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The Content, Structure, and Operation of Thought Systems: Advances in Social Cognition, Volume Iv (Advances in Social Cognition Series #Vol. 4)
by Robert S. Wyer Thomas K. SrullIf anyone deserves the title "father of social cognition," it is William J. McGuire who, along with his wife and colleague Claire V. McGuire, has written the target article for this volume. The culmination of many years of work, the article discusses their highly developed theory of human thought systems, and establishes many new directions for theoretical and empirical inquiry. Equally important, however, are the chapters -- written from many different theoretical and empirical perspectives -- that challenge various assumptions underlying the McGuires' work. In addition to examining implications not explicitly considered in the target article, these contributions explore the new directions that future research and theorizing might take.
The Contentious Politics of Expertise: Experts, Activism and Grassroots Environmentalism (Routledge Studies in Political Sociology)
by Riccardo Emilio ChestaBased on mixed-methods research and ethnographic fieldwork at various sites in Italy, this book examines the relationship between expertise and activism in grassroots environmentalism. Presenting interviews with citizens, activists and experts, it considers activism surrounding infrastructure in urban areas, in connection with water management, transport, tour- ism and waste disposal. Through comparisons between different political environments, the author analyses the ways in which citizens, political activists and technical experts participate in using expertise, shedding light on the effects of this on the structure and composition of social movements, as well as the implications for the mechanisms of participation and the formation of alliances. Bridging the sociology of expertise and contentious politics, this study of the relationship between contentious expertise and democratic accountability shows how conflict transforms, rather than inhibits, expertise production into a ‘contentious politics by other means’. As such, it will appeal to social scientists with interests in social movements, environmental sociology, science and technology studies, and the sociology of knowledge.
The Contentious Politics of Higher Education: Struggles and Power Relations within English and Italian Universities (The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture)
by Lorenzo CiniDrawing on neo-institutionalist and social movement approaches, this book analyses the impact that recent student mobilizations have brought about within Italian and English universities in terms of student services, curriculum organization, and governance structures. Arguing that the university context is central to explaining the variety and diversity of this impact, the author examines the effects of the type of governance on the strategies and tactics of the students and the responses of the challenged, considering the differences that exist between Italy, where universities are largely run by academics, and England, where universities tend to be governed by academic managers.
The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China
by Ya-Wen LeiSince the mid-2000s, public opinion and debate in China have become increasingly common and consequential, despite the ongoing censorship of speech and regulation of civil society. How did this happen? In The Contentious Public Sphere, Ya-Wen Lei shows how the Chinese state drew on law, the media, and the Internet to further an authoritarian project of modernization, but in so doing, inadvertently created a nationwide public sphere in China—one the state must now endeavor to control. Lei examines the influence this unruly sphere has had on Chinese politics and the ways that the state has responded.Using interviews, newspaper articles, online texts, official documents, and national surveys, Lei shows that the development of the public sphere in China has provided an unprecedented forum for citizens to influence the public agenda, demand accountability from the government, and organize around the concepts of law and rights. She demonstrates how citizens came to understand themselves as legal subjects, how legal and media professionals began to collaborate in unexpected ways, and how existing conditions of political and economic fragmentation created unintended opportunities for political critique, particularly with the rise of the Internet. The emergence of this public sphere—and its uncertain future—is a pressing issue with important implications for the political prospects of the Chinese people.Investigating how individuals learn to use public discourse to influence politics, The Contentious Public Sphere offers new possibilities for thinking about the transformation of state-society relations.
The Contested Identities of Ulster Catholics
by Thomas Paul BurgessThis book investigates the often-fragmented nature of Ulster Nationalist / Republican / Roman Catholic politics, culture and identity. It offers a companion publication to The Contested Identities of Ulster Protestants (2015). Historically the Catholic community of Ulster are regarded as a unified and coherent group, sharing cultural and political aspirations. However, the volume explores communities of many variants and strands, belying the notion of an easy, homogenous bloc in terms of identity, political aspirations, voting preferences and cultural identity. These include historical differences within constitutional nationalism and Republicanism, gender politics, partition, perceptions of this community from The Republic of Ireland, and more. The book will appeal to students and scholars across the fields of Politics, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Irish Studies and Peace Studies.
The Context of Military Environments: An Agenda for Basic Research on Social and Organizational Factors Relevant to Small Units
by Committee on the Context of Military Environments: Social Organization FactorsThe United States Army faces a variety of challenges to maintain a ready and capable force into the future. Missions are increasingly diverse, ranging from combat and counterinsurgency to negotiation, reconstruction, and stability operations, and require a variety of personnel and skill sets to execute. Missions often demand rapid decision-making and coordination with others in novel ways, so that personnel are not simply following a specific set of tactical orders but rather need to understand broader strategic goals and choose among courses of action. Like any workforce, the Army is diverse in terms of demographic characteristics such as gender and race, with increasing pressure to ensure equal opportunities across all demographic parties. With these challenges comes the urgent need to better understand how contextual factors influence soldier and small unit behavior and mission performance. Recognizing the need to develop a portfolio of research to better understand the influence of social and organizational factors on the behavior of individuals and small units, the U. S. Army Research Institute (ARI) requested the National Research Council's Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences to outline a productive and innovative collection of future basic science research projects to improve Amy mission performance for immediate implementation and lasting over the next 10-20 years. This report presents recommendations for a program of basic scientific research on the roles of social and organizational contextual factors, such as organizational institutions, culture, and norms, as determinants and moderators of the performance of individual soldiers and small units. "The Context of Military Environments: Basic Research Opportunities on Social and Organizational Factors" synthesizes and assesses basic research opportunities in the behavioral and social sciences related to social and organizational factors that comprise the context of individual and small unit behavior in military environments. This report focuses on tactical operations of small units and their leaders, to include the full spectrum of unique military environments including: major combat operations, stability/support operations, peacekeeping, and military observer missions, as well as headquarters support units. This report identifies key contextual factors that shape individual and small unit behavior and assesses the state of the science regarding these factors. "The Context of Military Environments" recommends an agenda for ARI's future research in order to maximize the effectiveness of U. S. Army personnel policies and practices of selection, recruitment, and assignment as well as career development in training and leadership. The report also specifies the basic research funding level needed to implement the recommended agenda for future ARI research.
The Contexts Reader
by Syed Ali Philip N. CohenThe Contexts Reader collects over sixty of the best articles from the popular magazine in one affordable anthology. Considered the public face of sociology, Contexts magazine is highly regarded for featuring articles by well-known sociologists that make cutting-edge social research accessible to a general audience. More than three-quarters of the readings in the Third Edition, including eight Viewpoints roundtables, are NEW to the reader.
The Contexts of Diaspora Citizenship: Somali Communities in Finland and the United States (International Perspectives on Migration #17)
by Päivi Armila Marko Kananen Yasemin KontkanenThis book explores the social participation, identification and transnational practices of Somalis living in Finland and the United States. Through a multifaceted collection of chapters which are based on data ranging from legislation and policy documents to welfare indicators and interviews, this book explores how Somali migrants experience and explore their identities and belongings, and how they strive for participation as (diaspora) citizens of their sending and receiving societies. The case studies are conducted in two countries that differ greatly in terms of their social system, migration history and integration policies and as such they provide an opportunity to explore how different social, political and legal orders influence the life-courses and wellbeing of migrant populations. Furthermore, the book highlights how the fate of the Somalis as a global diaspora is routinely intertwined with the changes in the global political climate and the state-level political processes reflecting it. This book will be of great interest to researchers, students and lecturers of migration and diaspora, as well as individuals working with (Somali) migrants.
The Contexts of Social Mobility: Ideology and Theory
by Anselm L. StraussThis book contains a major statement by one of America's most preeminent sociologists on what remains an important problem in American history and social analysis: the nature and extent of movement within American society from one status to another. The most important images of mobility involve self-improvement by changing location (going to the frontier, coming to the big city), and by changing social class (second-generation immigrants). Almost all sociological and historical analysis has been limited to these themes.Strauss extends the concept to a wide range of ideologies, institutional contexts, and social movements; his analysis is based on a formal theory of status passage and develops a partial theory of mobility. Strauss addresses a theme that underscores much of one strand of his work: the changing articulation of individuals with their social structure and institutions.The book follows on from the theoretical presuppositions of Discovery of Grounded Theory and the formal theory presented in Status Passage. Strauss was continually concerned with American social and intellectual life in its historical and contemporary manifestations. No one else has looked at the important phenomenon of mobility in this broad a context and from this point of view. The book remains important to those concerned with the social history of America and with problems of social change.
The Contextual Character of Moral Integrity: Transcultural Psychological Applications
by Dita Šamánková Marek Preiss Tereza PříhodováThis book discusses outcomes of a study by the National Institute of Mental Health, Czech Republic, examining moral integrity in the post-communist Czech-speaking environment. Chapters map the history of the Euro-Atlantic ethical disciplines from moral philosophy and psychology to evolutionary neuroscience and socio-biology. The authors emphasize the biological and social conditionality of ethics and call for greater differentiation of both research and applied psychological standards in today’s globalised world. Using a non-European ethical system – Theravada Buddhism – as a case study, the authors explore the differences in English and Czech interpretations of the religion. They analyse cognitive styles and language as central variables in formatting and interpreting moral values, with important consequences for cultural transferability of psychological instruments. This book will appeal to academics and other specialists in psychology, psychiatry, sociology and related fields, as well as to readers interested in the psychology of ethics.
The Contingency Theory of Organizations (Foundations for Organizational Science)
by Professor Lex DonaldsonWritten by one of the foremost scholars in the field, this volume presents a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the theories, evidence and methodological issues of contingency theory - one of the major theoretical lenses used to view organizations. It includes both an appreciation of the coherency of contingency theory overall and a frank recognition of some of the deficiencies in contingency theory research. The coherent underlying model provides the platform from which to make good some of the deficiencies through a series of improvements in theory and method that chart the course for future research.
The Continuum of Consumer Choice (Routledge Studies in Marketing)
by Gordon R. FoxallHuman consumption is multi- faceted and so requires inter- disciplinary exploration in order to explain a spectrum of experiences that is at once particular and allpervading. Consumer choice is a microcosm of human activity which transcends the purview of the archetypal marketing or consumer psychology textbook. Its perspective is that of social science itself. This book understands the study of consumer choice as a paradigm of human socio- economic activity and seeks further understanding of its socio- economic and philosophical bases.The Continuum of Consumer Choice provides a novel view of consumer choice based on the temporal horizon of the consumer, giving rise to a spectrum of consumption styles from the everyday to the extreme. The focus is on explaining this continuum in behavioral, cognitive, and neurophysiological terms, affording the reader a unique perspective on the intellectual basis of consumer psychology and marketing. The reader gains insight into a critical combination of economic psychology, neurophysiology, and philosophy, which contributes to establishing marketing and consumer research as scholarly academic pursuits. The book’s particular focus is the proper place and form of an intentional (cognitive and perceptual) explanation of consumer choice.This is an essential monograph for advanced students in consumer psychology and marketing as well as for researchers in these areas. It is particularly relevant to marketing and consumer theory, providing appreciation of their scholarly foundations. It also appeals to students, lecturers, and researchers in social science generally who are alert to the intellectual potential of consumer psychology and marketing as contributors to a full understanding of human behavior and experience.
The Continuum of Restorative Practices in Schools: An Instructional Training Manual for Practitioners
by Margaret Thorsborne Dave VinegradAn instructional manual on restorative justice in schools from world-leading experts; this 'how to' guide offers guidance on the issues of carrying out restorative practices, including coping with day-to-day problems, and offers worksheets for practical daily use.Beginning with challenges to orthodox thinking about behaviour change, it goes on to describe a multitude of approaches to respond to minor incidents in school settings, then takes a close look at using restorative approaches to bullying, before it finally focuses on the formal end of the continuum (including conference preparation and facilitation). This book is reflective of the evolution of processes and responses from the most serious of incidents through to minor everyday issues, making this an essential resource for all school staff.
The Contradictions of Love: Towards a feminist-realist ontology of sociosexuality
by Lena GunnarssonThe Contradictions of Love: Towards a feminist-realist ontology of sociosexuality offers a robust and multifaceted theoretical account of how, in contemporary western societies, women continue to be subordinated to men through sexual love. The book defends and elaborates Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s thesis that men tend to exploit women of their ‘love power’, by means of an innovative application of critical realism, dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of metaReality. Gunnarsson also offers a critique of the state of affairs of contemporary feminist theory. The author demonstrates that the meta-theoretical framework of critical realism offers the tools that can counter the poststructuralist hegemony still prevailing in feminist theory. On a general level, The Contradictions of Love attempts at reconciling theoretical positions which tend to appear in opposition to one another. In particular, it offers a way of bridging the gap between the notion of love as a locus of exploitation and that of love as a force which can conquer oppression. This book is a unique and timely contribution in the field of feminist theory, in that it offers the first elaborate assessment and development of Jónasdóttir’s important but relatively sidestepped work, and in that it counters poststructuralist trends from the point of view of a robust critical realist framework that has hitherto been spectacularly absent in feminist theory, although it offers solutions to metatheoretical problems at the forefront of feminist debates; in the field of critical realism broadly defined, in that it elaborates on crucial ontological themes of (dialectical) critical realism and the philosophy of metaReality via a discussion of the issues of love, sexuality, gender and power; and finally, in the field of love studies, in that it offers a sophisticated account of how gender asymmetries prevail in love despite norms of gender equality and reciprocity, and in that it reconciles feminist, conflict-oriented perspectives on love with notions of love as transcending conflict.
The Contradictions of the Legacy of Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka (1954): A Special Issue of Educational Studies
by Dianne Smith Sandra Winn TutwilerOn May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separate school facilities were inherently unequal and thus unconstitutional and illegal. Today, 50 years after this landmark decision, much debate surrounds the efficacy of the ruling, particularly for its impact on the education of children of color in U.S. schools. In reality, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, was never solely about education; neither did the case include only plaintiffs from Topeka. Both points are important to note as we reflect on the legacy of Brown a half century after the ruling. This journal offers articles, an interview, book reviews and a media review around this area.
The Controller as Lean Leader: A Novel on Changing Behavior with a Lean Cost Management System
by Sue Elizabeth SondergeltTraditional accounting systems have become inadequate for today‘s increasingly competitive global manufacturing environment. They are too complex and too focused on past performance. As manufacturing techniques change and become less labor intensive, accounting methods must also evolve. Regardless of what you call it, Lean accounting is a managemen
The Conundrum of Masculinity: Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity (Routledge Research in Gender and Society)
by Chris Haywood Thomas Johansson Marcus Herz Nils Hammarén Andreas OttemoPopular culture is awash with discussions about the difficulties associated with being a man. Television talk shows, media articles and government press releases discuss not simply the problem of men, but have more recently focused on the problems of being a man. The Conundrum of Masculinity challenges highly advertised beliefs that men are in crisis and struggling to hold onto traditional masculine habits whilst the world around them changes. Indeed, whilst there is a range of valuable contributions to the field that examine how men live out their lives in different contexts, there are few accounts that examine in detail the building blocks of masculinity or how men are really ‘put together’. Thus, this innovative and timely volume seeks to provide a systematic exploration of the different aspects of masculinity – in particular hegemony, homosociality, homophobia and heteronormativity. An original approach to the field of masculinity studies, this book ultimately presents a critical synthesis that brings together disparate approaches to provide a clear and concise discussion to address the true nature of masculinity. The Conundrum of Masculinity will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in fields such as Gender Studies, Masculinity Studies and Sociology.
The Conversation on Gender Diversity (Critical Conversations)
by Jules Gill-PetersonFrom contributors to The Conversation, a look at gender diversity in the twenty-first century and the intricate and intersecting challenges faced by trans and nonbinary people.With media amplifying the voices of anti-trans legislators and critics, it is important to turn to the stories, research, and expertise of trans and nonbinary people in order to understand the reality of their experiences. In The Conversation on Gender Diversity, editor Jules Gill-Peterson assembles essential essays from The Conversation U.S. by experts on gender diversity. The essays guide readers through seldom-covered aspects of transgender history and present an overview of the social and political barriers that disenfranchise trans people and attempt to remove them from public life. As these essays collectively show, trans and nonbinary people may be forced to be the face of gender and its diversity, but the cultural, political, and social realities of gender connect—and subject—everyone. Despite these challenges, there is an immense culture of love and support across the queer community that is bolstered by activists and allies working against transphobic attacks. Trans and gender-diverse youth are growing up in a world filled with ever-increasing hurdles and rising danger, even with the contemporary public recognition of trans life in culture and media. But they are not facing these challenges alone.The Critical Conversations series collects relevant essays from top scholars on timely topics, including water, biotechnology, gender diversity, gun culture, and more, originally published on the independent news site The Conversation U.S. Contributors: Robert L. Abreu, Catherine Armstrong, Stacy Branham, Christopher Carpenter, L. F. Carver, Mandy Coles, Arin Collin, George B. Cunningham, Avery Dame-Griff, Jules Gill-Peterson, Abbie Goldberg, Gilbert Gonzales, Frances Grimstad, Foad Hamidi, Elizabeth Heineman, Glen Hosking, Bethany Grace Howe, Jay A. Irwin, Shanna K. Kattari, Kacie Kidd, Terry Kogan, Vanessa LoBue, Gabriel Lockett, Megan K. Maas, Julie Manning Magid, Em Matsuno, Tey Meadow, Kyl Myers, Madeleine Pape, Ruth Pearce, Jae A. Puckett, Samantha G. Rosenthal, Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, Elizabeth A. Sharrow, Carl Sheperis, Donna Sheperis, stef m. shuster, Jules Sostre, Ryan Storr, Carl Streed, Diana M. Tordoff, Travers
The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations (Core Teachings Of Dalai Lama Ser.)
by Robert LivingstonAn essential tool for individuals, organizations, and communities of all sizes to jump-start dialogue on racism and bias and to transform well-intentioned statements on diversity into concrete actions—from a leading Harvard social psychologist.&“Livingston has made the important and challenging task of addressing systemic racism within an organization approachable and achievable.&”—Alex Timm, co-founder and CEO, Root Insurance CompanyHow can I become part of the solution? In the wake of the social unrest of 2020 and growing calls for racial justice, many business leaders and ordinary citizens are asking that very question. This book provides a compass for all those seeking to begin the work of anti-racism. In The Conversation, Robert Livingston addresses three simple but profound questions: What is racism? Why should everyone be more concerned about it? What can we do to eradicate it? For some, the existence of systemic racism against Black people is hard to accept because it violates the notion that the world is fair and just. But the rigid racial hierarchy created by slavery did not collapse after it was abolished, nor did it end with the civil rights era. Whether it&’s the composition of a company&’s leadership team or the composition of one&’s neighborhood, these racial divides and disparities continue to show up in every facet of society. For Livingston, the difference between a solvable problem and a solved problem is knowledge, investment, and determination. And the goal of making organizations more diverse, equitable, and inclusive is within our capability.Livingston&’s lifework is showing people how to turn difficult conversations about race into productive instances of real change. For decades he has translated science into practice for numerous organizations, including Airbnb, Deloitte, Microsoft, Under Armour, L&’Oreal, and JPMorgan Chase. In The Conversation, Livingston distills this knowledge and experience into an eye-opening immersion in the science of racism and bias. Drawing on examples from pop culture and his own life experience, Livingston, with clarity and wit, explores the root causes of racism, the factors that explain why some people care about it and others do not, and the most promising paths toward profound and sustainable progress, all while inviting readers to challenge their assumptions.Social change requires social exchange. Founded on principles of psychology, sociology, management, and behavioral economics, The Conversation is a road map for uprooting entrenched biases and sharing candid, fact-based perspectives on race that will lead to increased awareness, empathy, and action.
The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media
by Catherine J TurcoA fast-growing social media marketing company, TechCo encourages all of its employees to speak up. By promoting open dialogue across the corporate hierarchy, the firm has fostered a uniquely engaged workforce and an enviable capacity for change. Yet the path hasn't always been easy. TechCo has confronted a number of challenges, and its experience reveals the essential elements of bureaucracy that remain even when a firm sets out to discard them. Through it all, TechCo serves as a powerful new model for how firms can navigate today's rapidly changing technological and cultural climate.Catherine Turco was embedded within TechCo for ten months. The Conversational Firm is her ethnographic analysis of what worked at the company and what didn't. She offers multiple lessons for anyone curious about the effect of social media on the corporate environment and adds depth to debates over the new generation of employees reared on social media: Millennials who are carrying their technological habits and expectations into the workplace.Marshaling insights from cultural and economic sociology, organizational theory, economics, technology studies, and anthropology, The Conversational Firm offers a nuanced analysis of corporate communication, control, and culture in the social media age.
The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media (The Middle Range Series)
by Catherine TurcoA fast-growing social media marketing company, TechCo encourages all of its employees to speak up. By promoting open dialogue across the corporate hierarchy, the firm has fostered a uniquely engaged workforce and an enviable capacity for change. Yet the path hasn't always been easy. TechCo has confronted a number of challenges, and its experience reveals the essential elements of bureaucracy that remain even when a firm sets out to discard them. Through it all, TechCo serves as a powerful new model for how firms can navigate today's rapidly changing technological and cultural climate.Catherine J. Turco was embedded within TechCo for ten months. The Conversational Firm is her ethnographic analysis of what worked at the company and what didn't. She offers multiple lessons for anyone curious about the effect of social media on the corporate environment and adds depth to debates over the new generation of employees reared on social media: Millennials who carry their technological habits and expectations into the workplace. Marshaling insights from cultural and economic sociology, organizational theory, economics, technology studies, and anthropology, The Conversational Firm offers a nuanced analysis of corporate communication, control, and culture in the social media age.
The Conversational Interface
by Zoraida Callejas Michael Mctear David GriolThis book provides a comprehensive introduction to the conversational interface, which is becoming the main mode of interaction with virtual personal assistants, smart devices, various types of wearable, and social robots. The book consists of four parts. Part I presents the background to conversational interfaces, examining past and present work on spoken language interaction with computers. Part II covers the various technologies that are required to build a conversational interface along with practical chapters and exercises using open source tools. Part III looks at interactions with smart devices, wearables, and robots, and discusses the role of emotion and personality in the conversational interface. Part IV examines methods for evaluating conversational interfaces and discusses future directions.
The Cooperative Business Movement, 1950 to the Present
by Patrizia Battilani Harm G. SchröterThe United Nations declared 2012 the year of cooperatives, emphasizing that there is an alternative to privately owned firms. While greed and mismanagement have caused world financial and economic crises, co-ops offer another type of business for economic activities that is less exposed to aggressive capitalism. This book provides a problem-oriented overview of the development of cooperatives over the last fifty years. The worldwide study addresses the major challenges cooperatives face, such as the organizational innovations introduced in order to acquire necessary risk-capital and implement growth-related strategies, the wave of demutualization in developed nations and their ability to construct an original consumer politics. The contributors to this volume discuss the successes and failures of the cooperatives and ask whether they are an outdated model of enterprise. They document a wave of foundations of new co-ops, new forms of collaboration between them, and a growing trend toward globalization. Generally speaking they show that this special kind of business will doubtless continue to thrive and to maintain an important position in a rapidly changing world economy.
The Cooperative Economy: A Solution to Societal Grand Challenges
by Dovev LavieSocietal grand challenges have taken a toll on humanity, which finds itself at a crossroads. The concentration of wealth and economic inequality, the dominance of Big Tech firms, the loss of privacy and free choice, and the overconsumption and abuse of natural resources have been reinforced by globalization. Regulation, legislation, international treaties, and government and corporate policies have fallen short of offering sufficient remedies. This book identifies the root cause of these problems and offers a bold solution: a new economic system, free from the design flaws that have contributed to these societal grand challenges. The proposed cooperative economy is an ethical community-driven exchange system that relies on collective action to promote societal values while accounting for resource constraints. Unlike the modern economic system that is predominantly driven by opportunistic behavior, the cooperative economy moves away from a materialistic orientation and follows a more balanced perspective that leverages prosocial behavior. The book explains how this new system adopts design principles that promote self-sufficiency of communities, sustainability and entrepreneurship while limiting overconsumption and excessive profit-making. It enhances economic equality by leveraging price subsidization and by restricting salary differences. The book describes how the system serves the interests of consumers, vendors, and employees while preventing the accumulation of power by the platform owner who operates this system. This book is invaluable reading for policymakers who have been searching for solutions to some of the grand challenges that our society faces, and to managers who have sought alternative ways to cope with platform ecosystems, resource shortages, and supply chain disruptions. It revisits long-held assumptions, offering a treatise and food for thought, as well as a plan for concrete action. The book is also highly relevant to scholars and students in the study of economics, strategy, innovation, and public policy and to all readers who are concerned about the future of our planet and society.
The Cooperative Extension Service: A National Assessment
by James A Christenson Paul WarnerThe Cooperative Extension Service, a publicly supported educational agency, is continually struggling to define its proper function and purpose in our changing society. Should its mission be broadly based or narrowly focused? Should staff members be generalists or specialists? Should its clients be primarily rural or urban, farm or nonfarm? What role should Extension play in the information networks of the twenty-first century? Professors Warner and Christenson take a broad look at these and other questions concerning where the Extension Service has been, how well it is doing, and where it ought to go. Theirs is, first, the only comprehensive national survey that looks at the total Extension organization rather than at just one program area. Second, it expresses the viewpoint of Extension clients and the public, rather than that of the organization's staff; and third, it combines outside survey information with data recorded in the Extension Management Information System (EMIS) and other routine agency reports. The authors evaluate, among other things, the extent of public awareness of the agency and its four major program areas (agriculture, home economics, 4-H, and community development), determine the users and nonusers of the programs and the accessibility of programs to the general population, identify the level of satisfaction with existing programs, and outline priorities and policy issues for the future.