Search

Traditional strategy assumes stability and predictability. Today's world is better characterised by turbulence, uncertainty, novelty and ambiguity - conditions that contribute disruptive changes and trigger the search for new ways of coping. This book aims to become the premier guide on how to do scenario planning to support strategy and public policy. Co-authored by three experts in the field, the book presents The Oxford Scenario Planning Approach (OSPA). The approach is both intellectually rigorous and practical. Methodological choices and theoretical aspects in practice are detailed in reference to the relevant literatures and grounded in 6 case studies the authors have been involved with. The book makes several contributions to the field, centred on how learning with scenario planning is supported by re-framing and re-perception; how this iterative process can be embedded in corporate or government settings, and how it helps those that it supports to do well in today's world. The book is written in an accessible style and will be a useful introductory text as well as a useful guide for the more experienced scenario planning practitioner and scholar.

The world is increasingly turbulent and complex, awash with disruptions, tipping points and knock-on effects. These range from the impacts of warfare in the Middle East on energy futures, investment and global currencies to the vast and unpredictable impacts of climate change. All this threatens established strategic planning methods.This book is for business and organizational leaders who want and need to think through how best to deal with increasing turbulence, and with the complexity and uncertainty that come with it. The authors explain in clear language how future orientation and, specifically, modern scenario techniques help to address these conditions. They draw on examples from a wide variety of international settings and circumstances including large corporations, inter-governmental organizations, small firms and municipalities. Readers will be inspired to try out scenario approaches themselves to better address the turbulence that affects them and others with whom they work, live and do business. A key feature of the book is the exchange of insights across the academic-practitioner divide. Scholars of scenario thinking and organizational environments will appreciate the authors' conceptual and methodological advances. What has previously remained jargon only accessible to the highest level of corporate and government futures planners here becomes comprehensible to a wider business and practitioner community.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Richard Normann and his colleagues developed an original approach to strategy, based on seeing value as inherently co-produced in systems. Their 'Value Creating Systems' approach was a strong contrast to the idea of 'competitive advantage' that defined strategy at the time. The approach focuses on the design of the 'offerings' that define relationships among co-producers, and which connect actors in fields which transcend traditional industry borders. In the contemporary networked world, where consumers become co-producers, the ideas Normann and his colleagues developed towards strategy are uniquely effective in explaining and guiding practice.Strategy for a Networked World revisits and further develops these ideas. It is co-authored by two long-standing colleagues of Normann, Rafael Ramírez and Ulf Mannervik, who have successfully applied these ideas to their own consultancy practice. This book provides the theoretical basis for strategies of value co-creation, an accessible methodology and practical guidance, case studies of Facebook and the World Economic Forum, and examples of successful collaborations with organisations such as EDF, Scania, Essity and Shell.Designed to advise strategists and business developers working in uncertain, complex and turbulent contexts, it is suitable both for practitioners and for academics, combining theory and the means to turn it into practice. It will also serve as a valuable contribution to MBA classes and towards the development of more effective business strategies.

The goal of this monograph is to answer the question, is it possible to solve the dynamics problem inside the configuration space instead of the phase space? By introducing a proper class of vector field – the Cartesian vector field – given in a Riemann space, the authors explore the connections between the first order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) associated to the Cartesian vector field in the configuration space of a given mechanical system and its dynamics. The result is a new perspective for studying the dynamics of mechanical systems, which allows the authors to present new cases of integrability for the Suslov and Veselova problem; establish the relation between the Cartesian vector field and the integrability of the geodesic flow in a special class of homogeneous surfaces; discuss the importance of the Nambu bracket in the study of first order ODEs; and offer a solution of the inverse problem in celestial mechanics.

Mientras viajan sobre un tren en busca de una vida mejor, los indocumentados son atacados por la Mara Salvatrucha. De Rafael Ramírez Heredia, ganador del Premio Juan Rulfo. Un marero no se tumba aunque le aticen con todo, no se va a quejar aunque le rompan el alma, ni reconoce más ley que La Vida Loca. En la oscuridad, entre la selva, acecha un racimo de rostros con lágrimas tatuadas en las mejillas. Esperan el paso del tren de carga. Es el infierno que se lleva dentro. Es la furia irracional, inhumana, sórdida. Es la Mara Salvatrucha a punto de saltar sobre los indocumentados que acaban de cruzar la frontera rumbo a la tierra prometida que imaginan en el paraíso capitalista del norte. El gran fenómeno de las migraciones, su violencia y degradación, es el motor de esta novela cubierta por las huellas que a su paso dejan las masas emigrantes, por los cambios que sacuden las costumbres locales y el lenguaje. Su territorio es surcado por el Suchiate, río que divide Guatemala y México. Lo que ha dicho la crítica: "Con su novela, Ramírez Heredia presenta una página negra de los movimientos sociales que aterrizan en la frontera sur mexicana".-Gerardo Bustamente, La Jornada.

What It Means to Be a Man begins with a discussion of machismo set in the context of the social construction of masculinity. Ramírez presents his interpretation of what it means to be a Puerto Rican man, discussing the attributes and demands of masculinity, and pointing out the ways in which strength, competition, and sexuality are joined with power and pleasure. He examines the erotic relationships between men as part of the expressions of masculinity, and analyzes how the homosexual experience reproduces the dominant masculine ideology.

Bruno Yakoski está sentado en Le Marzet, un café parisino que visitara habitualmente con Daniela. Pide, como ella le enseñó, un gin tónic. A diferencia de las otras ocasiones, ahora está solo. Lo está porque ella ha muerto y Bruno ha ido hasta ese local para encontrar el hilo de sus recuerdos.

Amor, aventuras, juventudes ardorosas. Nunca se escribirá todo lo suficiente sobre estos temas. Aun así, los nueve cuentos de este libro descubren misterios y revelan secretos. Amor, aventuras, juventudes ardorosas. Nunca se escribirá todo lo suficiente sobre estos temas. Aun así, los nueve cuentos de este libro descubren misterios y revelan secretos.