This collection marks the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT). It focusses on one major component of a growing network of monitoring bodies, that is, the establishment of NPMs (National Preventive Mechanisms) in a European context. The contributors come from different parts of Europe and bring their unique expertise into the book. In their chapters they reflect on questions related to their countries' processes in ratifying OPCAT as well as the establishment and functioning of the NPMs. The book explores the variety of ways in which NPMs implement their mandate in practice, as well as the key opportunities and challenges they encounter in fulfilling their role.

This book analyses the evolution of competition and shifts in user behaviour over the past quarter-century, since 2000, within Japan's network media market from an economic perspective. It focuses on Japan's distinctive media market, characterised by the traditionally high market share of terrestrial advertising broadcasts and public service broadcasting, and conducts a step-by-step empirical analysis over time based on a wealth of data-a feature that is unique. Furthermore, by analysing not only the platforms but also viewer behaviour on the demand side, and by examining the state of digitalisation and internet distribution, the study offers a comprehensive analysis. Additionally, by focusing on bias in the newspaper market-where political impartiality is not mandated by law-and exploring the possibility of skewed reporting frequency and volume rather than content itself, the book makes a novel contribution. It thus serves as a scholarly work that offers valuable insights for future institutional design in the media market.

This book provides valuable insights into the ways in which economics and management science contribute to sustainable development, organizational innovation, and social well-being. Featuring peer-reviewed contributions presented at the World Conference on Economics and Management (WorldCEM 25) held in Aveiro, Portugal, this book showcases how advanced research methodologies, innovative models, and empirical studies can inform better decision-making across sectors and regions. Featuring interdisciplinary approaches and real-world applications to offer a bridge between theory and practice, this book provides academics, scholars, researchers, and professionals with advanced scholarship in economics and management while also inspiring future research in responsible leadership, evidence-based policymaking, and inclusive growth in a rapidly changing world.

This volume advances a critical conversation at the intersection of business management, innovation, and sustainable development by offering an integrated, multidisciplinary perspective on how organizations can navigate complexity while driving long-term societal value. Bringing together insights from human resource management, technological transformation, and inclusive economic systems, the book develops a coherent framework for understanding how organizations translate strategy into impact.

Structured across five thematic sections, the volume examines: the role of inclusive and ethical leadership in shaping organizational cultures; the mechanisms through which creativity and adaptive capabilities support resilient business models; the linkages between finance, development, and economic inclusion; the strategic implications of emerging digital technologies; and the growing influence of ESG and sustainability frameworks on organizational practice.

Distinguished by its integration of theory and application, the book draws on established and emerging perspectives; including human-centered management approaches, innovation systems thinking, and digitally enabled transformation to illuminate the pathways through which organizations respond to contemporary challenges. It offers both conceptual clarity and practical insight into how firms can align performance with broader societal outcomes.

This volume will be of particular interest to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to understand how management and innovation can be mobilized to address global development challenges. By situating organizational strategy within a broader socio-economic context, it provides a rigorous and forward-looking contribution to the evolving field of responsible and sustainable business.

This book is an essential guide for educators seeking to integrate sustainability into business curricula. It bridges the gap between traditional profit-focused models and the urgent need for environmental and social responsibility. The book provides a robust framework for designing programs that equip future leaders with the skills to navigate complex ethical dilemmas and drive systemic change. This book is an essential guide for educators seeking to integrate sustainability into business curricula. It bridges the gap between traditional profit-focused models and the urgent need for environmental and social responsibility. Featuring diverse case studies and practical teaching strategies, it explores how to embed sustainable development goals across disciplines like finance, marketing, and strategy. This book empowers academics to foster a new generation of business thinkers capable of building a truly sustainable and equitable global economy.

This practical guide offers actionable insights and proven strategies for leaders navigating the complexities of managing distributed teams. Remote leadership goes far beyond adopting the right technology - it demands an intentional combination of communication, team coordination, and strategic alignment. Leading from a distance requires new skills, clear routines, and reliable tools. Rather than focusing solely on theory, this book provides hands-on frameworks that enable leaders to systematically strengthen their remote leadership skills. It begins by laying out the groundwork for effective remote leadership and examining how digital transformation is reshaping the way we lead. It then introduces proven methods and approaches for day-to-day remote leadership practice, with a particular focus on psychological, strategic, and communicative challenges. Backed by research, the book highlights key success factors and future-ready skills for leading distributed teams. Each chapter includes step-by-step methods, self-assessments, and ready-to-use playbooks that can be applied immediately - offering a modular toolkit for effective remote leadership.

Contents

• Remote Leadership - Challenges and Key Success Factors
• How Digital Transformation Is Rewriting the Rules of Leadership
• Leveraging Technology for Remote Team Success
• The Three Pillars of Successful Remote Teams: Structure, Trust, and Vision
• The Art of Balance: Leading and Managing in a Virtual World
• Emotional Intelligence: The Hidden Edge in Remote Leadership

This book is the first to present knowledge systems as an integrative framework that unifies systems thinking and knowledge management into a coherent approach for understanding, designing, and sustaining collective intelligence. It distinguishes itself from existing work by shifting attention away from isolated tools, information assets, or learning initiatives and toward the systemic conditions under which knowledge becomes cumulative, actionable, and resilient. At the heart of this book is the concept of the knowledge system: an adaptive arrangement of people, processes, technologies, and institutions through which knowledge is generated, integrated, and used over time. Rather than treating knowledge-related challenges as separable technical, organizational, or human problems, the book shows how learning and performance depend on the coherence of structures, practices, and feedback loops that connect them. Drawing on conceptual analysis, historical and organizational cases, empirical studies, and methodological development, the book identifies recurring patterns that explain both sustained success and persistent failure across organizations and collective settings.

Its central contribution lies in a design-oriented methodology that enables readers to move beyond diagnosis toward deliberate cultivation and renewal of knowledge systems. This methodology emphasizes reflection, experimentation, and developmental interpretation, supporting long-term learning rather than short-term optimization. By providing a unifying conceptual language and a practical orientation for use, the book advances research in systems thinking and knowledge management while equipping readers to design more adaptive, human-centered, and resilient forms of collective intelligence under conditions of complexity and uncertainty.

Navigating Sustainability: Strategies and Solutions for Business in Emerging and Developing Countries offers a timely and interdisciplinary examination of how sustainability can be embedded within business practices in rapidly transforming economies. As environmental pressures intensify alongside economic growth, businesses are increasingly required to align operational strategies with ecological limits, social equity, and regulatory frameworks, while responding to evolving global sustainability standards, stakeholder expectations, and increasing demands for transparency and accountability.
This volume brings together contributions from leading scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to address key dimensions of sustainability, including climate change mitigation, water and resource management, circular economy transitions, sustainable finance, digital transformation, governance, and ethical considerations. The book emphasises the interconnected nature of environmental processes, socio-economic systems, and institutional structures, advocating for integrated and context-sensitive approaches that bridge theory, policy, and practice.
With a strong focus on emerging and developing countries, the book highlights both the structural challenges and the innovative potential within these regions, particularly in the context of rapid urbanisation, resource constraints, and institutional diversity. By combining conceptual frameworks with applied case studies, it provides valuable insights for academics, policymakers, and business leaders seeking to navigate sustainability transitions in complex and dynamic environments.

Rethinking life with microbes through the art of natural fermentation

Within us and around us, microbes are everywhere, constantly reshaping what it means to be human as we interact with them - sometimes knowingly, sometimes not. Singing with Invisible Worlds theorizes human-microbe relationships through a rare ethnographic account of the fermentation process at the 350-year-old Terada Honke, one of only two natural sake breweries in Japan.

Painting a vivid picture of how sake brewers collaborate with bacteria, molds, and yeasts, Maya Hey reveals that ambient microbes are not controlled but courted, cultivated, and deliberately choreographed. As the brewers adapt to shifting microbial dynamics, they engage in what Hey calls an "improvisational ethic" - a way of responding to the unknown with care and attentiveness through each phase of blooming and waning across weeks, months, and even centuries. In documenting these remarkable practices, Singing with Invisible Worlds offers an intimate, situated understanding of how we can come to know and live with microbial life, with implications for feminist theory, science and technology studies, and multispecies ethnography.

Unsettling simplistic notions of "good" or "bad" microbes, this book presents a compelling vision for planetary coexistence - one that starts not with grand solutions but with small, rhythmic acts of microscopic attunement.

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Perhaps more than ever, we need to invest in the study of the causes and consequences of crises. Since its founding in 1975, the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project has aimed to better equip academics, policymakers, and the next generation of engaged citizens to make sense of why crises arise and how they can be more effectively managed and prevented. The ICB Project's data holdings consist of full-length qualitative case studies, along with an expanding range of quantitative datasets that include information regarding the characteristics of the states in crisis, crisis behavior, attempts at third-party crisis management, the role of nonstate actors, and the system-level context.

A Century of International Crisis Behavior summarizes the evolving patterns of international crisis behavior in the more than 500 cases cataloged since 1918, provides an accounting of the state of the scholarship to make sense of the patterns, and presents new findings that advance our understanding. Chapters are grouped according to their level of analysis: studies of systems, dyads, and states. The authors highlight what we have learned and what we have yet to learn regarding the prevention, escalation, and de-escalation of international crises.

This book demonstrates how live action roleplay (LARP) and immersive scenario-based training are powerful tools for building high-performing organizations, and establishing competitive advantage. Drawing on organizational psychology and experiential learning, it explains how work itself functions as a socially constructed "game" shaped by goals, roles, and culture-and how intentionally redesigning these elements can shift team dynamics quickly and sustainably. Through practical examples and research-backed methods, the book demonstrates how storytelling, shared narratives, and structured roleplay build trust, accelerate team development, and strengthen decision-making under pressure. It tackles common organizational challenges from conflict resolution and emotional safety to leadership identity, goal alignment, and crisis rehearsal, illustrating how immersive techniques compress months of team learning into hours.

Offering a toolkit of evidence-based and experiential practices, this book equips managers, HR professionals, and consultants as well as scholars, academics, and students with innovative approaches for driving engagement, resilience, and cohesive performance across teams and organizations.

Praise for The LARP Effect

"Watching this work evolve has been a reminder of what meaningful scholarship can be: rigorous, imaginative, and unapologetically useful. This book does not ask readers to adopt a framework, it invites them to step inside a system and see themselves clearly. That is where real learning begins." -- Rosanne Roberts, PhD, Research Liaison, ORS, Capella University

"The danger of our modern society is the stripping of stories into abstractions like data, metrics, and models. Despite its best attempts, modernity does not strip stories, so much as disenchant them and render them invisible to us...The LARP Effect shows us how to glimpse the magic of our every day. Though LARP games and their decisions may be fictional, our actual experience of them grants us perspective on the stories we already live and share with one another, in work, life or any other context." -- David Yu, Summer Program for Applied Rationality and Cognition (SPARC)

"One of the most experienced designers in the world, Balzac brings over 40 years of organizational knowledge and storytelling to the business world, reteaching us how to play the game." -- Ryan Hart, Creative Director, Sinking Ship Creations (Blooloop's Top 50 Immersive Influencer)

"This book reframes leadership in a way that actually sticks. Work is a game of sorts, and this book shows how to design it, so people engage, decide, and perform better. It's practical. It's memorable. And it gets to how organizations really work." - Sid Probstein, CEO, SWIRL

"...[Steve's] ability to capture the essence of a problem and translate it into real world action but in a non-threatening play environment is astounding...this book offers the blueprint for transforming your organizational culture through shared, living stories."--Ronald Espinosa, Director, Google Category, Softchoice, Inc

"Dr. Balzac masterfully blends conceptual innovation, clear and engaging prose, intellectual depth, and practical business insights. His unique LARP approach significantly strengthens team unity, boosts productivity, and enhances ongoing team effectiveness." -- Eric Bloom, Executive Director, IT Management and Leadership Institute

Die Arbeit untersucht die ungeklaerte materielle Reichweite des Herkunftslandprinzips in den Geltungsbereichen der ECRL und des DSA im Vergleich zur Reichweite des Sendestaatprinzips der AVMD-RL. Zudem werden die Auswirkungen des Herkunftslandprinzips im DSA auf die landesrechtliche Regulierung von Medienintermediaeren in Deutschland behandelt und bestehende regulatorische Spielraeume im Rahmen des MStV, JMStV, JuSchG und NetzDG analysiert. Beide Fragen sind dringlich, da der DSA als unmittelbar anwendbare Verordnung gilt und Vorrang gegenueber entgegenstehendem Landesrecht in Deutschland hat.

This book explores the intricate relationship between age and online communication, offering a comprehensive analysis of how aging influences consumer responses to digital information. As the global population ages, understanding these dynamics is crucial for marketers and researchers alike. Covering key concepts such as older consumers' trust in online reviews, their purchasing preferences, and their responses to corporate sustainability messages, the book adds a novel perspective to a field dominated by research into younger consumers. Through empirical studies, the authors provide actionable insights for communication specialists, highlighting the importance of tailoring strategies to different age groups. This book is a must-read for those seeking to enhance their understanding of consumer behavior in the digital age.

Fintech, Digital Finance & the GCC: Navigating a New Era

The Gulf Cooperation Council is at the forefront of a sweeping financial transformation - driven by bold regulation, cutting-edge technology, and a clear vision for sustainable growth. This volume, originating from the Gulf Research Meeting (GRM) 2025 at the University of Cambridge, offers students and professionals a rigorous yet accessible window into that transformation.

Drawing on empirical research across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and beyond, the book examines the forces reshaping modern finance: open banking, digital literacy, financial inclusion, Shari'ah-compliant innovation, and smart contracts. Spanning economics, law, sustainability, and technology, it connects theory to real-world outcomes - showing how the GCC navigates cybersecurity threats and cross-border regulatory complexity while positioning itself as a global leader in digital, sustainable finance.

This book examines how digital platforms are reshaping work, media ecosystems, and data-driven strategies. As a continuation from Platform Business Models and Strategies Vol 1, this book explores the changing nature of labor and leadership in platform businesses, the evolution of social media and news models, and the challenges of trust, reputation, and big data analytics. With insights into policy, privacy, network neutrality, this book offers a comprehensive examination of the forces driving innovation and regulation in a platform economy. This book is essential reading for scholars, researchers, practitioners, students, and industry leaders navigating the digital future.

In an era of supply chain volatility and rapid technological disruption, warehouse operations must evolve beyond mere efficiency. This book offers a practical roadmap for designing and managing warehouses that are not only fast and lean but also resilient, adaptive, and intelligent.

Drawing on real-world case studies and research-backed frameworks, the book explores the next generation of warehouse systems. It introduces tools such as automation readiness frameworks, orchestration resilience principles, digital twins, and AI-enhanced Lean Six Sigma to help practitioners address coordination failures, design gaps, and the need for human-in-the-loop oversight.

The book is structured in three parts to guide readers from foundational insights to strategic transformation. Part I redefines smart warehousing through a resilience lens, analyzing why many high-tech warehouses remain fragile. Part II offers practical tools, frameworks, and emerging technologies to operationalize resilient design. Part III focuses on transformation, addressing workforce readiness, education, ethical automation, and the strategic roadmap to 2030.

Whether you're a warehouse manager, operations strategist, or technology leader, this book equips you to build smarter systems that thrive under pressure.

This interdisciplinary volume introduces Entrepreneurial Life Design (ELD) as a transformative framework for navigating personal and professional transitions in an era of uncertainty. Drawing from entrepreneurship education, human-centered design, and career development, the book offers theoretical foundations, empirical insights, and practical tools to foster purpose, resilience, and adaptability. Contributions from leading scholars and practitioners explore ELD's application across educational, organizational, and societal contexts, with case studies and program models that support learners, professionals, and changemakers. By integrating research-based strategies with real-world relevance, this volume empowers individuals and institutions to design sustainable, value-driven futures. It is an essential resource for educators, coaches, researchers, and anyone seeking clarity and agency in shaping their life and career paths.

At the heart of strategic management is the definition of a company's business unit strategy, which is supported by corporate portfolio management. While the concept of corporate portfolio management, its role within the strategic management process, as well as the corresponding corporate portfolio instruments have been extensively addressed by literature, the communication of corporate portfolio information towards a company's shareholders and other stakeholders has not received in depth research attention yet. This book offers an innovative research approach by creating a concept for corporate portfolio communication including its dimensions, extent and communication, based on which stock market and behavioral CEO antecedents are investigated.

For two decades, the dispute over national identity has dominated public discourse in France, polarising political parties, dividing academics and intellectuals, and fuelling one of the main controversies of the post-Cold War era. Yet for all the attention France's identity crisis has received, the origins of this obsession remain widely misunderstood. Key to unlocking this puzzle lies in the overlooked history of the 1980s-a crucial decade in which French national identity became bound up with a renewed political focus on culture. In this period, it was not the far right, but the Left, that reinvigorated debates around French identity. This book recovers a buried chapter. It explains when and how the politics of national identity emerged in France, and how it transformed public life, offering a fresh perspective on the relationship between culture and nation in contemporary democracies. As identity politics fractures democracies across the Western world-fuelling culture wars, inflaming debates over immigration, and redrawing the boundaries of belonging-Cultural Nationalism in France could not be more timely. Charting the wider arc from May 1968 to the end of Mitterrand's presidency in 1995, this book reveals how questions of citizenship, multiculturalism and competing cultural identities moved from the margins to the very heart of political life, a transformation whose consequences are still unfolding today.

Arms control is eroding amid a rapidly changing and increasingly uncertain security environment. In addition to a spate of treaty withdrawals and demises that have occurred since 2002, major powers are militarizing space, and private actors are developing technologies at lightning speed. Thus, there is an urgent need for arms control agreements that incorporate multiple actors and weapons to mitigate uncertainty; yet, conditions of increasing uncertainty make reaching such agreements extremely challenging, if nearly impossible. This is what Amy J. Nelson calls the arms control paradox.

Drawing on years of research and policy experience, Nelson explores why traditional arms control strategies often fall short in today's security environment. Most past agreements were built on assumptions of transparency, reciprocity, and predictability that no longer hold in a multipolar world shaped by advanced technologies and strategic opacity. By focusing narrowly on eliminating known dangers through rigid verification and technical controls, arms control has inadvertently neglected uncertainty management-the ability to acclimate to the unknown. This book proposes an adaptive approach: one that focuses on managing ambiguity rather than eliminating it and reflects how real-world decisions unfold under pressure. The Arms Control Paradox provides valuable insights and policy-relevant guidelines for twenty-first-century arms control.