Foreign Investment, Development, and Globalization: Can Costa Rica Become Ireland?

Book Description

This book engages the question, hotly debated among theorists and policymakers alike, of how a developing country's pursuit of foreign direct investment (FDI) affects its development prospects in a globalized world. Can small latecomers to economic development use high-tech FDI to rapidly expand indigenous capabilities, thus shortcutting stages of the industrialization process? What conditions, economic and non-economic, must be met for this strategy to succeed? Using the cases of Ireland and Costa Rica, the author shows how the dynamics of the FDI-development nexus have changed over time, rendering problematic Costa Rica's attempt, and those of other latecomers, to replicate the Celtic Tiger's success story.

Book Description

Knowledge-Driven Work is a pioneering study of the cross-cultural iffusion of ideas about the organization of work. These ideas, linked with the knowledge of the workforce, are rapidly becoming the primary source of competitive advantage in the world economy. The book provides an in-depth look at eight Japanese-affiliated manufacturing facilities operating in the United States, combined with examinations of their sister facilities in Japan. The authors offer their insights into the complex process by which elements of work systems in one country interact with those in another. They trace the flow of ideas from Japan to the US and other nations, and the beginnings of a reverse diffusion of innovation back to Japan. The authors organize their findings into six categories: the cross-cultural diffusion of work practices, team-based work systems, kaizen and employee involvement, employment security, human resource management, and labor-management relations. Their study of team-based work systems yields a taxonomy of teams and reveals some conflicts between the desire for self-management and the existence of interdependencies. Investigations into kaizen (ongoing incremental improvement) indicate that its emphasis on employee-driven, systematic problem solving makes it a strong counterpoint to the idea of top-down "re-engineering." Looking at employment security, the authors note that while most US managers believe that it restrains managerial flexibility, managers at the firms they observed see it as essential to the flexibility associated with teamwork and kaizen. The study of human resource management practices suggests competitive advantages in diverse, older, unionized, and urban work forces, and emphasizes the importance of wide-ranging training programs in a work system premised on a long-term perspective. The "wildcard" in the work places observed is labor-management relations, the area in which Japanese managers have been least likely to import their ideas. The authors report on several situations in which existing labor-management structures remained untouched, with mixed results: greater labor-management consultation, for example, but also increased ambiguity of roles. The thread running through all of these areas of work is "virtual knowledge," an ephemeral form of knowledge derived from a particular combination of people focused on a given issue. The authors point out that this powerful form of knowledge is only effectively harnessed in environments that are free of fear, that have established procedures for collective problem-solving, and that have some stability in group composition. They claim that too often companies allow virtual knowledge to dissipate, squandering opportunities to create more competitive workplaces. For those organizations that have succeeded in anticipating and channeling it, however, virtual knowledge leads to a knowledge-driven workplace and continuous improvement.

Customer Reviews:

Linking Lean Manufacturing & Labor Relations.......2001-01-18

This book is an invaluable source of perspective on understanding the subtle linkage between driving world class manufacturing and human relations. Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld is clearly one of the pre-eminent scholars in the field of labor relations today and this book demonstrates his ability to diagnose and explain complex scenarios and relationships with ease and clarity.

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California Ranchos & Farms 1846 - 1862: Including the Letters of John Quincy Adams Warren of 1861, Being Largely Devoted to Livestock, Wheat Farming, Fruit Raising and the Wine Industry

Manufacturer: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IFXPOU

Average customer rating:
California ranchos and farms, 1846-1862,: Including the letters of John Quincy Adams Warren of 1861, being largely devoted to livestock, wheat farming, fruit raising, and the wine industry
John Quincy Adams Warren
Manufacturer: State Historical Society of Wisconsin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006BS5T6

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CALIFORNIA RANCHOS AND FARMS, 1846-1862, Including the Letters of John Quincy Adams Warren of 1861, Being Largely Devoted to Livestock, Wheat Farming, Fruit Raising, and the Wine Industry
Paul W. Gates
Manufacturer: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000V91D7O

Book Description

While we may have always assumed that insects employ auditory communication, our understanding of it has been impeded by various technical challenges. In comparison to the study of an insect's visual and olfactory expression, research in the area of acoustic communication has lagged behind. Filling this void, Insect Sounds and Communication is the first multi-author volume to present a comprehensive portrait on this elusive subject. The text includes 32 chapters written by top experts from all corners of the globe. Divided into two major sections, this groundbreaking text starts with a general introduction to insect sounds and communication that leads into a discussion of the technical aspects of recording and analyzing sounds. It then considers the functioning of the sense organs and sensory systems involved in acoustic behavior, and goes on to investigate the impact that variables such as body size and temperature have on insect sounds and vibrations. Several chapters are devoted to various evolutionary and ecological aspects of insect communication, and include rare information on seldom-studied groups, including Neuropterida and Plecoptera. The second section of the book includes chapters on communication and song repertoires of a wide diversity of insects, including Heteroptera, Auchenorrhyncha, Psylloidea, Diptera, Coleoptera, and Hymenoptera . Insect Sounds and Communication is packaged with a DVD, which holds sound and video recordings of many of the insects discussed throughout the text, as well as many full color illustrations not included in the printed text. The DVD also features an unabridged discussion in French of the contribution of the famous French cicadologist, Michel Boulard.

Book Description

For the first time, trends in 20 major economic and federal budget indicators, most reported since World War II, are presented in a single source. The economic performances under each presidential administration are ranked for each indicator, as well as for their overall performance. The results are often surprising and counter-intuitive, challenging many popular beliefs. This presentation of averages, trends, and illustrations will allow scholars, students, and others interested in economics, politics, and history, to interpret economic news more effectively.

An Economic Record of Presidential Performance: From Truman to Bush

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An Economic Record of Presidential Performance: From Truman to Bush
Richard J. Carroll
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORBD8W

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Biology : Hits. on the Web - Carol Clark - Paperback

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0030477840

Product Description

Publisher: Edition:

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HITS on the Web Biology 2002
Carol Lea Clark
Manufacturer: Thomson Learning
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books

jp-unknown1 | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 075930677X

Book Description

Recently revised for 2002, HITS on the web (HOW) is an exciting, class tested product specially designed to help students utilize the Internet for studying, conducting research, and completing assignments. HOW is approximately 80 pages of valuable teaching tools that can be bundled with any Thomson textbook at a very affordable price.

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Hits on the Web, Biology 2004
Carol Lea Clark
Manufacturer: Custom Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Recently revised for 2004, HITS on the Web (HOW) is an exciting, class-tested product specially designed to help students utilize the Internet for studying, conducting research, and completing assignments. HOW is approximately 100 pages of valuable teaching tools that can be bundled with any Thomson textbook at a very affordable price. Contact your Thomson Representative today to find out which version of HOW will complement your course.

Nutrition Science 3e Sg & Psych Hits on Web Set

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Nutrition Science 3e Sg & Psych Hits on Web Set
Smolin
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Nutrition: Science and Application, Third Edition, with the Total Dietary Assessment 2001 CD, with Biology: Hits.on the Web, Package

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Nutrition: Science and Application, Third Edition, with the Total Dietary Assessment 2001 CD, with Biology: Hits.on the Web, Package
Smolin
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

The Best Little Book on Survey Research!

Customer Value Management: A Guide for Your Journey to Best-Practice Processes (Passport to Success Series)
Khalid Hafiz , and Scott Hendricks
Manufacturer: Amer Productivity Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Customer Service | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1928593526

Book Description

As one of the titles in the American Productivity & Quality Center's Passport to Success series, Customer Value Management: A Guide for Your Journey to Best-Practice Processes provides readers with a practical approach to implementing a successful customer value management program that enables the voice of the customer to resonate. Based on years of research into the practices of leading organizations--and supported by examples of best practices and tips from actual practitioners--this book written by Khalid Hafiz and Scott Hendricks of Global Customer Value Management, LLC. provides mechanisms to gauge current status, understand the components of customer value management, and determine how to deliver superior value to customers. Quantity discounts are available.

Customer Reviews:

The Best Little Book on Survey Research!.......2006-09-27

How can I say that this is the best little book on survey research, and yet give it only four stars? Simply stated, I strongly object to the notion of linking compensation to customer-survey results. Notwithstanding, this is the book that I buy and give to people who want to conduct effective surveys, know where their companies stand, and improve their competitive positions. It is a gem!

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Benin Business Intelligence Report
USA International Business Publications
Manufacturer: International Business Publications, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0739725181

Book Description

This report contains business intelligence information for succesful export-import, business and investment operations, strategic contacts and more... The report also contains selected information on investment and business opportunities, international economic projects, tenders, government projects, as well as, marketing and export-import opportunities information.

Book Description

Have you ever wanted to make change happen more easily? Do you want to harness the power of coaching? Is so, help is at hand, as the simple three-step process in this book can help anyone become an effective coach.

Customer Reviews:

Powerful Coaching Structural Framework.......2005-10-23

The science and arts of coaching is being turned into its simplicity in the form of ABC steps. I have just tried out the ABC techniques with a few coachee, I see the immediate impact and effect.

At the same time, the authors explained the rationale, theories behind the simple steps, and these open up a whole new horizontal of learning for me (as a reader and a coach). That is, I appreciate more and more that ABC provides me a mental structural map for me to explore the mental state and inner world of the coachee, with greater need for sound and relevant theories and sensory sensitivities on my part as a coach to elicit and detect crucial signals (conscious or unconscious) from the coachee for each of the recommended question of the ABC steps.

This ABC as a main framework combined with other relevant therapies and coaching strategies, becomes a powerful tool that can help me to become an effective coach.

[...]

Product Description

"Poverty and the WTO breaks new ground in addressing a key question: how does trade liberalization affect the poor? It is the first book to link the WTO negotiations in Geneva with the attempts of impoverished households in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to emerge from poverty. New analytical approaches and nearly a dozen detailed country studies provide accessible account of the connection between trade and poverty and of the choices that policy makers face. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the poverty impacts of Doha, be they researcher or policy maker." - Anthony J. Venables, Chief Economist, U.K. Department of International Development Yu Kuo-Hwa Professor of International Economics London School of Economics and Political Science "In this volume, many of the world's top scholars of international trade and development address an issue that should be at the forefront of the current trade negotiations. It couldn't be more welcome." - Alan V. Deardorff, John W. Sweetland Professor of International Economics Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan Poverty reduction is deemed to be a centerpiece of the Doha Development Agenda currently being negotiated under the auspices of the WTO. Yet there is considerable debate about the poverty impacts of such an agreement. Some are convinced it will increase poverty, while others are equally convinced that it will lead to poverty reduction. This book brings the best scientific methods to bear on this question, taking into account the specific characteristics embodied in the Doha Development Agenda.

POVERTY AND THE WTO : IMPACTS OF THE DOHA DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

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POVERTY AND THE WTO : IMPACTS OF THE DOHA DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
THOMAS W. (EDT)/ WINTERS, L. ALAN (EDT) HERTEL
Manufacturer: WORLD BANK PUBLICATIONS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KVB6XE

Book Description

Highlights the rapid evolution of the surface science of catalysts. Focuses on multi-technique strategies for studying catalytic reactions and catalytic materials. Discusses new developments in electron microscopy, laser-induced desorption, magnetic methods, and new vibrational characterization techniques.

Book Description

FEAR & REALITY. . . A Vietnam War Diary

The first person account of a U.S. Army Combat Military Policeman's experiences in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam from 1966 until 1967. The account of a struggle to implement the combined U. S. Military/ South Vietnamese Pacification Program while enforcing the Military Code of Conduct. Serving with units of the 101st Airborne and the 1st Cavalry Division of the US Army, the author found himself, at times, deep in the enemy territory. It is a story about the daily exertion required to survive the hostile jungle environment, punctuated by short bursts of intense fear, exhilaration, and death. The author experiences first hand the up-close and personal combat of guerrilla war.

It is also a story of a real test of faith and the search for understanding. The author displays vivid raw emotions as they occurred and which will never be forgotten.

A walk in reality to be enjoyed by everyone who wants to know what kind of war it was, and a chance to relate for my fellow veterans.

From the Author

I dedicate this recounting to all my brothers who served in Vietnam and did a job that seemed as thankless as any in our history as a Nation. It is offered as a rebuttal to all the popular novels depicting the American solider as a dishonorable lot. The truth is almost 3,000,000 men and women served in the Vietnam War and the vast overwhelming majority served their country honorably.

Latrell Bellard

Book Description

"This is truly an exceptional work.... It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the Native people of Texas by introducing new information from previously unused sources and fresh English translations of known documents."

—William C. Foster, author of Spanish Expeditions into Texas, 1689-1768

The region that now encompasses Central Texas and northern Coahuila, Mexico, was once inhabited by numerous Native hunter-gather groups whose identities and lifeways we are only now learning through archaeological discoveries and painstaking research into Spanish and French colonial records. From these key sources, Maria F. Wade has compiled this first comprehensive ethnohistory of the Native groups that inhabited the Texas Edwards Plateau and surrounding areas during most of the Spanish colonial era.

Much of the book deals with events that took place late in the seventeenth century, when Native groups and Europeans began to have their first sustained contact in the region. Wade identifies twenty-one Native groups, including the Jumano, who inhabited the Edwards Plateau at that time. She offers evidence that the groups had sophisticated social and cultural mechanisms, including extensive information networks, ladino cultural brokers, broad-based coalitions, and individuals with dual-ethnic status. She also tracks the eastern movement of Spanish colonizers into the Edwards Plateau region, explores the relationships among Native groups and between those groups and European colonizers, and develops a timeline that places isolated events and singular individuals within broad historical processes.

Customer Reviews:

Spanish explorations, missions of Edwards Plateau 1582-1700.......2006-06-27

Very little information on the native americans of the region, mostly describing the various mission, friars, expeditions, travels, of norther Mexico and the southwest central portion of Texas (edwards plateau region). 90% about early European travels, 10% about native americans. Not recommended.

A Definitive Study of Early Texas History.......2006-04-08

Maria Wade's "The Native Americans of the Texas Edwards Plateau" (2003) is destined to be a definitive study in the early Texas history of the Edwards Plateau. Her thorough research considers the vast majority of Spanish sources for the central Texas region form 1582 to 1799.

Wade's story is one of discovery, conquistador aggression, Indian wars, negotiation, and colonization. Her history presents a chronological narrative of the earliest Spanish encounters, and their results, with Texas' native tribes. She reviews the Bosque-Larios Expedition, the Mendoza-Lopez Expedition, the Apache move to revolt, the Comanche invasions of Apache land, and the tenuous Spanish peace. (All of this occurred 100 years before the earliest 19th century Anglo arrival from the U.S.)

Wade's book (270 pages in hardback) is well documented with 11 pages of endnotes, 12 pages of unpublished primary sources (the diaries and journals from the original Spanish hands), and 9 pages of secondary published materials. Thirteen helpful maps through the book document each chapter's progression.

From Wade we learn that central west Texas and western central Texas (the Edwards Plateau region) was first explored by Spaniards from Santa Rosa (Coahuila, Mexico) looking to settle the region (as a buffer colony against the fierce northern Apaches). Later explorations from Monclova and El Paso del Norte searched for settlement sites and looked for the famed fresh water pearls in the Concho River Valley (near present day San Angelo, Texas). (These pearl legends persist in and around Angelo even today!) By the end of the 17th century the Spanish had begun a building campaign of missions and forts from this region eastward towards the Sabine River.

Wade brings ample documentation to the early 18th century Apache wars. The weakened Apaches fell before invading Comanches by mid century (this new native group were the grandparents of the warriors who brought calamity and fear to Texas' Anglo settlements a century later) even with their hated Spanish "alliance"!

Wade's meticulous study is interesting and informative. She explains her translation method (from Spanish to English) is a section at the end of the book. Her persuasive writing style is not so techincal as to confuse or limit learning. This book is very recommendable to all who want to know more about Texas history, early Native American presence in the southwest, and Spanish American history buffs.

Average customer rating:
Beaver Creek Natural Resource Conservation Area (Lake Louise Beaver pond and environs): Its preservational history
Ronald J Taylor
Manufacturer: Ronald J. Taylor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Conservation | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006RGHOU

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