Description: Global Jihad and America questions the assumption if Islamist terrorism, or "Global Jihad," poses the biggest threat to modern civilization in the East and West. It explores if Islamic and Western civilizations, being "incompatible" to each other, are destined to be at loggerheads. Consequently, the book argues that state-sponsored terrorism and proxy wars--not terrorist acts by "non-state actors"--will pose the biggest security threat to the world. This study does not suggest that the world has already reached the cul-de-sac of its destiny with no point of return. Both America and the Muslim World can play important roles to avert the catastrophe. Meanwhile, the gap between the needy and the rich and powerful is widening. Throughout history, sections of the rich and powerful have manipulated wars in the name of peace and justice, religion and freedom. So the big question now is: with America and its allies waging a "war on terror and extremism" and their Muslim adversaries defending honor and religion, is a disaster looming?
Description: This book gives an authoritative overview of the literature on non-stationarity, integration and unit roots, providing direction and guidance. It also provides detailed examples to show how the techniques can be applied in practical situations and the pitfalls to avoid.
Description: Once just the icing on a good campaign, PR is now the lynchpin of any reputation management strategy. Little wonder, in a time when even minor gaffes can ruin the careers of politicians, celebrities, athletes and high-flying CEOs - and a single well-placed endorsement can launch an unknown startup into the stratosphere. InRethinking Reputation, public relations gurus Fraser Seitel and John Doorley examine the pivotal PR moments of recent years - including the BP oil spill and the 2012 Republican primaries - to glean the dos and don'ts for the new media world. They show everyone from mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 companies how to wield the power of word-of-mouth, relationships, and publicity to maximize coverage and minimize harm. In between, they illustrate the character-based communication strategies that have bulletproofed countless businesses - and how you can use them too.
Description: Balance sheet crises, in which the prices of widely held and highly leveraged assets collapse, pose distinctive economic challenges. An understanding of their causes and consequences is only recently developing, and there is no agreement on effective policy responses. From backgrounds in experimental economics, Steven Gjerstad and Nobel laureate Vernon L. Smith examine events that led to and resulted from the recent U.S. housing bubble and collapse, as a case study in the formation and propagation of balance sheet crises. They then examine all previous downturns in the U.S. economy, including the Great Depression, and document substantive differences between the recurrent features of economic cycles and financial crises and the beliefs that public officials hold about them, especially within the Federal Reserve System. They conclude with an examination of similar events in other countries and assess alternative strategies to contain financial crises and to recover from them.
Description: Covering the essential elements of the subject of econometrics, the author also introduces and explains techniques that are now widely used in applied work, although rarely introduced in detail in non-specialist texts, such as integrated time series, cointegration, simulation analysis, Johansen's Approach to multivariate co-integration and ARCH. The author explains the central distinction between stationary and nonstationary time series, which is of crucial importance in many areas of analysis, especially in macroeconomics and financial economics.
Description: Poverty in rural India: Is this a permanent condition? Are villagers immobilized by a rigid caste system, limited resources and economic exploitation? This book is about villagers who have done remarkable things with their lives--people who have broken the constraints of poverty and inequality to become innovative and mobile. It is written partly by one villager who found a career doing research on social change. Inside-Outsidenarrates stories of grassroots change and innovation. These stories are discussed from the combined view of an insider (Baviskar), who grew up in a village in western India, and an outsider (Attwood), who came to study social change in the same region. Telling life stories from people who taught and surprised them, they challenge common stereotypes about Indian villagers--stereotypes of passivity, fatalism, and stagnation. Baviskar's life and experience of change in his home village exemplify grassroots initiative and innovation. He was born as the son of an impoverished farmer in a drought-stricken village in western Maharashtra. Ability, hard work, and some dramatic twists of fate enabled him to attend college and then complete a doctorate in India's premier sociology department. In contrast to Baviskar, Attwood is a complete outsider, having grown up in a suburb near Chicago, in the US heartland. He stumbled into anthropology and spent several years in India, doing fieldwork in the region where Baviskar grew up. The two met in 1969; they became friends and began four decades of collaborative research. Here they tell the stories of villagers who changed their own lives and who also, in many cases, changed the lives of others. These stories describe rapid innovation and institution-building in the countryside, challenging an array of common stereotypes about village life in India. Seeking explanations for change, it helps to look at village life from many angles. Inside and outside views are complementary and provide a more complete picture.
Description: Concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are widely used by businesses, professional bodies and academics, but are also widely contested. CSR is usually described as comprising three elements: environmental, economic and social, though there is no serious consensus on how to go about translating ideas into practice. This research handbook addresses some key areas of contention, theory and practice within CSR in order to address, challenge and inform debate in academia and practice. The collaborative text extends understanding of CSR through articulating current thinking on each facet of a vital subject. Each theme is represented by inter-disciplinary discussion of key questions on CSR by researchers and practitioners in the field. In doing so, the book: Explores and critiques CSR goals, and national, organizational and managerial strategies Reviews the distinctive role and importance of CSR to academics, professionals and practitioners and identifies appropriate bridging strategies Evaluates the nature, direction and applicability of selected theoretical dimensions which inform the understanding of CSR Assesses the opportunities for theory building, to support further understanding of the complexities of CSR and the sustainability and long term value of CSR practice to corporations and civil society This timely and significant contribution to the theory and practice of CSR will prove to be vital reading for students, researchers and practitioners involved with the field. It will also become a key reference for anyone with an interest in business and society.
Description: This book presents the main valuation approaches that can beused to value financial institutions. By sketching 1) the differentbusiness models of banks (both commercial and investment banks) andinsurance companies (life, property and casualty and reinsurance);2) the structure and peculiarities of financial institutions?reporting and financial statements; and 3) the main features ofregulatory capital frameworks for banking and insurance (ie BaselIII, Solvency II), the book addresses why such elements make thevaluation of financial institutions different from the valuation ofnon-financial companies. The book then features the valuation models that can be used todetermine the value of banks and insurance companies including theDiscounted Cash Flow, Dividend Discount Model, and Residual IncomeModel (with the appropriate estimation techniques for the cost ofcapital and cash flow in financial industries). The main techniquesto perform the relative valuation of financial institutions arethen presented: along the traditional multiples (P/E, P/BV, P/TBV,P/NAV), the multiples based on industry-specific value drivers arediscussed (for example, P/Pre Provision Profit, P/Deposits,P/Premiums, P/Number of branches). Further valuation tools such asthe ?Value Maps? or the ?Warranted EquityMethod? will be explained and discussed. The closing sectionof the book will briefly focus on the valuation of specificfinancial companies/vehicles such as closed-end funds, privateequity funds, leasing companies, etc.
Description: Understanding India: Cultural Influences on Indian Television Commercialsis a book about Indian television commercial production. It focuses on how key production decisions shape a television commercial's visual language. The larger goal of the book is to delineate the link between this visual language and India's socio-cultural identity. The book is the outcome of an ethnographic study that attempted to capture the nuances of the cinematic or visual aspect of marketing communications strategy. It is, thus, situated at the intersection of interests in marketing and visual culture. In this book, many of the discussed television commercials have an embedded vision of India. Within the context of a new consumer culture emerging due to economic liberalization, the book discusses these sketches of India.
Description: Pioneers of Digital showcases the stories behind key people who have fundamentally influenced the way advertising, marketing, search and social media have evolved during the internet era. Springer and Carson have tracked down and documented behind-the-scenes insight, decisions and opinions that inspired digital phenomena such as Virtual Reality, Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign, Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, celebrity take-up of Twitter and Artists Without a Label, a free digital music distribution service for independent artists. The 20 digital entrepreneurs profiled span the globe; some performed their ground-breaking work in environments like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Victors & Spoils, OgilvyOne, R/GA, AKQA, Sapient Nitro and Apple, while others performed digital miracles all on their own. Together these stories expose the secrets of success from pioneers that everyone can learn from. Packed full of unique insight, Pioneers of Digital provides advice and inspiration for readers interested in twenty-first century commercial online thinking. More at www.PioneersOfDigital.com The pioneers: Thomas Gensemer MyBO and Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign June Cohen Hotwired and TED.com Denzyl Feigelson iTunes Advisor and Artists Without A Label Vanessa Fox Google and Nine By Blue Gurbaksh Chahal ClickAgents and BlueLithium Jaron Lanier Virtual reality and Microsoft Research Angel Chen OgilvyOne China John Winsor Victors & Spoils Danny Sullivan Search Engine Land Alex Bogusky, Bob Cianfrone Burger King's Subservient Chicken Avinash Kaushik Digital marketing evangelist, Google Carolyn Everson MTV Networks and Facebook Malcolm Poynton Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Qi Lu Yahoo!, Microsoft and Bing Ajaz Ahmed AKQA Martha Lane Fox Lastminute.com and the UK government's digital champion Kyle MacDonald One Red Paperclip Jess Greenwood Contagious Magazine and R/GA Zhang Minhui Sohu.com.cn Stephen Fry
Description: In the pantheon of CEOs, few people have the visibility, charisma and hunger of Bill McDermott. His career is a classic story of ambition and drive: from the hard-knock streets of his youth in Long Island, to his first forays in business behind the counter of a deli he bought and then operated at the age of 17, to his extraordinary rise through the Xerox Corporation where he pleaded for his first job, to his emergence as the co-CEO of one of the most celebrated and admired global companies of our age. His stories - at turns hilarious and moving, but always inspiring - offer invaluable lessons in self-direction, management and leadership.
