on the topic 'Latent active strategy'

From the late Sixties on, industrial development in Italy evolved through the spread of small and medium sized firms, aggregated in district networks, with an elevated propensity to enterprise and the marked presence of owner-families. Installed within the local systems, the industrial districts tended to simulate large-scale industry exploiting lower costs generated by factors that were not only economic. The districts are characterised in terms of territorial location (above all the thriving areas of the North-east and Centre) and sector, since they are concentrated in the "4 As" (clothing-fashion, home-decor, agri-foodstuffs, automation-mechanics), with some overlapping with "Made in Italy". How can this model be assessed? This is the crucial question in the debate on the condition and prospects of the Italian productive system between the supporters of its capacity to adapt and the critics of economic dwarfism. A dispassionate judgement suggests that the prospects of "small is beautiful" have been superseded, but that the "declinist" view, that sees only the dangers of globalisation and the IT revolution for our SMEs is risky. The concept of irreversible crisis that prevails at present is limiting, both because it is not easy either to "invent", or to copy, a model of industrialisation, and because there is space for a strategic repositioning of the district enterprises. The book develops considerations in this direction, showing how an evolution of the district model is possible, focusing on: gains in productivity, scope economies (through diversification and expansion of the range of products), flexibility of organisation, capacity to meld tradition and innovation aiming at product quality, dimensional growth of the enterprises, new forms of financing, active presence on the international markets and valorisation of the resources of the territory. It is hence necessary to reactivate the behavioural functions of the entrepreneurs.

Latin America’s communist parties were shaped by the Soviet Union’s political priorities up to 1945. This sparked debate with those that emphasized the specificity of Latin American conditions, notably the Peruvian Marxist Mariátegui. The Cuban Revolution of 1959 launched a new continental strategy, based on the guerrilla warfare strategies advocated by Che Guevara. By the late 1960s, these had failed. The election of Salvador Allende to the Chilean presidency in 1970 briefly suggested an electoral strategy to socialism, until it was crushed in the military coup of 1973. Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution opened new hopes for a Central American revolution, but this movement was destroyed with the active support of the U.S.. In 1994 the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico signalled a new phase of resistance against neo-liberalism and a rising tide of new social movements carried Left governments to power in what President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela dubbed the era of ‘twenty-first-century socialism’.

“(…) Russia and China, as well as partners in Latin-America, deserve a clear European strategy. Africa has, unfortunately, been absent from the EU’s strategic agenda for years and needs to be reengaged. (…)The Union can be a global actor considering we possess the objectives, principles and instruments. Unfortunately the political will is often lacking and the question is whether the EU Member States will take action to change this.” (Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, 20 January 2010). The views of Miguel Angel Moratinos during the Spanish Presidency recognize a series of gaps in the strategic behaviour, the existence of partiality in the strategic agenda, and a lack of will in the European Union external relations. These quote suggest that if this has the situation in 2010, then EU policies during the 1980s and 1990s towards a Latin-American region such as Mercosur were not the most structured nor did the EU develop these policies to their full EU potential. At the same time, the EU’s internal institutional and legal frameworks also changed as a result of different treaties and enlargements. These internal changes affected either positively or negatively EU relations with Latin America. On the one hand, the Iberian enlargement affected EU policy positively towards Latin America, whilst on the other hand, policy towards Central and Easter European countries which culminated in the 2004 enlargement was affected negatively on EU-Latin America relations.

Business groups emerged in Portugal in the late nineteenth century amid nascent industrialization and revealing strong ties to colonial business. Economic nationalism, corporatism, and the decreasing importance of colonies nurtured different business groups in the aftermath of the Great Depression: increasingly diversified while oriented to the domestic market; inward-looking and with large capital shares in affiliate firms; internalizing corporate finance in intra-group capital flows. Everything changed dramatically in 1975, when large industrial and financial groups were nationalized. When they re-emerged twenty years later, they had metamorphosed into a different species: more focused, yet still with unrelated product portfolios; transmuted into multinationals active overseas; organized in pyramidal structures that magnify their control rights; and employed financing based on capital markets and intermediation. The quasi-experimental situation created by the 1975 nationalization emphasizes the importance of flexibility in adapting strategy and control structures to different economic and institutional contexts.

Based on the seven case studies analysed in this volume, this chapter concludes that national development banks (NDBs) have been successful in many cases in supporting innovation and entrepreneurship, key new sectors like renewable energy, and financial inclusion. They have developed new instruments, such as far greater use of guarantees, equity (including venture capital) and debt funds, and new instruments for financial inclusion. The context in which they operate is key to their success. Active countercyclical policies, low inflation, fairly low real interest rates, a well-functioning financial sector, and competitive exchange rates are crucial. They are also more effective if the country has a clear development strategy, linked to production sector strategies that foster innovative sectors. Under these conditions, the chapter argues that there is great need for a larger scale of NDB activity in Latin America and in developing countries in general.

This chapter explores the U.S. Supreme Court’s use of, and departures from, the state action rule. It begins by reconstructing the state action rule’s origins in the Civil Rights Cases. From the late nineteenth century onward, the state action rule served as a constitutional containment device, bolstering the Court’s monopoly over constitutional interpretation and eliminating uncomfortable questions about what rights meant for the ordering of American society. A changing political context and the emergence of new normative demands in the twentieth century put this regime under pressure, which the Court managed through a series of strategic evasions of the state action rule, even while pledging fealty to it.

This chapter examines the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) and its commitment to equal opportunity and changing individual attitudes through one-on-one interaction. While METCO offered a rare example of interracial and urban–suburban cooperation, its focus on collective benefits rather than collective responsibility had wide-ranging consequences. Tracing the development of METCO offers an important case study of the trade-offs that suburban liberal activists made in their quests to achieve social justice. The organizers' pragmatic approach ensured the acceptance of the program in the suburbs and paved the way for later support of diversity claims about the value of affirmative action. This strategy, nevertheless, fortified the consumer-based and individualist dimensions of the Route 128 political culture. It ultimately made community members more resistant to grappling with the systemic and historical circumstances that necessitated programs like METCO and affirmative action in the first place.

This volume comprises 27 chapters focused on the design and execution of employee survey programs. These chapters reflect the latest advances in technology and analytics and a pervasive emphasis on driving organizational performance and effectiveness. The individual chapters represent the full range of survey-related topics, including design, administration, analysis, feedback, and action-taking. The latest methodological trends and capabilities are discussed including computational linguistics, applications of artificial intelligence, and the use of qualitative methods such as focus groups. Extending beyond traditional employee surveys, contributions include the role of passive data collection as an alternative or supplement in a comprehensive employee listening system. Unique contextual factors are discussed including the use of surveys in a unionized environment. Individual contributions also reflect increasing stakeholder concerns for the protection of privacy among other ethical considerations. Finally, significant clarifications to the literature are provided on the use of surveys for measuring organization culture, strategic climate, and employee engagement.

A politicized culture and century-long debate over women’s nature and role may turn out to be the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)’s principal contribution to American feminism. Despite perceptions that an equal rights amendment was the next logical step following the Nineteenth Amendment, arguments broke out among feminist activists over whether an equal rights amendment would menace important legal victories, such as protective legislation for women’s employment. Yet even after other federal legislation quieted labor advocates’ concerns, virulent disagreement over an equal rights amendment among politicized women continued for years. Only in the late 1960s did politically active women come to embrace the ERA as a strategic goal. Even then the question of women’s differences from men—whether physical, psychological, or social—did not evaporate. Instead, new battle lines between progressive and newly organized conservative women were drawn in ways that doomed the amendment’s ratification chances.

[INTRODUCTION]. Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in the world and in our hemisphere, affecting millions of people. However, it is estimated that more than half of people with epilepsy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) do not receive care of any kind from health services. One of the key problems is a limited ability to identify, manage, and monitor epilepsy cases in primary health care (PHC) services. Furthermore, in most LAC countries, the secondary (specialized) care level either has serious limitations or is nearly nonexistent (PAHO, 2011; PAHO/ILAE/IBE, 2013)... This document offers guidelines and a frame of reference to help countries design their national epilepsy programs and should be regarded as complementing the Strategy and Plan of Action on Epilepsy (PAHO,2011) adopted by all the ministers of health of the Americas at the Directing Council of PAHO, and also complementing the resolution and document approved by the World Health Assembly (WHO, 2015). [INTRODUCCIÓN]. La epilepsia es uno de los trastornos neurológicos más comunes en el mundo y en nuestro continente, que afecta a millones de personas. Sin embargo se estima que, en América Latina y el Caribe (AL&C), más de la mitad de las personas con epilepsia no reciben ningún tipo de atención en los servicios de salud. Uno de los problemas clave son las limitaciones en la identificación, manejo y seguimiento de los casos de epilepsia en la atención primaria de salud (APS). A esto, se adiciona el hecho que en la mayoría de los países de América Latina y el Caribe el nivel secundario o especializado tiene serias limitaciones o es casi inexistente ... El presente documento es una guía o marco de referencia para ayudar a los países a diseñar sus programas nacionales sobre epilepsia y debe considerarse como un complemento a la Estrategia y Plan de Acción sobre la Epilepsia adoptado por todos los ministros de salud de las Américas, en el marco del Consejo Directivo de la OPS; así como de la Resolución y documento aprobado por la Asamblea Mundial de la Salud.

This book shows the surprising relationship between Democratic socialism and mainstream American politics. Beginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological seal of approval and played the role of strategic kingmaker in the electoral politics of New York State. The party helped elect presidents, governors, senators, and mayors, and its platform reflected its founders' social democratic principles. In practical politics, the Liberal Party's power resided in its capacity to steer votes to preferred Democrats or Republicans with a reasonable chance of victory. This uneasy balance between principle and pragmatism, which ultimately proved impossible to maintain, is at the heart of the dramatic political story presented in the book. The Liberal Party, the longest-lived of New York's small parties, began as a means for anti-Communist social democrats to have an impact on the politics and policy of New York City, Albany, and Washington, DC. It provided a political voice for labor activists, independent liberals, and pragmatic social democrats. Although the party devolved into what some saw as a cynical patronage machine, it remained a model for third-party power and for New York's influential Conservative and, later, the Working Families parties. With an active period ranging from the successful senatorial career of Jacob Javits to the mayoralties of John Lindsay and Rudy Giuliani, the Liberal Party effectively shaped the politics and policy of New York. The practical gains and political cost of that complicated trade-off is at the heart of the book.

This book explores the origins of political action committees (PACs) in the mid-twentieth century and their impact on the American party system. It argues that PACs were envisaged, from the outset, as tools for effecting ideological change in the two main parties, thus helping to foster the partisan polarization we see today. It shows how the very first PAC, created by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1943, explicitly set out to liberalize the Democratic Party by channeling campaign resources to liberal Democrats while trying to defeat conservative Southern Democrats. This organizational model and strategy of “dynamic partisanship” subsequently diffused through the interest group world—imitated first by other labor and liberal allies in the 1940s and 1950s, then adopted and inverted by business and conservative groups in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Previously committed to the “conservative coalition” of Southern Democrats and northern Republicans, the latter groups came to embrace a more partisan approach and created new PACs to help refashion the Republican Party into a conservative counterweight. The book locates this PAC mobilization in the larger story of interest group electioneering, which went from a rare and highly controversial practice at the beginning of the twentieth century to a ubiquitous phenomenon today. It also offers a fuller picture of PACs as not only financial vehicles but electoral innovators that pioneered strategies and tactics that have come to pervade modern US campaigns and helped transform the American party system.

Midway through the eighteenth century, the rate of growth for the world's population was roughly at zero. Immediately after World War II, it was just above 2 percent. Ever since, it has fallen steadily. This new book, the latest offering from a distinguished expert on international economics, tells readers what this stagnation or fall in population will mean--economically, politically, and historically--for the nations of the world. W. W. Rostow not only traces the whole global arc of this "great population spike"--he looks far beyond it. What he sees will interest anyone curious about what is in store for the world's financial and governmental systems. The Great Population Spike and After: Reflections on the 21st Century contends that, as the decline in population now occurring in the industrialized world spreads to all of the presently developing countries, the global rate of population will fall to the "zero" level circa 2100. (Indeed, with the exception of Africa south of the Sahara, it could reach "zero" long before then.) This being so, how will it be possible to maintain full employment and social services with a decelerating population? What will societies do when the proportion of the working force (as now defined) diminishes radically in relation to the population of poor or elderly dependents? How will the countries of the world confront subsequent decreases in population-related investment? In answering these queries, this bold study asserts that the United States is not the "last remaining superpower" but the "critical margin" without whose support no constructive action on the world scene can succeed. Rostow takes the view that world peace will depend on our government's ability to assume responsibly this "critical margin" role. Further, he argues that, over a period of time, the execution of this strategy on the international scene will require a bipartisan, relentless effort to solve the combustible social problems that weaken not only our cities but our whole society.

Throughout the late 19th century and most of the 20th century, risks associated with wildfire were addressed by suppressing fires as quickly as possible. However, by the 1960s, it became clear that fire exclusion policies were having adverse effects on ecological health, as well as contributing to larger and more damaging wildfires over time. Although federal fire policy has changed to allow fire to be used as a management tool on the landscape, this change has been slow to take place, while the number of people living in high-risk wildland–urban interface communities continues to increase. Under a variety of climate scenarios, in particular for states in the western United States, it is expected that the frequency and severity of fires will continue to increase, posing even greater risks to local communities and regional economies.Resource managers and public safety officials are increasingly aware of the need for strategic communication to both encourage appropriate risk mitigation behavior at the household level, as well as build continued public support for the use of fire as a management tool aimed at reducing future wildfire risk. Household decision making encompasses both proactively engaging in risk mitigation activities on private property, as well as taking appropriate action during a wildfire event to protect personal safety. Very little research has directly explored the connection between climate-related beliefs, wildfire risk perception, and action; however, the limited existing research suggests that climate-related beliefs have little direct effect on wildfire-related action. Instead, action appears to depend on understanding the benefits of different mitigation actions and in engaging the public in interactive, participatory communication programs that build trust between the public and natural resource managers. A relatively new line of research focuses on resource managers as critical decision makers in the risk management process, pointing to the need to thoughtfully engage audiences other than the lay public to improve risk management.Ultimately, improving the decision making of both the public and managers charged with mitigating the risks associated with wildfire can be achieved by carefully addressing several common themes from the literature. These themes are to (1) promote increased efficacy through interactive learning, (2) build trust and capacity through social interaction, (3) account for behavioral constraints and barriers to action, and (4) facilitate thoughtful consideration of risk-benefit tradeoffs. Careful attention to these challenges will improve the likelihood of successfully managing the increasing risks that wildfire poses to the public and ecosystems alike in a changing climate.