This book offers contemporary insights into the intersection of sustainable development, leadership, innovation, and organizational performance in a global context. Featuring 30 selected papers presented at the 20th Academy of Global Business Advancement (AGBA) World Congress held in Bangkok, Thailand, this book brings together research from scholars across Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States addressing real-world challenges in public governance, green management, digital transformation, and global business. The work also highlights critical themes such as artificial intelligence in marketing and governance, internationalization of global firms, the post-pandemic effects on SMEs, and sustainable practices in hospitality and manufacturing. By offering comparative and cross-country perspectives, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of global trends shaping business and entrepreneurship in an increasingly interconnected and digitalized world. This book is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and graduate students in the fields of business, economics, sustainability, innovation management, and public administration.

Contrary to what German historians often claim, the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century did not peter out or even fail. Although the Nazi dictatorship destroyed the Bauhaus, Dada, and their legacy in Germany in the 1930s, it also triggered a wave of emigration. Many of those who were displaced went to the United States, where they contributed to the avant-gardization of the art world, and where subsequent generations were able to continue developing the project that had remained unfinished in Europe.

Walter Benjamin coined the term "politicization of art" to describe the efforts of avant-garde artists who opposed the "aestheticization of politics" by fascism. The cultural centers of the United States succeeded in picking up on the impetus of activist art practices. This study examines the characteristic differences between the art worlds on both sides of the Atlantic, which arose as a result of historical developments and continue to exist to this day.

This book looks at the multiple ways in which climate change contributes negative impacts on the healthcare sector globally, posing a number of challenges to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In taking an integrative approach to the SDGs and their implementation in Asian healthcare, the book highlights the health consequences of biodiversity loss in the healthcare sector. The authors unpack how rising temperatures, extreme weather conditions, and altering rainfall patterns intensify current health-related threats that slowing progress towards SDG 3, focused on health and well-being. They delve into how disadvantaged, underserved, and marginalized populations, including the elderly, children, and low-income communities, face health risks, highlighting the need for inclusive strategies to achieve gender equality (SDG 5) and reduced inequalities (SDG 10) to promote equality movement and health equity. The book draws attention to how effective implementation and mitigation of climate change risk strategy are essential, including reducing economic inequalities (SDG 8) in rural and/or underdeveloped areas that caused the unequal distribution of healthcare resources and accelerating industry innovation (SDG 9) to strengthen healthcare infrastructure, resilient healthcare systems, and digital healthcare, thus establishing more sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11). Human health and wellness are intricately depending on biodiversity (SDG 14 and SDG 15) to provide well-functioning ecosystems, stabilize the climate, and limit diseases. The volume shows that integrating climate resilience into health policies, corporate strategy, and education planning, is essential for advancing the SDGs and safeguarding public health. Relevant to researchers and policymakers in public health, climate change, and the SDGs, this is a timely contribution to discussions on the challenges facing the SDGs implementation in Asia.

How can a small democracy resist the influence of a powerful authoritarian neighbor? Taiwan is frequently praised for its successful economic development and peaceful transition to democracy, serving as a model for other developing countries. However, it faces substantial challenges, both from internal political divisions and external geopolitical pressures. Taiwan's political landscape is shaped by several significant cleavages: national identity and ethnic disparities, economic inequality and class conflict, and generational and cultural differences. The greatest challenge to Taiwan's democracy comes from the influence of China, which has exploited these cleavages through economic leverage, propaganda, and political interference.

Under the heavy influence of Beijing's sharp power, Taiwan's democracy often faces threats of regression. Whenever China escalates its tactics, Taiwan's civil society has mobilized in response, playing a crucial role in resisting Beijing's strategies and defending democratic institutions. Thung-Hong Lin examines case studies - such as the 2014 Sunflower Movement, the 2019 support for the Hong Kong protests, and recent social movements in 2024 - to demonstrate how Taiwan's vibrant civil society is a key source of democratic resilience. This book also situates Taiwan's struggle within the broader context of US-China relations, showing how global geopolitics over the past half-century has shaped the island's destiny.

This interdisciplinary edited volume offers a timely and authoritative exploration of how inclusive finance can serve as a transformative lever in India's journey toward becoming a developed nation by 2047. drive equitable growth in India and beyond. It brings together eleven contributions from leading academics, policymakers, and practitioners, offering conceptual, empirical, and policy-oriented insights. The book expands conventional debates by foregrounding marginalized groups-such as persons with disabilities, women, smallholder farmers, the elderly, and informal workers-as central to financial inclusion. It combines global and national perspectives with grassroots evidence, examining topics including India's G20-driven digital finance diplomacy, digital public infrastructure (Aadhaar, UPI, PMJDY, DBT), financial innovation for financial inclusion and socioeconomic development, financial literacy for trust-building, retirement planning, disability-inclusive finance, post-pandemic gender gaps in digital finance, the role of FinTech in shaping access to informal credit, industrialization and digital financial inclusion for growth, crop insurance, and the role of microfinance in financial inclusion and economic development.

Organized into three thematic sections, the volume situates India's experience in the global discourse, examines national frameworks and life-stage needs, and highlights sectoral and regional pathways through surveys, econometric analysis, and case-based studies. A unique contribution is the pioneering of some important policy-oriented concepts, such as Disability Financial Inclusion Index, National Disability Financial Inclusion Strategy and National Financial Literacy Integration Mission. This timely resource will benefit scholars, students, regulators, practitioners, and international organizations by providing evidence-based recommendations and globally relevant strategies for advancing equity, empowerment, and sustainable financial inclusion. leading economists, policymakers, and field researchers to provide a comprehensive, evidence-based examination of financial inclusion across four thematic pillars: global frameworks and national strategies; life-cycle and demographic inclusion; community-driven models; and cross-country/regional insights. Emphasising on inclusion at the margins, rural women, persons with disabilities, informal workers, the elderly, and small farmers, this volume expands the boundaries of financial inclusion to address equity, participation, and trust.

Drawing from a rich mix of empirical methods econometric modeling, structuralist macro frameworks, and grassroots-level fieldwork, it covers a wide range of underexplored topics: post-pandemic gender gaps in digital finance, the role of FinTech in informal credit, financial literacy for trust-building, SHG vs. MFI empowerment models, and India's leadership on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and the G20 Financial Inclusion agenda. It also pioneers new tools like a proposed Disability Financial Inclusion Index.

It is beneficial for scholars and students in economics, development studies, public policy, and finance, the book also serves as a practical guide for policymakers, regulators, development practitioners, and international agencies. Its policy recommendations are rooted in local realities from regions like the Sundarbans and Jalgaon, while offering globally relevant insights through SAARC-level and cross-country comparisons.

Commodity trading companies are the unseen giants of global trade, quietly connecting producers and consumers across continents while navigating the complexities of volatile markets, geopolitical pressures, and economic transformations. Much like modern e-commerce platforms, these firms thrive not by owning the assets they move, but by mastering their flow-leveraging logistics, information, and risk management to create value. Against the backdrop of China's extraordinary economic transformation, this thesis adopts a qualitative historical approach to examine the evolution of commodity trading through the lens of Noble Group, one of Asia's most dynamic and diversified trading companies. By tracing Noble's strategies and adaptations, the study uncovers how these intermediaries have shaped and responded to the forces of globalization, offering critical insights into the hidden mechanisms driving the global economy.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of China's economic governance model-its astonishing success in improving the lives of average people and its future challenges. Beginning with a comparative history of the Chinese and US economies from 1979 to 2025, the discussion analyzes the distinct historical phases of China's transformation. The author stresses that the details of a nation's financial system determine whether a sustainable fundamental transformation is possible.

Challenging conventional theories, the author attributes China's achievements to its ability to combine a government-planned financial system that promotes capital investment in infrastructure and industry, highly competitive markets in almost all sectors of the economy, and Confucian/socialist social capital. Using these systems, China created a benevolent cycle of high investment, fierce competition, and rapidly rising real wages.

Looking into future, the author argues that China is now in the midst of a further transition to a new growth model based on industrial upgrading. The crucial roles of industrial clusters and rural entrepreneurs are highlighted, emphasizing China's ability to apply new technologies to farming, small businesses, and manufacturing. Stressing the need for internal competition and rising wages to sustain growth, he concludes that China's unique blend of state facilitation, social capital, strong competition and adaptive reforms offers a viable model for balancing technological progress with broad-based prosperity.

This book provides a groundbreaking analysis of China's industrial reconfiguration through an innovative triple-network lens, uniquely focusing on the pivotal era of the "15th Five-Year Plan". It offers the first dedicated, in-depth examination leveraging a novel integrated framework analyzing firm spatial distribution, supply chain dynamics, and innovation networks within two critical pillars: Industrial Software as the digital backbone and the emerging, complex Low-Altitude Economy. Revealing the intricate interplay between location, production flows, and knowledge creation in these foundational and emerging sectors, it delivers specialized insights essential for scholars and policymakers in industrial economics, innovation, regional planning, and China studies. Key benefits include uncovering future trends critical to the 15th FYP, identifying optimization pathways for supply chain resilience and spatial efficiency, and providing concrete guidance for navigating China's strategic manufacturing upgrade during this decisive period - essential reading for understanding and shaping the next phase of industrial prowess.

This volume is part of?Decentring the History of Reading, a two-volume project that rethinks the history of reading from a Central European perspective. Focusing on sources and contexts often overlooked in Western European models, the case studies show how reading practices developed in a multilingual, politically contested, and institutionally regulated environment. Covering the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, the contributions in the first volume explore readers' engagement with print amid Enlightenment reforms, confessional tensions, emerging national movements, and the rise of the working class.

A case-study approach highlights the diversity of reading practices across social groups, linguistic communities, and institutional settings. Particular attention is given to the interplay between cultural policies and movements-education, censorship, nation-building-and everyday reading. Under conditions of limited access and shifting hierarchies, reading emerges as a practice of negotiation, appropriation, social engagement and participation. The volume offers fresh perspectives on the formation of modern reading cultures and will interest scholars of book history, literary and cultural studies, and the social life of texts.

This book discusses environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting as a measurement of the performance of organisations in achieving sustainable development. It provides an understanding of how businesses manage environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities, and assists readers in communicating sustainability initiatives by facilitating investors' measurement of risk and company performance to accurately inform business decisions in a sustainability context. From January 2024, according to the UE 2022/2464 Directive, known as "Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive" (CSRD), the number of companies required to submit their ESG report is expected to grow by about 50.000 companies in Europe. Given the importance of the subject, the book presents an examination of the concept of sustainability combined in three dimensions: environmental, social, and economic. In addition, the manuscript describes the significance and role of the ESG report for enterprises, which will, in a short time, also involve small and medium-sized enterprises, not currently covered by the obligations of the Community Directive, but that, operating within production and distribution chains, will be led to present their sustainability report. The book is aimed at entrepreneurs and practitioners who want to use sustainability reporting to declare their ESG performances.

This book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the governance framework for credit institutions and certain investment firms introduced by the Capital Requirements Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD IV) in response to the global financial crisis and progressively refined most recently by Directive (EU) 2024/1619 (CRD VI). It systematically and comprehensively analyzes the provisions of the current version of the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) dealing with internal governance, ESG risk management, AI risk governance, directors' duties, suitability requirements, board committees and remuneration. Individual chapters also focus on specific governance requirements related to banking groups, third country branches, the bank resolution framework and public enforcement.
This edited collection brings together the leading European scholars in the field of bank governance and regulation. The chapters examine relevant delegated and implementing legal acts as well as guidelines from the European Central Bank, the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority. Organized in a logical and accessible manner, the book will allow readers to navigate complex topics and will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of corporate governance, banking law, financial services law, and company law.

In 1865 the Cairo Water Company secured a ninety-nine-year concession granting it exclusive control over the water supply in the Egyptian capital. What followed was a profound remaking of the city and everyday life. Historically, water had been drawn from the Nile and delivered to public facilities by manual labor. By the early twentieth century, however, mechanized pumping, underground pipes, and in-home fixtures were rapidly becoming the new norm. Pipe Economics tells the story of modern Cairo through the hidden infrastructure that made this transformation possible.

Drawing on extensive research in Egyptian and British archives, Shehab Ismail uncovers how water and sewage networks reshaped Cairo - its housing and construction patterns, urban planning practices, public health regimes, urban services and their underlying economies, and even national politics. As the old collectively managed water system gave way to private companies and expanding state bureaucracy, faucets, drains, and flushing toilets became defining features of the Egyptian home, altering how people lived, consumed, and understood what it meant to be modern. By following the engineers who designed, built, and managed water infrastructures, this book positions Cairo as a vivid example for exploring a global shift in water management, from a regime rooted in public, communal institutions to one centered on individualized, domestic use.

This book examines the dynamics of knowledge spillovers, sectoral innovation, and firm-level productivity within Vietnam's manufacturing industries. Using Spatial Regression Models and Cross-Classified Models, it analyzes the effects of R&D, foreign direct investment, and trade activities on innovation across 38 sectors and 62 provinces in Vietnam. The findings in the book support the predominance of intra-industry spillovers, aligning with the Marshall hypothesis rather than Jacobs externalities. Sectoral innovation is shown to be positively influenced by R&D and export activities, while FDI and imports exhibit negative associations. At the firm level, characteristics such as size, capital intensity, and export orientation consistently correlate with higher total factor productivity. The book also explores the lagged positive effects of sectoral innovation and provincial human resource externalities on firm productivity, offering insights into the spatial and structural determinants of industrial performance. This book would be an insightful read for those interested in Vietnam's industrial sectors.

Few countries have attempted an economic transformation as ambitious as Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, and this book examines its deeper roots, tracing the evolution of the Kingdom's oil-based development model and the forces driving reform.

The book follows Saudi Arabia's economic, political, and social evolution from the 1980s to the present, culminating in the reforms launched under Vision 2030. It first analyses the structure of the Saudi economy and its reliance on oil revenues, showing how this model shaped state institutions, welfare provision, and economic policy. It then explores the political and social dynamics underpinning reform, including demographic change, governance patterns, and an evolving social contract. Subsequent chapters assess the reforms associated with Vision 2030, their impact on diversification, labour markets, housing, and social change, and the financing mechanisms supporting them, ultimately offering a comprehensive evaluation of the Kingdom's ongoing economic transformation.

This book reconstructs and examines the complex history of Studia Logica, one of the world's leading journals in symbolic logic. While its origins can be traced to 1934, the journal has appeared as a continuous periodical since 1954. Its story is neither simple nor linear, shaped by shifting political contexts, intellectual alliances, and evolving research agendas, and in many ways more intricate than that of comparable journals beyond the Iron Curtain. This book recounts this history through the perspectives of those who shaped the journal-its editors, authors, reviewers, and readers highlighting how political change and academic networks influenced its development. The first part offers a chronological narrative of the journal's history, while the second turns to specific periods, from its early beginnings to its consolidation in the mid-twentieth century and its subsequent international expansion. This book provides both historians of logic and contemporary researchers with a deeper understanding of the role Studia Logica has played in the advancement of modern logic.