The Nordic model rests on two pillars: the social safety net and the provision of services like education, childcare, and healthcare for all. It can also be characterized as an “employment model,” since its financial viability depends upon a high labor participation rate with very few working poor. Economist Torben M. Andersen lays out the model’s structure and highlights factors important for understanding its economic performance. He then looks into specific policy areas based on Denmark...

Organizations face challenges in adapting their current business and operational activities to dynamic contexts. Successful companies share a common characteristic of dealing with the emergent risks and threats in responses that generate viable solutions.Strategic risk management (SRM) is a multidisciplinary and rather fractured field of study, which creates significant challenges for research. This short-form book provides an expert overview of the topic, providing insight into th...

With the design of the pension system critically dependent on objectives and context, and many objectives and trade-offs to consider, real-world pension schemes are complex and rich in institutional detail. Ongoing demographic changes also challenge pension systems, including their performance and outcomes in terms of pension adequacy, poverty prevention, and financial viability. To breakdown all of this, Pension Economics provides an introduction to and overview of the economics ...

Contemporary firms face complex dynamic environments notoriously difficult to predict, even impossible to foresee, where extraordinary events can inflict major disruptions. Interactive collaborative decision processes appear as better drivers of strategic adaptation. Yet, firms show vastly different ways of dealing with the challenges imposed by extreme exposures as environmental conditions change.The research presented here is developed from analyses of extensive European and Nort...

The global business environment is becoming increasingly volatile and unpredictable, reflecting the consequences of operating in a dynamic and complex business environment in constant flux with the potential of extreme outcomes. As a consequence, corporate performance data generally displays very few high-performers and a fat tail of many underperforming firms. This business context means that contemporary managers need to be equipped to deal effectively with implied uncertainty, abrupt ev...

The Short Introduction to Strategic Management provides an authoritative yet accessible account of strategic management and its contemporary challenges. It explains the roots and key rationales of the strategy field, discussing common models, tools and practices, to provide a complete overview of conventional analytical techniques in strategic management. Andersen extends the discussion to consider dynamic strategy making and how it can enable organizations to respond effectively to turbul...

Managing risk in and across organizations has always been of vital importance, both for individual firms and for the globalized economy more generally. With the global financial crisis, a dramatic lesson was learnt about what happens when risk is underestimated, misinterpreted, or even overlooked. Many possible solutions have been competing for international recognition, yet, there is little empirical evidence to support the purported effectiveness of these regulations and structured contr...

At a time when corporate scandals and major financial failures dominate newspaper headlines, the importance of good risk management practices has never been more obvious. The absence or mismanagement of such practices can have devastating effects on exposed organizations and the wider economy (Barings Bank, Enron, Lehmann Brothers, Northern Rock, to name but a few). Today's organizations and corporate leaders must learn the lessons of such failures by developing practices to deal effective...

A number of truly disruptive events have occurred in recent times, from the financial crisis and the pandemic to political conflict with broad ramifications for international business conduct. National borders have been severely constrained with radical effects on global value-chains and supply conditions. We must respond to these unpredictable developments in ways that create resilience and advance sustainable solutions.The global business environment is highly uncertain, fracture...

The global business environment is as turbulent as ever and organizations must adapt to the changing conditions to survive and persevere. Adapting To Environmental Challenges: New Research In Strategy And International Business provides new promising insights on the effects of middle management involvement in adaptive strategy-making processes and applications of interactive control systems in the pursuit of more durable corporate outcomes. The empirical evidence suggests that res...

Today, innovation does not just occur in large and incumbent R&D organizations. Instead, it often emerges from the start-up community. In the new innovation economy, the key is to quickly find pieces of innovation, some of which may already be developed. Therefore, there is the need for more advanced means of searching and identifying innovation wherever it may occurs.We point to the importance of data-driven innovation based on digital platforms, as their footprints are growing ra...

Global firms must operate in turbulent conditions, facing relentless pressure to be efficient, whilst also accommodating local factors and ways of thinking. This book offers an insight into how an adaptive multinational enterprise can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in an uncertain environment.Drawing on ground-breaking research into adaptive strategy, this book introduces compelling tools to help design responsive strategic organizations by cultivating global strategic...