This book discusses the legacy of the conference series The International Conferences of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES), which spans the second half of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of the twenty-first. The book first discusses how, at a time when there were few women engineers and scientists, a group of women organized a conference, in June 1964 in New York, which attracted 486 women. They presented their scientific achievements and discussed how to attract more women in...

Public administration ensures the development and delivery of the essential public services required for sustaining modern civilization. Covering areas from public safety and social welfare to transportation and education, the services provided through the public sector are inextricably part of our daily lives. However, mandatory budgetary cuts in recent years have caused public administrators to radically re-think how they govern in the modern age. In this Very Short Introduction...

How to use data as a tool for empowerment rather than oppression.Big data can be used for good, from tracking disease to exposing human rights violations, and for bad, implementing surveillance and control. Data inevitably represents the ideologies of those who control its use; data analytics and algorithms too often exclude women, the poor, and ethnic groups. In Data Action, Sarah Williams provides a guide for working with data in more ethical and respons...

The pursuit of political power is strategic as never before. Ministers, MPs, and candidates parrot the same catchphrases. The public service has become politicized. And decision making is increasingly centralized in the Prime Minister’s Office. What is happening to our democracy? In this persuasive book, Alex argues that political parties and government are beholden to the same marketing principles used by the world’s largest corporations. Called branding, the strategy demands repetition o...

If you want to improve quality, save money and provide better services to your customers, this book is for you.

It’s hammered into us from birth that ‘all good things come at a price’. Today, that price looks apocalyptic, with wars, exploitation and environmental collapse in every part of the globe. Some suggest that the carnage is “a price worth paying” for technological progress. No pain, no gain.But technology is precisely the business of minimising the costs and impacts of existence… and by whole orders of magnitude. By now, all human beings should be leading creative, leisure-filled liv...

This book introduces students to the great debates in EU law. Rather than simply presenting traditional approaches that provide descriptions (often in historical order) of substantive and constitutional elements of Union law, this book clusters material around these debates in an engaging and lively way.By offering concise analyses of core dilemmas and tensions in EU law, the book provides a different kind of introduction, one that helps students place the discussions within a boar...

This open access book presents case studies of twelve organisations which the public have come to view as institutions. From the BBC to Doctors Without Borders, from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra to CERN, this volume examines how some organisations rise to prominence and remain in high public esteem through changing and challenging times. It builds upon the scholarly tradition of institutional scholarship pioneered by Philip Selznick, and highlights common themes in the stories of ...

How Cold War geopolitics and domestic capitalism changed the trajectory of India’s computing industryIndia today is widely recognized for producing world-class tech talent and Silicon Valley leaders, yet captures only a fraction of the global tech industry’s profits, primarily providing skilled but inexpensive labor for Western corporations. Computing in the Age of Decolonization uncovers the overlooked history behind this paradox, tracing India's ambitiou...

It can be hard for busy professionals to find the time to read the latest books. Stay up to date in a fraction of the time with this concise guide.The World is Flat is an award-winning book by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman. It combines meticulous research, personal anecdotes and conceptual analysis to provide a comprehensive yet accessible overview of the mechanisms behind globalisation in the 21st century, along with recommendations for...

Does it matter who owns and funds the media? As journalists and management consultants set off in search of new business models, there's a pressing need to understand anew the economic underpinnings of journalism and its role in democratic societies. How Media Ownership Matters provides a fresh approach to understanding news media power, moving beyond the typical emphasis on market concentration or media moguls. Through a comparative analysis of the US, Sweden, and France, as well...

Power Shift? Political Leadership and Social Media examines how political leaders have adapted to the challenges of social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and memes, among other means of persuasion. Established political leaders now use social media to grab headlines, respond to opponents, fundraise, contact voters directly, and organize their election campaigns. Leaders of protest movements have used social media to organize and galvanize grassroots support and to populariz...