Books on the topic 'Value-creating and non-value-creating activities'

Protocol to Manage Relationships Today explains the contemporary value of protocol, not only for monarchies or diplomatic institutes, but for any non-profit or for-profit organisation. This book presents modern protocol as a tool to build strong, authentic networks of reciprocal relationships. When used effectively protocol can: - Increase the effect of the networking activities of an organisation. Protocol gives a professional structure to relationship management, to achieve access to the 'right' networks and a reciprocal relationship with the most valued stakeholders. - Deepen relationships. In our world there is so much focus on pragmatism in building relationships - protocol focuses on the common ground to gain value. - Be used as a valuable tool in a post COVID-19 era, where the need for space and time to build real and authentic relationships is well understood. The book defines how tested values perfectly fit in today's society, where modern organisations want to build effective relationships and communities. This book is focused on developing an increasingly vital expertise for professionals who deal with complex relationship management issues on a strategic and tactical operational level. They come from different fields, such as government institutions, non-profit organisations and commercial environments. This book also gives protocol officers a contemporary approach towards the application of protocol. It is not designed as a complete guide to all the rules of protocol, but it describes how to translate the context into a tailor-made protocol for each meeting or event. The book explains protocol as a flexible method to handle unique situations. Protocol is presented on four levels: the 'why' of protocol; the strategic and tactical level; the practical implementation; and the execution of protocol. Protocol to Manage Relationships Today is written by Europe's foremost protocol experts with collective years of experience with the management of networking meetings and events at the highest level.

Recently, public policies of urban regeneration have intensified and multiplied. They are being promoted with the aim to start social and economic dynamics within the local context which is subject to intervention. From the empirical analysis, we realise that such activities are mainly implemented by three subjects or by mixed coalitions (public institutions, actors of the third sector and companies). Within them, each player is moved by a multiplicity of interests and goals that go beyond their own nature – public interest, market and mutualism – and tend to redefine themselves, thus becoming hybrid forms of production of value (social, economic, cultural). By studying a number Italian and Catalan cases, this essay deals with the theory that, under specific conditions and configurations, a collaborative direction – of organization, production and design – would give life to successful procedures, even without the identification of a one-best-way. The collaboration is not simply a choice of operation, but a real production method which mobilises social resources to create hybrid solutions – between state, market and society – to complex issues that could not be faced solely with the use of the rationale of action of one among the three actors. In this framework, the systems of relations and interactions between players and shared capital become an essential condition for the success of every initiative of urban redevelopment, or failure thereof. Such initiatives are brought to life by the strategic role of individuals who foster connections as well as the dissemination of non-redundant information between social networks, and collective and individual actors which would otherwise be separated and barely able to communicate and collaborate with each other. In addition to the functions carried out by knowledge brokers, that have been extensively described in organisational studies and economic sociology, the aforementioned figures act as real social enzymes, that is to say, they handle the available information and function as catalysts of social processes of production of knowledge. Moreover, they increase the reaction speed, working on mechanisms which control the spontaneity.

This chapter traces the gestation of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and the rise of the World Heritage title to a global brand and major catalyst for heritage aspirations, activities, and discourses. Despite conceptual reforms in the 1990s and a more nation-centered mode of World Heritage Committee operations since 2010, Northern dominance and biases persist. Global co-custodianship of sites has remained largely symbolic and the contribution of World Heritage to international cooperation and site conservation is uneven. World Heritage has clearly broadened conceptions of cultural heritage, even if inconsistently. Social effects of site designation tend to be complex, producing both winners and losers on the local level, with external actors extending their influence. Recent financial difficulties make ambitious change unlikely for the coming years. The power of the World Heritage title is increasingly at the mercy of the treaty states’ internal conditions, rather than of the global institutional framework.

Partly fueled by the pervasiveness of information technologies that facilitate the broadcasting of problems to crowds, and by anecdotal examples of phenomenally high-value solutions from outsourcing some problems to crowds, growth in the research and practice of crowdsourcing for problem solving has been remarkable. Research streams have been emerging in different disciplines. In this introduction to the volume, we introduce twelve chapters by scholars—from different disciplines—who explore interesting topics from some of these emerging research streams. The chapters fall into different groups distinguished by whether value is created and captured via tournament-based, collaboration-based, or hybrid crowdsourcing activities. We also offer future research directions and conclusions.

The skills for forming and maintaining true friendships in which all parties in the friendship benefit are quite complex. Helping students learn to like, value, and respect one another, regardless of their differences, is an important part of creating a caring classroom that benefits the learning and development of all students. Engaging students in activities that help them get to know one another and appreciate their similarities and differences provides teachers with many natural opportunities to teach their students how to interact with others in friendly, caring, and respectful ways. When students learn to work collaboratively with all the other students in the classroom, they not only learn academic skills, but also they also learn the meaning of friendship—that friends listen, help, and forgive.

This chapter discusses logistic support arrangements. When properly orchestrated, logistics arrangements can be conceived as a decisive instrument of multinational warfare and champion the change from a military coalition to an alliance. Nevertheless, logistics is a low-profile discipline that only comes to light when it fails. In this regard, looking for market-oriented efficiencies should never result in a gap on strategic projection. It is by creating and sustaining superior performance that an organization will dilute costs due to a greater value of its overall activities. Very great attention is paid to short-term cash economy in detriment to long-range military planning benefits. Tactical logistics are well monitored: everyone understands the importance of not running out of fuel during combat and it is not difficult to flag the problem. On the other hand, strategic logistics and its implication on support arrangements are frequently neglected during peacetime.

Misgivings concerning the value of beauty are widespread. Outside the academy, beauty is often regarded as frivolous, and public support for aesthetic activities is often justified by appeal to their economic and cultural spillover effects, rather than their inherent value. Arts scholars who regard perceptions of beauty as contributing to oppressive social formations have come to emphasize non-aesthetic values in art. Meanwhile, philosophy has been stuck for some time with a consensus that aesthetic values are hedonic values—an item’s aesthetic value is its power to produce finally valuable experiences. The trouble is that aesthetic hedonism plays into misgivings about the value of beauty. A plan is laid out for working towards the network theory of aesthetic value as an alternative to aesthetic hedonism.

The sociopolitical landscape of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is presented in two chapters in this book. This is the first chapter which introduces the topic. It shows how the recent demographic shifts have changed the global landscape, creating a fertile ground for the rise in the NCD burden. It describes how changes in disease patterns in low- and middle-income countries and factors such as the ageing population, urbanization, globalization, and cultural and political changes have contributed to the problem. Importantly, this chapter sets the scene to introduce NCDs as a development problem, which requires a global political response as demonstrated with the sustainable development goals (SDGs; SDGs and NCDs are discussed in later chapters). This chapter also considers the ways that competing voices and vested interests impact on NCD prevention activities.

The aim of the e-book is to present the theoretical, cognitive and practical aspects of the essence and complexity of operational management in a production company. The presented modern production methods together with the challenges and problems of contemporary enterprises should better help to understand the issues of sustainable development, with particular emphasis on waste. The book consists of six chapters devoted to relevant and topic issues relating to the core business of an industrial enterprise. Chapter 1 The nature of the industrial enterprise is an introduction to further considerations and deals with the essence of the basic aspects of the company. Both popular and less known definitions of an enterprise, its features, functions and principles of operation are presented. An important part of the chapter is the presentation and formulation of strategic, tactical and operational goals. Moreover, the division of enterprises is presented with the use of various criteria and the features of the industrial market, which make it distinct. Chapter 2 The operational management evolution and its role in the industrial enterprise discusses the evolution and concept of production and operational management. The management levels were also presented, indicating their most important functions. An integral part of the chapter is the essence of the production system, viewed through the prism of the five elements. Chapter 3 Functions and role in operations management presents the issues concerning the organization of production processes, production capacity and inventory management. This part also presents considerations on cooperation and collaboration between enterprises in the process of creating value. Chapter 4 Traditional methods used in operational activities focuses on methods such as benchmarking, outsourcing, core competences, JIT, MPR I and MRP II, as well as TQM and kaizen. Knowledge of these methods should contribute to understanding the activities of modern enterprises, the way of company functioning, the realization of production activities, as well as aspects related to building a competitive position. Chapter 5 Modern methods used in production-operations management discusses the less common and less frequently used production methods, based on a modern and innovative approach. In particular, it was focused on: Shop Floor Control and cooperative manufacturing, environment-conscious manufacturing (ECM) and life-cycle assessment ( LCA), waste management and recycling, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), virtual enterprise, World Class Manufacturing (WCM), Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and House of Quality (HOQ), theory of constraints (TOC), Drum Buffer Rope (DBR), group technology (GT) and cellular manufacturing (CM), Demand Chain Management and competitive intelligence (CI). In the last section discusses: the role of sustainable statistical process control and Computer-Aided Process Planning in context formatting of information management. Chapter 6 Problems of sustainable development and challenges related to production and operations management describes the problem and challenges related to production and operations activities. In particular, attention was paid to the threats related to changes in global warming, the growing scale of waste, or the processes of globalization. It was pointed out that the emerging problem may be both a threat and a chance for the development of enterprises. An integral part of the chapter are also considerations on technical progress, innovation and the importance of human capital in operational activities.

The social investment approach (SIA) with regard to gendered family arrangements might be defined as a dual defamilization: of women and children. This dual defamilization, however, presents risks, particularly for women, in so far it strongly delegitimizes family/mother’s caring as a valuable activity, with the additional risks of, on the one hand, undermining the trend towards more male caring and, on the other hand, of presenting low-educated mothers’ caring as a liability for their children. In order to be effective, the SIA should address in a systematic way both the issue of social inequality and that of non-paid work and activities as meaningful ones, deserving themselves time and social investment. It should also address the risk of creating a new dichotomy between people deserving (e.g. children, the young) and undeserving (e.g. the old, the severely disabled, the ‘inactivable’) of social investment.

The world’s oceans cover about 70% of our planet. To safeguard the delicate ecological and environmental functions of the oceans and their remarkable biodiversity, networks of marine protected areas are being created. In some of these areas, human activity is restricted to non-exploitative activities and in others it is managed in a sustainable way. Australia is at the forefront of marine conservation, with one of the largest systems of marine protected areas in the world. Big, Bold and Blue: Lessons from Australia’s Marine Protected Areas captures Australia’s experience, sharing important lessons from the Great Barrier Reef and many other extraordinary marine protected areas. It presents real-world examples, leading academic research, perspectives on government policy, and information from indigenous sea country management, non-governmental organisations, and commercial and recreational fishing sectors. The lessons learnt during the rapid expansion of Australia’s marine protected areas, both positive and negative, will aid and advise other nations in their own marine conservation efforts. The book is ideal reading for marine planners and managers across the globe; academic institutions where research on marine environments occur; government agencies across the world implementing and creating policy around MPA development; non-government organisations involved in lobbying for MPA expansion; and fisheries agencies and industry stakeholders.

Talent-management research has primarily focused at the individual and organizational levels. While this work has added much value to the literature, we believe that shifting the focus to the macro context will further strengthen the field. This might include exploring country-level government activities that enhance a country’s talent levels; non-governmental initiatives to help various countries bolster their talent-management programs; global talent mobility; and knowledge transfer. To incorporate this focus more systematically, we present a conceptual framework for macro talent management. The framework draws our attention to the macro, global, and country context within which talent management occurs, as well illuminates its multiple processes and outcomes. We offer directions for future research and discuss implications for policy makers and companies.

This paper examines the income inequality implications of a ‘premature deindustrialization’ trend in middle-income countries. To identify the premature deindustrialization phase, we arrive at five conditions based on the trends in employment and value-added share of manufacture. Among these five conditions, the first and second examine the deindustrialization pattern in economies. The last three classify the identified deindustrialization phase as premature or not. We apply panel fixed-effects and bootstrap-corrected dynamic fixed-effects models to empirically examine the relationship between premature deindustrialization and income inequality. Our findings suggest that income inequality rises with premature deindustrialization if the displaced workers are absorbed into low-productivity and informal market services (especially with employment increase in non-business market services such as trade, transport, hotels, and accommodation activities). In contrast, if high-productivity non-market services are the dominant employment provider, this helps to reduce income inequality even in the presence of premature deindustrialization.

This chapter argues that Abdullah Quilliam’s Masonic and esoteric background shaped both his understanding of Islam and his leadership of the Liverpool Muslim community. From the time of his conversion through the last trace of his activities in England using the Quilliam name, the connection between Islam, Freemasonry, and esotericism played a significant role in Quilliam’s religious career. In addition to exploring the roles of Freemasonry and esotericism within Quilliam’s own life and activities, this chapter also looks at the larger context of the mixing of Islam, Freemasonry, and esotericism in the Euro-American world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This chapter argues, in fact, that Quilliam played a role in the development of a broader, Euro-American cultural current in which esotericists and esoteric-leaning Masons came to place a high value on Islam. In the twentieth century, this current not only influenced Islamophilia within numerous non-Islamic esoteric organizations, it also produced a variety of Islam-based movements with strong elements of both esotericism and Freemasonry.

Reading, however fundamental the task may seem to everyday life, is a complex process that takes years to master. Yet, learning to read in the early stages is not an overwhelming problem for most children, especially when their classroom learning is coupled with a nurturing home environment in which reading is cherished, and pencil and paper are always available and fun to use. In fact, studies have shown that children score higher in reading if their parents support and encourage them at home. Unfortunately, though many parents want to involve themselves actively in their children's education, very few know just what to do. Now Dr. Harvey S. Wiener, author of the classic Any Child Can Write, provides an indispensable guide for parents who want to help their children enter the magic realm of words. In Any Child Can Read Better, Second Edition, Dr. Wiener offers practical advice on how to help children make their way through the maze of assignments and exercises related to classroom reading. In this essential book, parents learn how to be "reading helpers" without replacing or superseding the teacher--by supporting a child's reading habits and sharing the pleasures of fiction, poetry, and prose. Home learning parents also will find a wealth of information here. Through comfortable conversation and enjoyable exercises that tap children's native abilities, parents can help their child practice the critical thinking and reading skills that guarantee success in the classroom and beyond. For example, Dr. Wiener explains how exercises such as prereading warm-ups like creating word maps (a visual scheme that represents words and ideas as shapes and connects them) will allow youngsters to create a visual format and context before they begin reading. He shows how pictures from a birthday party can be used to create patterns of meaning by arranging them chronologically to allow the party's "story" to emerge, or how they might by arranged by order of importance--a picture of Beth standing at the door waiting for her friends to arrive could be displayed first, Beth blowing out the birthday cake placed toward the middle of the arrangement, and the pictures of Beth opening her gifts, especially the skates she's been begging for all year, would surely go toward the end of the sequence. Dr. Wiener shows how these activities, and many others, such as writing games, categorizing toys or clothes or favorite foods, and reading journals, will help children draw meaning out of written material. This second edition includes a new chapter describing the benefits of encouraging children to keep a journal of their personal reactions to books, the value of writing in the books they own (underlining, writing in the margins, and making a personal index) and a variety of reading activities to help children interact with writers and their books. Dr. Wiener has also expanded and updated his fascinating discussion of recommended books for children of all ages, complete with plot summaries. Written in simple, accessible prose, Any Child Can Read Better offers sensible advice for busy parents concerned with their children's education.

This chapter explains the differences between the Pathways Project website and book, and lays out the advantages of each medium in engaging with the project itself. To read Oral Tradition and the Internet is to engage in the tried-and-true commerce of the tAgora. Although as a morphing book it supports and reflects some online-like activities (Morphing Book), its primary value derives from textual dynamics. You have room to navigate to a degree, but you're also provided a single, direct route—at least within each node—through the shorter, guided, brick-and-mortar presentation. To surf the Pathways Project wiki-website on the other hand is to take advantage of the emerging technology of the eAgora. Its contents are more copious as well as interactive and non-predetermined, so you can formulate your own experience to a radically greater extent. Navigation means cocreation, as the network licenses (and requires) your ongoing participation.

This survey of research on psychology in five volumes is a part of a series undertaken by the ICSSR since 1969, which covers various disciplines under social science. Volume Three of the survey, Psychology of Organizations, focusses on some of the important facets of organizational behaviour. Research in the work setting has observed that factors like family responsibilities, non-work events, and employment-related legislation also influence work behaviour. Today, technology is increasingly playing greater role in organizational settings and workplaces are becoming more and more diverse in their social compositions. In addition, work is increasingly being accomplished by teams rather than by single individuals. The performance in work settings is not determined by the mental and physical abilities but by other attributes such as personality, interpersonal skills, and emotional intelligence. Work is also becoming complex, as people who participate in the activities at workplace often interact in complex ways. In this scenario, worker motivation is becoming a key challenge as it influences organizational performance. This volume examines issues of motivation, performance, and leadership in Indian organizations, along with consumer concerns in India. It explicates the dynamics of organizational performance and analyses the impact of employees’ negative attitude, affect, and behaviour in the corporate setting. The contributors also study moral and ethical dimensions of the corporate life and look at the way consumption practices have evolved in contemporary India. This volume also presents a model of ethical leadership based on Guna theory and principle of Karma appropriate for Indian setting. It explores the potential of inspirational meta value for revamping the corporate functioning and overcoming corruption and other malpractices.

This book explores the interface between European data protection and the freedom of expression activities of traditional journalism, professional artists, and both academic and non-academic writers from both an empirical and normative perspective. It draws on an exhaustive examination of both historical and contemporary public domain material and a comprehensive questionnaire of European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs). Empirically it is found that, notwithstanding an often confusing statutory landscape, DPAs have sought to develop an approach to regulating the journalistic media based on contextual rights balancing. However, they have struggled to secure a clear and specified criterion of strictness as regards standard-setting or a consistent and reliable approach to enforcement. DPAs have appeared even more confused as regards other traditional publishers, largely abstaining from regulating most professional artists and writers but attempting to subject all academic disciplines to onerous statutory restrictions established for medical, scientific, and related research. From these findings, it is argued that balancing contextual rights has value and should be both generalized across all traditional publishers and systematically and sensitively developed through structured and robust co-regulation. Such co-regulation should adopt the new code of conduct and monitoring provisions included in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a broad guideline. DPAs should accord strong deference to any codes and monitoring bodies which verifiably meet the accredited criteria but must engage more proactively when these are absent. In any case, DPAs should also intervene directly as regards particularly serious or systematic issues and have an increasingly important role in ensuring a joined-up approach between traditional publishing and new media activity.

Institute for Management and Business Research (IMBRe) is pleased to put forward this book which contains a compilation of business management case studies.The cases in this book are meant for teaching and learning purposes which could be used for both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.In specific, the first case about Lang Buana Museums requires students to apply their knowledge of how to manage an entity in public sector with respect to its accountability, financial management and accounting to address the Museums problems in trying to improve the operation and financial conditions of the Museums. The second case about Regular Care insurance and Critical Care insurance requires students to apply their knowledge of insurance management and also financial management about time value of money (TVM) concept in making purchase decisions for different needs of medical care and for different premium payment terms.The third case about BFN Bank Berhad requires students to apply their knowledge of bank management with respect to commercial banks operations and its lending activities to come up with turnaround strategies in reducing the banks non-performing loans (NPLs) to enable the bank to generate high return. The fourth case about Langkawi Buffalo Park requires students to apply their knowledge of how to manage a farm to improve its performance with respect to management, marketing and finance by conducting SWOT analysis and re-establishing the length of time expected to break even.The fifth case about a small family business requires students to apply their knowledge of strategic management by performing SWOT analysis, explaining how business creates values under cost-leadership strategy, discussing the disadvantages of resource-based model and identifying exit barriers. The sixth and last case about Knots Group Café requires students to apply their knowledge of human resource management with regard to the recruitment, development (talent management) and retention of employees for business sustainability.

Wildlife trafficking threatens the existence of many plant and animal species and accelerates the destruction of wildlife, forests, and other natural resources. It contributes to environmental degradation, destroys unique natural habitats, and deprives many countries and their populations of scarce renewable resources. The more endangered a species becomes, the greater is the commercial value that is put on the remaining specimen, thereby increasing the incentive for further illegal activities. Preventing and supressing the illegal trade in wildlife, animal parts, and plants is presently not a priority in many countries. Despite the actual and potential scale and consequences, wildlife trafficking often remains overlooked and poorly understood. Wildlife and biodiversity related policies, laws, and their enforcement have, for the most part, not kept up with the changing levels and patterns of wildlife trafficking. Poorly developed legal frameworks, weak law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial practices have resulted in valuable wildlife and plant resources becoming threatened. The high demand for wildlife, animal parts, plants, and plant material around the world has resulted in criminal activities on a large scale. Considerably cheaper than legally sourced material, the illegal trade in fauna and flora offers opportunities to reap significant profits. Gaps in domestic and international control regimes, difficulties in identifying illegal commodities and secondary products, along with intricate trafficking routes make it difficult to effectively curtail the trade. Although several international and non-governmental organisations have launched initiatives aimed at bringing international attention to the problem of wildlife trafficking, political commitment and operational capacity to tackle this phenomenon are not commensurate to the scale of the problem. There is, to date, no universal framework to prevent and suppress this crime type and there is a lack of critical and credible expertise and scholarship on this phenomenon. As part of their joint teaching programme on transnational organised crime, the University of Queensland, the University of Vienna, and the University of Zurich examined the topic of wildlife trafficking in a year-long research course in 20182019. Students from the three universities researched selected topics and presented their findings in academic papers, some of which have been compiled in this volume. The chapters included in this v edited book address causes, characteristics, and actors of wildlife trafficking, analyse detection methods, and explore different international and national legal frameworks.

Many awards, such as the Nobel Prizes, are accompanied by money, but in most cases what really matters is the honour and recognition received. The benefits and costs of using awards must be compared to those of other devices for fostering motivation, such as monetary bonuses, gifts, or verbal praise. It must also be considered how the award can best be combined with alternative motivators. An inflationary use of awards undermines their value. When a particular award is handed out too liberally, recipients and the public may even ridicule it. Award inflation can partly be countered by creating new ranks or new awards. Awards fail when they are given to undeserving recipients or when they are rejected. Non-recipients of awards may engage in destructive behaviours. Negative effects can be countered by emphasizing collaborative efforts and the award recipient’s representative role.

Awards are non-material and symbolic rewards, and do not necessarily have to go with money. Award givers may emit signals of quality, of intent, and of their beliefs. Managers can use the signalling functions of awards to subtly steer the behaviour of (present and future) employees, without having to recur to control through explicit, conditional incentives. Awards can also give rise to signalling failures. They have to be used with moderation, and they can rarely be substituted for money where money is already in place. If well designed, awards can raise intrinsic motivation, as the recipients are explicitly lauded when they receive the award. In comparison to money, awards tend to raise loyalty to the giver and avoid crowding out intrinsic motivation; moreover, they have a more sustainable effect on behaviour. They also remain visible in the future, creating a trophy value that maintains the awards’ salience and their signalling functions even over the medium and long term.

These Guidelines are one of the results of the four-year research project “Open Online Learning for Digital and Networked Society” (2017-2021). The project objective was to enable university teachers to design open and online learning through open and online learning curriculum and environment applying learning analytics as a metacognitive tool and creating open and online learning assessment and recognition practices, responding to the needs of digital and networked society. The research of the project resulted in 10 scientific publications and 2 studies prepared by Vytautas Magnus university Institute of Innovative Studies research team in collaboration with their international research partners from Germany, Spain and Portugal. The final stage of the research attempted creating open and online learning assessment and recognition practices, responding to the learner needs in contemporary digital and networked society. The need for open learning recognition has been increasing during the recent decade while the developments of open learning related to the Covid 19 pandemics have dramatically increased the need for systematic and high-quality assessment and recognition of learning acquired online. The given time also relates to the increased need to offer micro-credentials to learners, as well as a rising need for universities to prepare for micro-credentialization and issue new digital credentials to learners who are regular students, as well as adult learners joining for single courses. The increased need of all labour - market participants for frequent and fast renewal of competences requires a well working and easy to use system of open learning assessment and recognition. For learners, it is critical that the micro-credentials are well linked to national and European qualification frameworks, as well as European digital credential infrastructures (e.g., Europass and similar). For employers, it is important to receive requested quality information that is encrypted in the metadata of the credential. While for universities, there is the need to properly prepare institutional digital infrastructure, organizational procedures, descriptions of open learning opportunities and virtual learning environments to share, import and export the meta-data easily and seamlessly through European Digital Hub service infrastructures, as well as ensure that academic and administrative staff has digital competencies to design, issue and recognise open learning through digital and micro-credentials. The first chapter of the Guidelines provides a background view of the European Qualification Framework and National Qualification frameworks for the further system of gaining, stacking and modelling further qualifications through open online learning. The second chapter suggests the review of current European policy papers and consultations on the establishment of micro-credentials in European higher education. The findings of the report of micro-credentials higher education consultation group “European Approach to Micro-credentials” is shortly introduced, as well as important policy discussions taking place. Responding to the Rome Bologna Comunique 2020, where the ministers responsible for higher education agreed to support lifelong learning through issuing micro-credentials, a joint endeavour of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and DG Research and Innovation resulted in one of the most important political documents highlighting the potential of micro-credentials towards economic, social and education innovations. The consultation group of experts from the Member States defined the approach to micro-credentials to facilitate their validation, recognition and portability, as well as to foster a larger uptake to support individual learning in any subject area and at any stage of life or career. The Consultation Group also suggested further urgent topics to be discussed, including the storage, data exchange, portability, and data standards of micro-credentials and proposed EU Standard of constitutive elements of micro-credentials. The third chapter is devoted to the institutional readiness to issue and to recognize digital and micro-credentials. Universities need strategic decisions and procedures ready to be enacted for assessment of open learning and issuing micro-credentials. The administrative and academic staff needs to be aware and confident to follow these procedures while keeping the quality assurance procedures in place, as well. The process needs to include increasing teacher awareness in the processes of open learning assessment and the role of micro-credentials for the competitiveness of lifelong learners in general. When the strategic documents and procedures to assess open learning are in place and the staff is ready and well aware of the processes, the description of the courses and the virtual learning environment needs to be prepared to provide the necessary metadata for the assessment of open learning and issuing of micro-credentials. Different innovation-driven projects offer solutions: OEPass developed a pilot Learning Passport, based on European Diploma Supplement, MicroHE developed a portal Credentify for displaying, verifying and sharing micro-credential data. Credentify platform is using Blockchain technology and is developed to comply with European Qualifications Framework. Institutions, willing to join Credentify platform, should make strategic discussions to apply micro-credential metadata standards. The ECCOE project building on outcomes of OEPass and MicroHE offers an all-encompassing set of quality descriptors for credentials and the descriptions of learning opportunities in higher education. The third chapter also describes the requirements for university structures to interact with the Europass digital credentials infrastructure. In 2020, European Commission launched a new Europass platform with Digital Credential Infrastructure in place. Higher education institutions issuing micro-credentials linked to Europass digital credentials infrastructure may offer added value for the learners and can increase reliability and fraud-resistant information for the employers. However, before using Europass Digital Credentials, universities should fulfil the necessary preconditions that include obtaining a qualified electronic seal, installing additional software and preparing the necessary data templates. Moreover, the virtual learning environment needs to be prepared to export learning outcomes to a digital credential, maintaining and securing learner authentication. Open learning opportunity descriptions also need to be adjusted to transfer and match information for the credential meta-data. The Fourth chapter illustrates how digital badges as a type of micro-credentials in open online learning assessment may be used in higher education to create added value for the learners and employers. An adequately provided metadata allows using digital badges as a valuable tool for recognition in all learning settings, including formal, non-formal and informal.