Sustainability, Green Management, and Performance of SMEs


Book Description

In a world facing environmental challenges and socio-economic inequalities, SMEs can drive positive change by integrating sustainability principles into their business practices. This book examines the relationship between sustainability, green management, and SME performance, providing insights, strategies, and case studies to guide SMEs towards a more sustainable future and long-term viability. Drawing from extensive research, the book analyzes the drivers, barriers, and motivations influencing SMEs' adoption of sustainability practices. It offers practical recommendations on overcoming resource constraints, awareness gaps, regulatory complexities, and resistance to change. It explores emerging trends such as digital technologies, circular economy approaches, clean energy transitions, and social innovation and discusses collaboration among SMEs, academia, and government agencies as a crucial factor for innovation and scaling up sustainable practices. Sustainability, Green Management and Performance of SMEs is a comprehensive and practical guide for SMEs seeking to integrate sustainability into their business strategies. It inspires and supports SMEs on their journey towards environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and long-term profitability, thus enabling them to unlock new business opportunities, gain a competitive edge, and secure their future in a changing global economy.




Education, Skills, and Technical Change


Book Description

Over the past few decades, US business and industry have been transformed by the advances and redundancies produced by the knowledge economy. The workplace has changed, and much of the work differs from that performed by previous generations. Can human capital accumulation in the United States keep pace with the evolving demands placed on it, and how can the workforce of tomorrow acquire the skills and competencies that are most in demand? Education, Skills, and Technical Change explores various facets of these questions and provides an overview of educational attainment in the United States and the channels through which labor force skills and education affect GDP growth. Contributors to this volume focus on a range of educational and training institutions and bring new data to bear on how we understand the role of college and vocational education and the size and nature of the skills gap. This work links a range of research areas—such as growth accounting, skill development, higher education, and immigration—and also examines how well students are being prepared for the current and future world of work.




International Handbook on the Economics of Education


Book Description

. . . is a voluminous and timely collection of 18 essays that addresses a number of core issues on the economics of education. . . An exhaustive survey of the literature on the role of universities as multi-product firms at various levels and disciplines identifies the nature of the economies of scope and scale. This enriches the volume further. Economic Analysis & Policy . . . the endeavour of bringing together very knowledgeable contributors, including some of the leading contributors to the literature in the UK and beyond, to write a handbook on the economics of education is highly appreciated. The Handbook contains 18 substantive chapters, encapsulated by a brief introduction and an extensive and a very useful index. . . the Handbook should be praised as a useful overview of the field of economics of education as it stands today. Ludger Wößmann, Economic Issues This major Handbook comprehensively surveys the rapidly growing field of the economics of education. It is unique in that it comprises original contributions on an exceptional range of topics from a review of human capital, signalling and screening models, to consideration of issues such as educational externalities and economic growth, funding models, determinants of educational success, the educational production function, educational standards and efficiency measurement. Labour market issues such as the market for teachers and the transition of students from school to work are also explored. The International Handbook on the Economics of Education will be warmly welcomed by academic economists, educational researchers and practitioners in educational management as well as policymakers. Comprising specially commissioned articles, the Handbook will become indispensable reference for this ever topical field of study.




The Economics of Artificial Intelligence


Book Description

A timely investigation of the potential economic effects, both realized and unrealized, of artificial intelligence within the United States healthcare system. In sweeping conversations about the impact of artificial intelligence on many sectors of the economy, healthcare has received relatively little attention. Yet it seems unlikely that an industry that represents nearly one-fifth of the economy could escape the efficiency and cost-driven disruptions of AI. The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: Health Care Challenges brings together contributions from health economists, physicians, philosophers, and scholars in law, public health, and machine learning to identify the primary barriers to entry of AI in the healthcare sector. Across original papers and in wide-ranging responses, the contributors analyze barriers of four types: incentives, management, data availability, and regulation. They also suggest that AI has the potential to improve outcomes and lower costs. Understanding both the benefits of and barriers to AI adoption is essential for designing policies that will affect the evolution of the healthcare system.




The Great Disconnect


Book Description

Despite its excesses and contradictions, globalization has lifted billions of people out of poverty, enabled scientific progress, and reduced conflict. Nevertheless, globalization is going through a deep crisis. Marco Magnani identifies four forces that are fueling the «great disconnect»: economic and technological trends are reshaping global value chains; do-mestic political dynamics are fostering closures in an attempt to protect national interests; external shocks (pandemics, wars, financial crises) are exposing the vulnerability of the global system; geopolitical objectives are encouraging to restrict relations to countries perceived as friends. In such a scenario, politics prevails over economics, regionalization increases, and the instability of international alliances soars, partly due to the proliferation of «free agent» countries seeking strategic autonomy. Fragmentation has high economic costs and it increases the risk of conflict. But it may also trigger a new globalization trend. The Arctic, the Under-water, Space and the Digital Revolution can be fronts of competition and dispute, or they can represent the new frontiers of cooperation. The world to come will largely depend on the ability of liberal democracies to defend and promote their values, abroad and at home. The hope is that the revival in the circulation of goods, services, capital, people and knowledge will consolidate rights and spread freedoms.




New Perspectives on Structural Change


Book Description

Here is a comprehensive edited volume that outlines the historical roots and state-of-the-art debates on the role of structural change in the process of economic development, including both orthodox and heterodox perspectives and contributions from prominent scholars in this field.




The Oxford Handbook of Offshoring and Global Employment


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Offshoring and Global Employment deals with a key issue of our time: How do globalization, economic growth and technological developments interact to impact employment? The book brings together eminent authors from a wide range of countries around the world, drawing on their diverse academic and policymaking backgrounds, and specific national or regional settings to assess how global economic changes have affected employment opportunities. The book is unique in a number of ways - It has a global reach, presenting analyses and viewpoints from both developed and developing countries, from all continents; its timing and context is particularly instructive, since most papers are located in the aftermath of the global financial crisis; and it addresses a wide range of questions-How do different types of offshoring and global linkages impact employment? How is the skill mix of the labor force impacted by globalization? How do institutional structures and regulations influence the outcome of globalization in developed and developing countries? Individual chapters analyze how the impact of global linkages on national economies is mediated through a number of structural aspects of the economy - its institutional and industrial structure, its resource base, its predominant firm type, its comparative advantage, and its regulatory practices. The chapters in the book cover both manufacturing and services sectors, and many chapters also address policy issues regarding innovation and job creation.




Putting Higher Education to Work


Book Description

This book assesses whether East Asian higher education is providing research and innovation for growth and delivering its graduates with the skills necessary for productivity in the labor market. It also seeks to determine how higher education systems could be improved in order to deliver these outcomes. It features new data and diagnostic material to better understand labor markets, what skills firms want, and what skills graduates have; shows how countries can become more innovative; and describes in detail the key areas of reform needed for higher education to be a larger engine of East Asian growth. It will be of interest to policymakers, governments, academia, donors, NGOs, students, researchers, and lower- and middle-income countries looking to break the middle-income trap.







Implications of Skill-biased Technological Change


Book Description

Demand for less skilled workers decreased dramatically in the US and in other developed countries over the past two decades. We argue that pervasive skill-biased technological change rather than increased trade with the developing world is the principal culprit. The pervasiveness of this technological change is important for two reasons. First, it is an immediate and testable implication of technological change. Second, under standard assumptions, the more pervasive the skill-biased technological change the greater the increase in the embodied supply of less skilled workers and the greater the depressing effect on their relative wages through world goods prices. In contrast, in the Heckscher-Ohlin model with small open economies, the skill-bias of local technological changes does not affect wages. Thus, pervasiveness deals with a major criticism of skill-biased technological change as a cause. Testing the implications of pervasive, skill-biased technological change we find strong supporting evidence. First, across the OECD, most industries have increased the proportion of skilled workers employed despite rising or stable relative wages. Second, increases in demand for skills were concentrated in the same manufacturing industries in different developed countries.