Through diverse case studies, Kshetri demonstrates the possibilities for this technology in building trust where it is currently lacking, and as a powerful tool against corruption and inefficiency. This second edition also includes expanded coverage of the Metaverse and Web3 gaming, featuring up-to-date economic impact analysis of Play-to-Earn models, as well as recent data on market valuations, adoption rates and developer growth. Ultimately, the book emphasizes that blockchain's future lies in creating a transparent, global infrastructure for any transaction requiring a verifiable record of truth.

The Rise of Blockchains is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of business and management, economics and information systems. Strategists, technology developers and legal and compliance professionals will also benefit from practical insights into this rapidly evolving field.

The author eschews traditional, single-country approaches and adopts a comparative perspective. The Modern Guide explores the economics of happiness, examining why some middle-income economies score higher on the happiness index than recent economic success stories. It also investigates the nature and quality of democratic governance, economic growth, poverty and inequality, and the labour market across Asia. The book assesses Asian economies from the perspective of the Millenium Development Goals and UN Sustainable Development Goals, evaluating how countries across Asia are managing climate change.

A Modern Guide to Developing Asian Economies is a pivotal resource for scholars and students seeking to broaden their understanding of Asian economics and development studies. Economists and NGO workers will also benefit from its comprehensive lens and timely suggestions.

Leading experts integrate decades of scholarship with recent advances in the field, addressing foundational questions such as why firms merge, how value is created and distributed between stakeholders, how markets and regulators respond to acquisitions, and how mergers affect innovation, labor markets, and industry structure. The chapters combine diverse empirical approaches and theoretical perspectives, from classic event-study evidence to behavioral economics, cross-border institutional research, activist investors, and structural estimation, highlighting both enduring findings, including persistent gains to targets and the mixed performance of acquirers, and emerging research frontiers shaped by globalization, private capital, and data-driven methods.

This Companion offers researchers and students in business, economics, finance, and management an authoritative guide to what we know about mergers and acquisitions and where the field is heading. Practitioners and policymakers will likewise benefit from its insights into how M&A continue to shape corporate organization and economic activity in an era of technological and geopolitical change.

Detailed international case studies outline novel approaches in geography education, such as GIS integration and formative assessment strategies, to trace a secure path ahead for the field. Contributing authors evaluate the impact of field experiences, spatial technologies, social labs, education networks, and teacher capacity on future improvements to global geography education. They highlight innovations in geography teaching and learning, combining theoretical and practical insights to provide key recommendations for forthcoming programs.

This book is a crucial resource for scholars and researchers in geography education, as well as geography educators seeking to advance their practical teaching methods. Educational policymakers will likewise benefit from its astute and timely strategies for development and curriculum planning.

The Soul of Education is a deeply integrative exploration (both spiritual and secular) of what it means to reclaim the moral, spiritual and relational heart of schooling. Drawing together contemporary educational research, insights from Vedic philosophy and lived practice, the book invites readers to re-examine the purposes and possibilities of education in a rapidly changing world.

Through interconnected chapters, the authors present a soul-led vision of education, grounded in teachings from the Bhagavad Gita and Vedic thought. They explore how beliefs, virtues and values shape character, agency and wellbeing in school life, while critiquing the performative pressures and utilitarian aims that have eroded the "soul" of modern schooling. Central to the book is the Tree of Life framework, which integrates Educational Excellence, Character Formation and Spiritual Insight to create a holistic ecology of learning beyond religious designations or traditions. Practical examples and classroom anecdotes illustrate how educators and parents can foster inner growth through listening, reflection, meditation and compassionate action.

This book is ideal for educators, parents, policymakers and anyone invested in the future of education. It speaks to those seeking alternatives to materialism and performativity, offering tools to address the challenges of growing up in a technologically advanced, socially fragmented world.

Combining both empirical and theoretical analyses, this insightful book presents a clear, research-informed model for running classroom discussions that are both intellectually rigorous and genuinely inclusive.

Building on feminist analyses of how gendered norms shape who speaks, who is heard, and what counts as "good" reasoning, the book shows why conventional formats often privilege assertive, adversarial styles and marginalise other valuable repertoires of thinking and communicating. Introducing a novel pedagogical tool, Critical Collaborative Dialogue (CCD), it offers a practical framework that specifies a democratic setup, problem-posing questions that matter, open questioning, personal engagement, and teacher facilitation that shares epistemic authority. This model is adaptable across subjects and year levels, and is grounded in dialogic traditions such as exploratory dialogue and philosophy for and with children (P4wC). Readers see how these design choices redistribute talk, deepen reasoning, and lift students' sense of meaning and belonging, with evidence from student interviews and focus groups.

Written for scholars, researchers, and teacher educators interested in oracy, dialogic pedagogy, and gender equity, it offers ready-to-use structures, language moves, and routines that help build classrooms where diverse voices contribute to high-quality thinking and where all students experience discussion as a place to learn, belong, and lead.

This book takes inspiration from AIDS activist history to argue that current individualized approaches to the queer suicide crisis could be expanded to include structural work. Critiquing initiatives that fail to address traumatic conditions causing queer suicidality, it proposes adapting AIDS activist strategies as educational resistance to the structural forces that make many queer people not want to be alive.

The book explores six areas critical to improving the livability of queer communities: (1) familial homophobia and transphobia, (2) poverty, (3) healthcare, (4) education, (5) lateral violence, and (6) administrative violence. Examining both lived realities and educational implications, it makes an urgent case for the importance of addressing these six areas for queer folks, especially trans youth, in an increasingly conservative climate.

A timely and forward-thinking volume, this book will be of interest to researchers, students, and activists working on queer history, mental health, HIV/AIDS, activism, and queer and trans studies.

This book discusses the codification and decodification of private law in the Chinese context with a specific focus on property management services contracts as a distinct example within the broader category of supply of services contracts.

The book begins by contextualising codification and decodification within the current literature and legislative developments at the global level. It then turns to the Chinese Civil Code, using property management services contracts as a case study of its decodification. It assesses these contracts both within the Chinese legal system and through a comparative law lens, using the Roman law model of lease and hire and Hong Kong law. The book argues that, due to significant decodification present at the very moment of promulgation, the Civil Code failed to achieve its goal of ensuring coherence in China's private law system.

These insights will interest scholars of comparative law, Chinese law, Roman law and contract law, as well as policymakers and lawmakers discussing strategies for regulation and transformations of law in other jurisdictions.

Most previous studies of Adam Smith's methodology, with a few exceptions, have placed considerable emphasis on the undeniable influence of Newtonian physics and Humean empiricism.

This book argues that other sources are at least as important: Smith's own didactic rhetoric and the methodological writings of Rene Descartes. Smith began his public life in 1748, lecturing on rhetoric in Edinburgh. During this time he also wrote a history of astronomy, tracing its development from the age of mythical thought to Descartes (later incorporating Newton's ideas). In his History of Astronomy, he was less concerned with the truth value of theories than with their ability to quiet the human imagination by systematically combining numerous phenomena under a few unifying principles. In his lectures on rhetoric, he considered this approach to be the best method of didactic exposition. In both cases, he attached the greatest importance to one of the authors he cited most often between 1748 and 1763, Descartes. As such, Descartes and rhetoric were central to the young Smith's thinking prior to the publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Consequently, any methodological examination of Smith's published works must be framed as a question of didactic exposition seen through a Cartesian lens.

This book will appeal particularly to historians of philosophy and economic theory, as well as to scholars of Adam Smith's life and work.

Leading authors in the field analyse precarity, the glass ceiling, definitions of excellence, work-life balance, the passion trap and the impact of 'publish or perish' cultures, revealing how gendered expectations and practices intersect with structural and cultural barriers. Drawing on the Horizon Europe project MINDtheGEPs, the book highlights key areas of cultural and structural resistance and innovation that challenge the 'fix the women' approach and promote systemic change. Chapters link macro, meso and micro levels of analysis within a gender-as-social-structure framework, underscoring the importance of feminist approaches in understanding and addressing inequalities and in redefining science as a collective, inclusive and ethical enterprise. The book ultimately advocates for gender-aware institutional transformation that fosters both equality and excellence.

Gender (In)equality in Research and Science is prime reading for scholars and students of gender studies, sociology, political science, and social policy. It is also relevant to higher education leaders, equality officers and policymakers for its concrete tools for transforming organisational gendered cultures and implementing and monitoring gender equality plans.

This coursebook introduces philosophy of mind as it is practiced in the third decade of the 21st century to a wide range of readers. It provides any interested student, researcher, or general reader-no matter their academic background-with an appreciation of what philosophers of mind do.

The book is particularly well suited for classroom use: each of the 20 chapters contains enough material for one standard week of classes, including an editorial preface, an essay, a response to that essay, discussion questions, and suggestions for further readings. The 42 contributing authors address perennial philosophical puzzles about consciousness, perception, thought, and agency from 21st century perspectives. They also address new philosophical issues that arise from research in psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. And they do so without assuming any background knowledge of philosophy or the relevant sciences, using clear prose and vivid examples to communicate what experts understand about the mind, what fascinating philosophical puzzles remain, and what solutions to those puzzles are currently under consideration. The book is thus well positioned as a highly readable introduction for undergraduates and general readers, while also getting graduate students and professors quickly up to speed with current debates in philosophy of mind.

Key Features

• Each of the 20 self-contained, multi-authored chapters is designed for one week of college-level instruction and includes a preface, a main essay, a response to that essay, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading
• Written by an international team of 42 experts with specializations that cover all aspects of philosophy of mind
• A comprehensive glossary clearly defines all important terms, which are bolded the first time they are used in each chapter

Bringing together a range of interdisciplinary and geographically diverse perspectives, leading experts synthesize the key issues and challenges within international marketing. They examine crucial concepts including stimuli and barriers to international engagement, foreign environmental impacts, global market competition, foreign market selection and entry, international marketing strategies, and corporate social responsibility. Drawing on state-of-the-art marketing knowledge, entries evaluate the complex challenges international marketers face, from political risk and cross-cultural differences to buyer behavior differences and fierce global competition, serving as an essential reference point for understanding the variety and richness of contemporary international marketing.

The Elgar Encyclopedia of International Marketing Management is an illuminating and original resource for scholars and students of global marketing, international business and management, and strategic management. Policymakers and practitioners seeking to develop their knowledge and strategies in international marketing will also benefit from its astute analyses and pragmatic insights.

Key Features:

• Presents 61 entries organized into 20 distinct parts for ease of reference
• Provides insights from over 100 business scholars across 23 countries
• Amalgamates the numerous avenues of international marketing studies into one essential guide

The Muslim Brotherhood and Ennahda: Organisational Dynamics in Egypt and Tunisia since 2011 examines the organisational dynamics and capacity for change of the Arab world's two most influential Islamist movements.

Rather than foregrounding external political pressures, the book explores the internal organisational worlds of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia's Ennahda, treating them as long-standing institutions shaped by their own cultures, structures, and internal debates. Drawing on an analytical framework that places organisational culture and intra-party politics at the centre of the analysis, it investigates how each movement confronted the pressures of governing, adapting, and redefining its political role and identity after 2011. The study argues that the capacity for change within these organisations was shaped by internal dynamics: the Brotherhood's strong commitment to preserving its long-standing mission and organisational vision often constrained reform, while Ennahda struggled with a weak conceptualisation of how and why change should occur. By comparing their contrasting trajectories of party formation and institutional reconfiguration, the book highlights how each movement came to understand organisational change differently - whether as variation or replication, and as an opportunity or a threat to their foundational identity.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East politics, political Islam, and comparative politics, as well as to readers seeking an alternative analytical lens to Social Movement Theory and a deeper understanding of the evolution of Islamist movements in the post-Arab Spring era.

This book examines caste-based discrimination in India through the practice of manual scavenging and exclusion within higher education. It analyses how Untouchability persists across these distinct yet interconnected sites, adopting a legal lens grounded in international human rights law. Drawing on empirical data, the book critically engages with legislation, governmental schemes, institutional mechanisms, and case law, with particular attention to affirmative action as enshrined in the Indian Constitution. By bridging lived realities with legal framework, it highlights both the limitations and transformative potential of law in addressing caste-based inequalities. This work will be of significant interest to scholars and researchers of law, human rights, sociology, and South Asian studies, as well as policymakers.

Interdisciplinary in scope, the book also explores various issues such as party institutionalization and ideology, women's political leadership and participation, military coups, foreign assistance and the role of the African Union, all in relation to democracy and development. Reflecting on the diversity of the African experiences, the contributors propose that the utility of democracy lies in the extent to which it can deliver political goods to its citizens, and that achieving this requires a reimagining of the state which reincorporates indigenous governance and institutions. Analysing the implications of democratic backsliding, chapters advocate for a thinking state anchored by developmental elites, the establishment of strong and accountable institutions, and a shared value of development.

The Elgar Companion to Democracy and Development in Africa is a crucial resource for scholars and students of politics and public policy, economics and development studies. Policymakers and civil servants will also benefit from its practical insights and future-oriented perspectives.

Holistic Psychiatry offers a timely rethinking of psychiatry by showing why today's symptom-based, reductionist models are no longer enough-and what can replace them.

Drawing together philosophy, research, clinical practice, and service system design, this book presents a coherent, holistic framework that understands phenomena labeled as mental disorders not as internal defects, but as evolving, context-dependent situations shaped by biology, experience, relationships, and society. It provides a rigorous theoretical foundation, a realistic model of dialogical care, and concrete guidance for reorganizing services, research, and professional roles, including how to implement the World Health Organization's guidance on community mental health services. Grounded in human rights, empirical evidence, and real-world practice, this book shows how mental health care can become more humane, effective, and sustainable without abandoning scientific responsibility.

This book is essential reading for clinicians, researchers, policymakers, students of psychiatry, psychology, and mental health, and anyone concerned with the future of mental health care.

Leading experts reframe sustainable tourism as a transformative, multi-scalar process shaped by governance reform and community empowerment. They critically trace the evolution of the field and interrogate persistent gaps between rhetoric and practice. Chapters introduce novel frameworks to tackle key issues such as global polycrises, climate change, socio-economic instability and long-term behavioural changes. Drawing on conceptual insights and applied case studies, the Modern Guide highlights the interconnected roles of tourists, communities, businesses and policymakers in fostering just and resilient tourism futures.

A Modern Guide to Sustainable Tourism is an essential resource for scholars and students of tourism management, geography, economics and sustainable development. Industry professionals seeking to realign tourism with long-term sustainability will similarly benefit from its actionable recommendations.

Evaluating theories, methodologies, performance and practice, the Handbook explains the ideas behind ESG investing and how applications relate to real portfolios. Chapters explore topics including the use of AI and machine learning for measuring ESG performance, the issues surrounding sustainability reporting in global value chains and cognitive biases in ESG investing. Authors highlight the growing need for consistent and transparent data, as differing rating systems and reporting standards make it difficult to compare companies. Ultimately, the Handbook emphasises that ESG investing is becoming an essential part of modern finance but must overcome data and measurement challenges to reach its full potential.

Bridging theory and practice, the Handbook of ESG Investing is a valuable resource for scholars and students of economics, finance and the environment. Its focus on policy and regulatory implications will also benefit policymakers and practitioners in the finance sector.

Leading experts investigate how contemporary forces such as digitalisation, sustainability and innovation are reshaping the dynamics between buyers and suppliers, leading to more strategic, resilient and value-driven partnerships. Chapters assess core concepts including collaboration, governance, performance measurement and risk management in differing global contexts. Through empirical insights, conceptual frameworks and practical recommendations, this book provides an understanding of cultural, regulatory and structural variations in buyer-supplier relationships.

The Research Handbook on Buyer-Supplier Relationships is a valuable resource for scholars and students of business and management, public administration and organisational behaviour. It is also prime reading for practitioners in business, organisation management and sales navigating the strategic challenges of modern purchasing and supply management.

Corporate Tax Avoidance in China addresses a critical gap in understanding taxation within the world's second-largest economy. As China undergoes rapid economic transformation, its increasingly sophisticated tax system has attracted attention from international investors seeking opportunities in this dynamic market. Yet few books offer students, academics, and practitioners a comprehensive guide to the forces shaping corporate tax avoidance in China.

This volume fills that gap through six complementary chapters investigating novel determinants spanning geographic, technological, organizational, and regulatory dimensions. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, the book examines how local information environments, institutional infrastructures, individual leader characteristics, and cross-domain policy interactions collectively shape corporate tax outcomes, reflecting the increasing diversity of contemporary tax research in China.

This prestigious reference work offers students, academics, and business professionals, whether from Western companies or developing countries, an authoritative introduction to corporate tax avoidance in the world's most dynamic emerging market, essential for those doing business with Chinese firms or establishing subsidiaries in China.

Key Features:

• Evaluates the doctrine of Kompetenz-Kompetenz in sports arbitration
• Conducts systematic, decision-by-decision analysis of CAS jurisprudence categorised by topic
• Presents dedicated indexes of CAS awards and lists of arbitrators' cases
• Explains the circumstances in which the CAS has jurisdiction to hear a case and how arbitration agreements are interpreted
• Gives guidance on how disputes involving FIFA, clubs, players, agents and other sports governing bodies are allocated between different decision-making forums

Bridging doctrine and practice, this book is a crucial resource for all arbitrators before CAS, and for sports clubs, sports bodies and their legal advisors. Its practice-oriented structure also makes this a key resource for legal professionals seeking a deeper understanding of complex jurisdictional questions in sport.

Contributors explore how legal education remains nationalised via local histories, politics and markets, despite borrowing models and language from modern, merit-based, or global approaches. Chapters assess the appearance of law schools as powerful sites where divisions of class, race, gender, empire and prestige are reproduced, contested and sometimes reimagined. The Research Handbook demonstrates how familiar patterns of hierarchies, inequalities and Western-centric ideals travel widely alongside diverse efforts in majority world contexts to resist, revisit and reimagine fairer institutions. Combining doctrinal analysis, institutional histories, archives, interviews and fieldwork, this Research Handbook advances research and promotes further study.

The Research Handbook is a crucial resource for legal education scholars and practitioners and also global scholars of the legal profession. It is prime reading for students and scholars of law and society and comparative institutions seeking more information on the factors shaping the legal landscape today.

Adopting a fresh approach, this book explores our understanding of nature's limits and proposes a new perspective to reframe the relationship between these limits and human freedom.

Where should we look to uncover the deeper roots of today's environmental disagreements?

A common answer might be: the conflict between nature's limits and human freedom. Yet, surprisingly, this critical topic has received little direct attention. To delve into this issue, the book turns to ontology; the philosophical study of being, and argues that our ontological understanding of nature profoundly shapes our ideas about freedom. By rethinking what limits in nature truly mean, we can gain new insights into what happens when we exceed those limits; into the real role of science and technology; and into what genuinely enhances freedom versus what diminishes it. Ultimately, the book contends that our current trajectory sacrifices the environment for a system that paradoxically offers less and less freedom. If this argument holds, it opens the door to reassessing the entrenched understanding of the conflict between human freedom and nature's limits to find a more lasting path forward.

This book is a must-read for environmental scholars seeking to deepen their understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of today's ecological challenges.

Leading experts assess a variety of 'culprits' behind the financialization of housing, evaluating the role of institutions, social movements, grass roots initiatives and broader economic contexts. They advocate for an integrated method of analyzing these entry points and argue that stages of financialization must be understood as multi-level processes. Drawing on critical political economy and post-Keynesian economics, the book ultimately calls for a wider understanding of capitalist dynamics in order to synthesize various strategies for resisting financialization.

Resisting the Financialization of Housing is an essential resource for scholars and students of sociology, social policy, public policy, inequalities and sustainable development. Government policymakers and financial regulators will also benefit from its actionable recommendations.

Tracing its evolution, the Handbook contextualises GCE in the current political and social climate and explores its conceptual framings, practical applications and emerging problems, while also distinguishing GCE from related fields through its integrative and action-focused orientation. Assessing questions of power, sustainability and technology, contributors evaluate topics such as studying abroad, human-centered AI and shared languages. This Handbook supports research and practice in GCE, providing innovative frameworks and case studies that highlight current challenges in the field as well as opportunities for future development.

The Handbook on Global Citizenship Education is a valuable resource for students and scholars of international education, particularly those with a focus on curriculum studies and global citizenship education. This multidisciplinary Handbook also provides crucial insights for researchers interested in global citizenship and nationalism, as well as practitioners and policymakers looking to improve their understanding of how education contributes to the creation of a planetary society.

Organization Design equips readers with advanced tools and frameworks for understanding and redesigning organizations by simplifying complex roles, processes, and structures. Now in a fully updated third edition, it introduces new pedagogical features to spotlight significant debates and encourage critical reflection on core ideas.

Grounded in both research and practical experience, this book offers a balanced approach to organizational efficiency and complexity, complemented by actionable insights throughout and supporting online material. Drawing on Russell Ackoff's system theory, Worren emphasizes the interconnected nature of all organizational elements as a key to support strategic goals. The book is designed around broad thematic areas: from a review of foundational theory to core components of organization design, methodologies for redesign projects, and a diagnostic framework for complex organizations. This structured division enables readers to follow chapters consecutively or consult each section independently.

Rigorous in focus, this textbook serves as an authoritative source that bridges academia and the professional world. Students, scholars, and practitioners alike will benefit from its comprehensive guidance and pragmatic orientation.