A compassionate and encouraging companion, The First-Gen Guide to Grad School has a message for all who aspire to keep learning and developing professionally: You belong.

For first-generation college students, navigating undergraduate life is hard enough. But applying to graduate school? That's an even taller mountain to climb. Accessible and inclusive, offering practical advice for everyone from community college transfers to adult learners with jobs and kids, The First-Gen Guide to Grad School empowers all students to pursue their educational and career goals.

Before John D. Kincaid became a sociologist, he was a first-gen student struggling to make grades and decode the unwritten rules of academia. With humor and heart, he demystifies the process of applying to master's, certificate, and PhD programs and tackles psychological barriers like financial anxiety and self-doubt. There are strategies here for choosing schools, writing personal statements, and understanding timelines and funding. Drawing on a decade of experience running application workshops, Kincaid pairs helpful checklists and examples with candid stories of what grad school is really like.

This textbook is an accessible, readable, and comprehensive introduction to contemporary analytic metaphysics. It covers all the main topics, including those that are at the forefront of the most recent research. It begins by explaining what metaphysics is and introduces the most important conceptual devices needed to understand and appreciate the ongoing debates. The text follows with core metaphysical questions, such as properties, time, identity, mereology, and modality. It concludes with more specific domains of application, in which the previously introduced concepts are put to work. The contents are organized in self-contained chapters, each of which starts with a stimulating short story, which is further articulated and closes with a summary of the main points, questions for further reflection, and reading suggestions. This textbook is perfect for teaching a basic but comprehensive course in metaphysics for undergraduate students.

A comprehensive scholarly edition of the writings and correspondence of Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine: Collected Writings is the first major new edition of Paine's works, bringing together all his writings in six breathtaking volumes that dramatically revise our previous understanding of his activities as a writer and his importance as a democratic theorist in the age of revolutions. It includes about 180 new letters and some two hundred works newly attributed to Paine, with twenty-nine works previously regarded as Paine's being deattributed. Drawing on pioneering computerized text analysis that makes possible for the first time attributions of anonymous and pseudonymous texts, this collection includes in volumes 5-6 newly identified pamphlets and newspaper and journal contributions, and suggests that Paine was extremely active as a Grub Street oppositional Whig writer in the decade prior to the American Revolution. Many writings from the period of his residence in France (1792-1802) and his subsequent return to the United States are also restored to his published output. Paine emerges as a much more consistent and serious democratic theorist than is often assumed, whose contributions to revolutionary debates in America, Britain, and France were unparalleled in their time.

The supplementary writings in this volume span the years 1758 to 1772, a formative period in which Paine honed his voice as a Grub Street writer and close confederate of Benjamin Franklin. Writing pseudonymously in journals and newspapers, he developed the narrative and ideological traits that would form the basis for his later social and political thought. Commentary by the editors provides invaluable historical context.

This edited volume examines the legal and economic world of the Romans through concepts, structures, and objects that reveal practices of standardization and localism. It explores the myriad ways in which the Roman Empire became an integrated political, social and economic system.

Split across two volumes, the collection addresses the dynamic interaction between Rome and its provinces in developing institutions crucial to societal and economic development. It challenges notions of uniformity, demonstrating how tensions between imperial standardization and local cultures could both drive innovative legal and economic practices and hinder empire-wide integration. The chapters explore broad questions from various disciplinary perspectives, including ancient economic history, law, papyrology, epigraphy and archaeology. Contributions cover diverse topics such as weights, measures, and coinage, legal practices, taxation, and cultural symbols. Each chapter investigates how, even as local communities adopted practices associated with Rome as a ruling power, local customs could, in turn, influence practices across the Empire.

By illuminating these reciprocal relationships, this book recontextualizes Roman standardization-not merely as a tool of imperial domination but as evidence of diverse socioeconomic practices and cross-cultural exchanges. It will be a valuable resource for scholars of ancient economic history, classical archaeology, and ancient law, as well as anyone interested in the economy and culture of Ancient Rome.

Our current era is characterised by multiple challenges, including climate change, global health challenges, economic inequality, political instability, and technological upheavals. With these crises intersecting and compounding, the modern business environment has become a landscape of volatility and moral complexity. Organizations can no longer remain passive in the face of these mounting challenges and are called upon to embrace human-centred, ethically-driven practices that acknowledge the profound interconnectedness of their actions with society and the planet. This edited volume explores how organizations and leaders can respond to the unprecedented complexities and crises of the 21st century with ethical integrity, adaptive governance, and proactive leadership.

The book integrates a multidisciplinary array of conceptual, qualitative and quantitative scholarly efforts. It includes studies of green HRM, sustainable career development, adaptive teleworking models, and AI-driven social accounting, underscoring the diverse ways in which organizations are navigating polycrisis with humanistic values and technological foresight. Together, these chapters advocate for a shift in mindset-from viewing crises as insurmountable barriers to recognizing them as catalysts for ethical growth and organizational evolution. This book is an essential resource for scholars and students of business ethics, sustainability strategy and organizational response to 'grand challenges'. It will also be of interest to business leaders and policymakers seeking to navigate the complexities of polycrisis with ethical innovation, responsibility, and a commitment to building resilient, human-centered organizations.

Starting from the hypothesis that all human forms of life have a political dimension - be it clearly expressed or hidden, conscious or unconscious - this volume examines the ways in which political life can be fruitfully analyzed with the help of phenomenological methodologies. Examining issues of power dynamics as they relate to pervasive epistemic and axiological commitments as well as deeply seated socio-cultural and institutional practices, this text opens and develops, through a radical critical lens and a commitment to the emancipatory potential of theoretical work, innovative paths for phenomenological investigations of the complex political aspects of our shared lived experiences. These investigations, both focused on the content matter at hand and on their own methodology, draw on phenomenological resources as well as resources from other philosophical traditions and fields, such as critical theory, feminist philosophy, and queer theory.

While various theories in political philosophy nurture an open suspicion about subject-oriented philosophical approaches (c.f., Adorno, Althusser, for example), this volume questions the status of the subject of political experience in order to explore multiple forms of political subjectivation. These guiding questions allow an investigation into a new field of research where phenomenological methodologies can help negotiate the political challenges of our time. This book appeals to students and researchers working in phenomenology and related disciplines.

The historic centre of the southern European city of Naples has been shaped by opposing urban processes throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s. On the one hand, touristification has led to the financialisation of housing, the displacement of inhabitants and everyday commerce, and the enclosure of public space. On the other, the proliferation of commoning practices by the Liberated Spaces or Beni Comuni-and the parallel experimentation with a distinctive form of new municipalism-has reclaimed urban space for collective use and social functions. The Liberated Spaces are a network of communities that have emerged since 2012 through the occupation and reappropriation of abandoned public buildings. Today, they are self-governed by inhabitants through assemblies.

Through in-depth ethnographic research with these communities, this book explores the everyday production of liberated spaces in the heart of the tourist zone. Moving from the bodies of activists to the body of the city and back, and with an eye to its past histories as recalled through the memories of its inhabitants, it traces the emergence of urban bodies contested between diverging trajectories and possible futures for Naples.

This book provides insight into the luxury yacht (or superyacht) tourism market and industry. Superyacht tourism is a distinct form of tourism by virtue of the fact that luxury yacht consumers (guests) receive a bespoke vacation experience co-created with both the yachts' crew and associated allied agencies. Elaborating on these co-created superyacht experiences, the book explores the inputs of both guests and stakeholders and is unique in three main ways. Firstly, it presents insight into the luxury value proposition all the way from yacht design through to ownership, staffing, charter management and consumption. Secondly, it presents an understanding of the luxury yacht market proposition through the unifying framework of customer experience. In doing so the book follows the shift in focus from the material and symbolic elements of luxury towards the experiential element. Finally, the book incorporates both academic and industry expert insights into the co-creation of luxury yacht experiences.

In Europe, the digital landscape is undergoing significant transformations, driven by both technological advancements and regulatory changes. The primary challenges lie in managing the influence of dominant large platforms while striving to create a fairer, more accessible, and competitive European digital market. In response, the European Union has initiated a regulatory revolution with major legislative acts such as the Artificial Intelligence Act (Ai Act), Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA). The book deals with the impact of these regulatory systems in selected Eu Member States.

Given the significance and cross-disciplinary nature of the topic, the book is divided in two main sections. The first section addresses the recently approved Artificial Intelligence Act and its impact on the regulatory framework and administrative systems of the specified Member States. In light of the increasing integration of artificial intelligence within the public sector across Europe, this section examines the existence of national legislation in the relevant countries and its relationship with the AI Act. Furthermore, this section investigates the organizational and institutional changes in the selected countries, as well as the reinterpretation of traditional principles of administrative law or the creation of new ones to align with the provisions of the Regulation. The second section delves into the complex landscape of the newly introduced DMA and DSA, focusing on the various institutional arrangements adopted by Member States and their national competent administrations to support this new EU legal regime. It provides a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the national-level implementation of these regulations and their implications, highlighting the institutional interplay and the complexities of effective regulation in the digital age.

The book addresses the intersection of artificial intelligence, sustainability, and solidarity in the context of promoting European values, offering critical insights from various branches of law, including European Union Law, International Law, Public Law, and Private Law. This compilation is a result of the 14th edition of the prestigious International Conference "Perspectives of Business Law in the Third Millennium" (businesslawconference.ro), held in November 2024 in Bucharest, and brings together contributions from leading scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. Technological advancements and their trajectory, along with ecological challenges, have brought together experts to debate the crossroads at which Europe stands between innovation and social responsibility. The work analyses how emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, influence economic, social, and legal processes, shaping new directions for sustainable development. It brings to the forefront both the harmonisation of technological progress with fundamental European principles and the importance of solidarity and social cohesion. The authors of this collective volume have not overlooked the role of public policies and regulations in ensuring fair transitions towards a sustainable digital economy, where human rights and social inclusion are paramount. Additionally, the book highlights scientific novelties such as the public domain of cyber-space-time, the challenges and opportunities of balanced integration of new technologies, and underscores the importance of collaboration between states, institutions, and the private sector to build a future founded on responsible innovation. This work is aimed at academics, researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and even students, as well as all those interested in the impact of technology on society and the economy. It is also a valuable resource for specialists in public policy, international law, European studies, and sustainability.

The legal profession is at a pivotal moment.

Rapid technological advances, rising competition from unexpected directions, shifting client demands, and changing expectations from top talent are reshaping the legal profession right before our eyes. To stay ahead and thrive, law firm leaders must build future-ready firms-organizations that proactively lead transformation and respond to disruption with agility.

This book is a practical, research-backed guide to unlocking peak performance and driving transformation across the entire firm by focusing on the most overlooked success factor: the people who shape and drive the firm's future. Leaders who successfully empower people to adapt to and actively drive transformation will shape the future of the legal profession.

Drawing on over 20 years of experience advising top law firm leaders, 35 in-depth interviews with managing partners, COOs, CHROs, and other senior leaders, and three decades of research in behavioral, human, and business sciences, Prof. Dr. Madeleine Bernhardt, LL.M., introduces a structured, science-based framework covering nine critical areas leaders must address to achieve successful transformation.

Together, these areas enable the development of a strong and adaptive law firm culture-the key to leading transformation effectively and future-proofing the firm.

This book helps leaders in the legal profession to:

• lead transformation at three levels-firm, team, and individual
• unlock human potential for performance, empowering individuals and teams to unlearn old habits, embrace new ways of working, and drive transformation
• build a strong and adaptive culture across the firm-essential to any strategic transformation
• future-proof their firms, enabling them to thrive in a time of high complexity and dynamic change.

Whether managing partner, COO, CHRO, or senior leader, readers will find in this book the proven concepts and methods needed to lead with impact in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA)-and to build future-ready firms that actively shape and adapt to a fast-paced environment.

Today more than ever, a firm's success depends on its leaders' ability to skillfully lead people, teams, and the entire organization through transformation-to win the future.

This book offers a range of critical narratives on the interplay between constitutional polycrisis and emergency constitutionalism. They are integrated by the desire to both expose cracks in the current schemes for taming conflict, crisis, and non-normalcy and to demonstrate the constitutional shapes of the emerging post-crisis and post-transition world order. The book shows that a constitutional crisis is a multidimensional phenomenon. It outlines the legal (normative-institutional), socio-legal (empirical, performative, and socio-institutional), theoretical (conceptual and phenomenological), and imaginary dimensions of crisis. The book critically exposes the fallacy of emergency constitutionalism, consisting in the claim that emergency is a temporal and efficient crisis response. It shows that emergency constitutionalism may be the formative tool of a new crisis-borne and emergency-related normalcy. The mission of this book is to raise awareness of the tendencies towards paternalism, emergency governance, and government of fear.

Chapter "The Constitutional Imaginaries of Crisis and Emergency: Between Battle of Narratives and Entanglement in Quantum Constitutionalism" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution BY-NC-ND 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

This book explores whether the World Bank Group, despite not being formally bound by international human rights law, operates in accordance with it when financing investment projects involving indigenous peoples, who are often among the most impacted.

The inquiry proceeds along two principal strands, grounded in the distinction between operations targeting public and private sector recipients. First, it traces the evolution of the World Bank Group's policies on indigenous peoples, which are binding on its staff and, once incorporated into loan agreements, on financing recipients as well. Second, it examines the interpretative practice of the organization's Independent Accountability Mechanisms, which review compliance with these policies throughout the project cycle. It finds that the policies have evolved alongside key developments in international law and that the Independent Accountability Mechanisms consistently reference both hard and soft international legal instruments in their assessments.

Building on these findings, the book reconsiders whether the World Bank Group may, in fact, be subject to international human rights obligations. Departing from traditional deductive reasoning, it adopts an inductive approach grounded in institutional practice. It argues that the World Bank Group, as an international legal actor, is bound by an emerging body of rules and principles of general international law and calls for a reassessment of the organization's role in shaping the human rights discourse on indigenous peoples.

Anxiety accompanies us whenever and wherever we are. It is part of being human. Humans are creatures of anxiety, and this shapes their relationship to the world, to others, and to themselves. In order to highlight the different ways in which anxiety manifests, a distinction is proposed between three basic functions: affective fear, felt anxieties, and mental anxiety. Each represents a specific form of vital danger management, encompassing not only physical protection functions but also the mental anticipation of possible risks and threats. However, anxiety-particularly in the form of emotional experiences-can become imbalanced, be experienced as distressing, and even become pathological.

Therefore, it is hoped that people possess the mental strength to meaningfully incorporate their anxieties into their lives. To offer a nuanced perspective of the topic, relevant theories from biology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy are considered, with further exploration of the findings in social, political, and ideological-worldview applications.

First providing a new and thought-provoking interpretation of the Spinoza Controversy of around 1800, and the Controversy's reprise in the 1920s, this work then makes a compelling case for the Controversy's ongoing vital relevance. If the Spinoza Controversy has historically been one of the few times our mainstream discourse has adequately identified and opposed the fatal early German romantic flaw which still lies at the heart of Western scientific naturalism - the unfounded belief that necessity relations are really, and not ideally, ontological - then the Controversy's lens is invaluable now, in an era characterized by our still deeply underestimated and mischaracterized environmental nihilism, a multifaceted condition in line with which we cognitively and philosophically nullify the actual external world while also increasingly physically rendering it nothing by removing, dismantling, and consuming it. In linking this nihilism with a romantic understanding of necessity over two centuries old, Snow shows how not only our environmental nihilism, but also our increasing belief in worlds even less real than Spinozistic naturalism's - such as the worlds ostensibly brought into being only through economic or, now, sheerly informatic, types of necessity - calls out for opening up, for a third and final time, the questions the Controversy affords us unique ways of asking regarding the purpose, the limits, and perhaps even the future, of Western theoretical rationality itself.

This volume explores the evolving landscape of entrepreneurship, with a focus on the integration of innovation and technology in entrepreneurial practices and Industry 5.0. It discusses the role of entrepreneurship in economic development, the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) on managerial decisionmaking. It addresses the effect of transcending growth of information and communication technology on entrepreneurship to gain competitive edge.

This edited book presents detailed exploration of adaptions of blockchain in business use case applications. It proposes that blockchain tech is the best choice for modern businesses that require agility, secure, efficient and transparent way of doing business process. The book covers different versions of blockchain applications, focusing on different tools, platforms and techniques, exploring challenges and issues through contributions from different parts of the world. It highlights successful implementation of blockchain in various sectors and presents multiple perspectives from academia, industry and business fields, presenting current and future business applications utilizing the blockchain techniques. Novel architectural and business blockchain use case solutions are the core aspects of this book.

The wide variety in topics the book presents offers readers multiple perspectives on blockchain business opportunities. The volume can be used by undergraduate and postgraduate students of management as well as engineering, in addition to researchers and blockchain practitioners, business managers and administrators who are engaged in working on blockchain related technologies. Additionally, policy makers and government regulatory agencies will also find many take-aways in the book.

This book focuses on reflexivity as applied to entrepreneurship in the countries of the Global South. Specifically, reflexivity represents a sociological notion designed to explain the structures of human beliefs; however, its usefulness in business and entrepreneurial frameworks is the gap that must be filled.

The text considers the fact that entrepreneurs in the Global South benefit from distinctive and diverse institutional peculiarities, in contrast to the nations of the Northern Hemisphere. Strongly influenced by historical, political, cultural, and economic factors, these factors have historical roots manifested in the role of government, the collaboration between companies and universities, the development of cultural heritage, and ethical values.

In providing an overview of entrepreneurship that is divergent from the traditional Western approaches, this work offers new, more holistic perspectives that consider subjective, contextual, and social factors to understand the complexity inherent to entrepreneurship to analyze the realities of the Global South, therefore expanding the knowledge and opportunities that lie ahead. It will generate debate among researchers about how reflexivity can be effectively incorporated into the region's entrepreneurial endeavors and public policies to optimize its social and economic contributions.

Medical Devices are an extremely important, versatile and complex product category within healthcare. However, compared to medicinal products, hospitals, medical staff, etc., there is much less general awareness and understanding of medical devices.

This book illuminates different facets of medical devices in a holistic manner. It describes the complexity of the industry, markets, manufacturers, and numerous other stakeholders as well as related regulations, required competencies, and future trends. More specifically, it describes a range of products and innovations, safety risks and regulations, legal aspects, and certification processes. It also examines the market from the point of view of the manufacturer from start-ups to large companies and conglomerates. Finally, this book looks at the special role sustainability and ESG plays in the future of medical device innovation, production, and usage.

Featuring industry case studies this book is ideal for individuals, from scientists to managers, interested in healthcare and who would like to understand the overall relevance of medical devices from different perspectives, specifically interactions, developments and dynamics between the different business areas and stakeholders.

This book is open access.

This book examines the evolving role of digitalization in knowledge transfer within businesses and education, offering a thoughtful exploration of innovative frameworks, case studies, and practical strategies to address the challenges of a rapidly changing landscape. Integrating perspectives from very diverse fields highlights how AI, immersive technologies, and an attitude of co-creation can enhance knowledge retention, ecosystem thinking, and learner engagement. Bringing together contributions from experts across industries and academia, the book combines theoretical insights with truly practical applications. Topics include AI-enhanced HR processes, digital ecosystems for small and medium-sized enterprises, and methods to improve learner motivation through tools like chatbots and immersive worlds. Through case studies, such as the use of an Extended Reality demonstrator in collaborative workspaces and systematic approaches to AI adoption, the book provides readers with a deeper understanding of how knowledge transfer can be reimagined in digital environments. It also raises critical questions about the integration of AI, the ethical implications of automation in knowledge management, and the future of workplace learning. It further explores practical solutions, including frameworks for collaborative business-education partnerships and strategies to support upskilling and innovation in digital ecosystems. Its focus on fostering resilient, adaptive systems and addressing pressing challenges in knowledge transfer makes it a practical guide for creating sustainable and forward-thinking solutions.

As such, the book provides business leaders, educators, and policymakers with actionable insights to support innovation, sustainability, and collaboration. Professionals navigating the complexities of digital transformation will also find it a valuable resource.

While tenders for IT managed services have evolved, key areas that drive significant business value for customers have seen limited improvement. When collaboration between IT service providers and customers stagnates, the next innovation cycle may not begin for another three years. In today's fast-paced business environment, few industries can afford such delays. Adaptive IT tenders aim to shorten this cycle, with a stronger focus on innovation and collaboration. These approaches are not just suited to agile companies, but also to more traditional organisations.

This book provides all stakeholders involved in the tendering and management of IT services with a practical set of methods for adaptive tendering. Whether you are part of the executive board, management, a specialist department, IT, sales, purchasing, legal, consulting, or operations, the book offers in-depth guidance on adaptive strategies, comparing them to traditional approaches. Additionally, a glossary is included to ensure clarity and help close any knowledge gaps.

The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Humor gathers the best scholars in this now well-established field in order to fill a significant lacuna: to provide an accurate explanation of philosophers' attitudes toward humor as an umbrella term, both historically and thematically. To that purpose, it addresses not only humor, but also laughter and the comical, as well as related terms, such as smiling, wit, jokes, caricature, irony and stand-up comedy.

The first part of the handbook is historical and presents the main philosophers and the major philosophic schools which have taken humor seriously. It clarifies the ways in which humor has been interpreted through various periods in Western history, and engages with the various spiritual traditions and diverse cultures within which humor has been significant.

Parts 2, 3 and 4 examine key themes. Part 2 disambiguates the main notions which are associated with humor as an umbrella term, and emphasizes their role in philosophy. Part 3 explores how humor has been understood, approaching it through various lenses. Finally, Part 4 addresses the main questions in the ethics of humor, such as its capacity to offend and its potential to be virtuous, and the strong ties between humor and the human predicament.

This handbook is essential reading for all scholars, researchers, and advanced students of the philosophy of humor and of humor studies. It is also of interest to scholars in related fields including aesthetics, moral psychology, ethics, and the history of philosophy.

This monograph explores the dynamic entrepreneurial landscapes of seven African nations-Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the broader continent. Through vivid case studies and personal encounters, the author examines how cultural values, informal markets, and global influences shape business practices. From Dinapama Manufacturing in Namibia to livestock economies in Lesotho, and informal vendors in Mozambique and Botswana, this volume reveals the resilience and innovation driving African enterprise. Drawing on the scholarship of Leo-Paul Dana and development pioneers like Sivan Yari, it contrasts firm-type and bazaar economies, highlighting the role of relationships, networks, and mindset. Richly illustrated and deeply reflective, this book is essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to understand Africa's entrepreneurial spirit and its place in the global economy.

This book examines the effectiveness of Small Business Support programmes in South Africa and addresses the challenges and other fundamental issues of market failure. The argument is that most intervention programmes do not always translate into positive economic development. With that, this book discusses and presents theory and conceptual models used to measure the effectiveness of a state grant-funded programme, and foregrounds perspectives and objectives of the programme from implementation, evaluation and performance dimensions.

In 2010, Bill Gates first came up with the term 'Innovating to Zero' to advocate a nuclear energy technology that would be safe and reliable and have zero emissions. Taking this concept and running with it, this book explores the transformative concept of "Innovating to Zero", a vision that seeks to eliminate some of humanity's most pressing challenges. From zero emissions and zero digital divide to zero hunger and zero diseases, this book delves into how industries, societies, and individuals can work towards a future where these ideals become reality.

The book expands on what the future of Innovating to Zero looks like. It highlights how the next decade will see exponential growth in the technologies that make the Zero Vision achievable. AI, advanced materials, biotechnology, and quantum computing coming together in ways that will allow us to imagine what was previously unimaginable-from zero cancer deaths to zero device dependency to zero inequality.

Taking a deep dive into various sectors where Zero can play a disruptive role-including retail, healthcare, technology, energy, and society at large-the book identifies the fundamental building blocks that go into implementing such an approach and offers an actionable 10-step process to achieving your Zero Vision goals.

With global examples, case studies and chapters covering topics such as innovative business models, energy transition, and generative AI, this book will help you set out a vision for sustainable innovation, balancing business and social imperatives.

Amid global crises-pandemics, conflicts, energy shocks-this book explores how resilient, innovation-driven business models are reshaping industries. It presents a multidisciplinary framework enriched by 18 case studies, revealing how firms evolve from static structures to dynamic, ethical ecosystems. Resilience is not a temporary fix but a strategic foundation for long-term impact. These models emphasize adaptability, sustainability, and systemic awareness. The book bridges academic insight and practical relevance, offering a roadmap for leaders, entrepreneurs, and scholars navigating complexity. It redefines business strategy as a generative act-aligning value creation with meaning and shared purpose.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the First Optimization and Wildfire Conference, held in Luso, Portugal, from October 1-4, 2024. The book features state-of-the-art research results in wildfire management and optimization, highlighting the latest advances in operational research and decision-making methods, and offers innovative solutions to wildfire-related decision problems. It focuses on the application of these methods, including optimization models and solution approaches, to address the complex challenges posed by wildfires. By bringing together cutting-edge research and practical solutions, this book serves as a vital resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers dedicated to improving wildfire management and decision-making processes.