Actors and institutions in localities and regions across the world are seeking prosperity and well-being amidst tumultuous and disruptive shifts and transitions generated by: an increasingly globalised, knowledge-intensive capitalism; global financial instability, volatility and crisis; concerns about economic, social and ecological sustainability, climate change and resource shortages; new multi-actor and multi-level systems of government and governance and a re-ordering of the international political economy; state austerity and retrenchment; and, new and reformed approaches to intervention, policy and institutions for local and regional development. 
Local and Regional Development provides an accessible, critical and integrated examination of local and regional development theory, institutions and policy in this changing context. Amidst its rising importance, the book addresses the fundamental issues of ‘what kind of local and regional development and for whom?’, its purposes, principles and values, frameworks of understanding, approaches and interventions, and integrated approaches to local and regional development throughout the world. The approach provides a theoretically informed, critical analysis of contemporary local and regional development in an international and multi-disciplinary context, grounded in concrete empirical analysis from experiences in the global North and South. It concludes by identifying what might constitute holistic, inclusive, progressive and sustainable local and regional development, and reflecting upon its limits and political renewal.

Local and Regional Development

Key concepts in adult education and training , Key concepts in adult education and training , مرکز فناوری اطلاعات و اطلاع رسانی کشاورزی

Key concepts in adult education and training

The first barons were landed gentry. In late Victorian times, they were iron and rail magnates. In the earlier half of this century, they were manufacturers, engineers and shipbuilders. Not any more. [Now] the regional barons are jacks of all trades, who made it big with a local company or in property, and now dabble in media, sit on the board of the development corporation, and chair the football club ... everybody know the local Mr Big. He is a man - always a man, unfortunately- who more often than not started with nothing and now dominates business life in the area. Often maverick and outspoken, they are the first names that spring to mind when talking about business. [They] are the movers and shakers (Independent on Sunday 3 January 1993).

Moving and shaking: business élites, state localism and urban privatism

The concept of competitiveness has grown significantly and it is now common for cities, regions and nations to assess, improve and publicise their competitive standing vis-a-vis other places. Yet it remains rather unclear just what competitiveness is when applied to places, which have objectives distinct from those of private-sector organisations, for whom share price and profitability serve as common metrics. The blurring of the responsibilities of the public and private sectors also complicates matters, with the former making increasing use of the terminology and priorities of business. This paper takes the view that both public and private sectors-and their interactions—are sustained by networks. To be effective, these networks must operate at the global, national, regional and local scales, gathering knowledge via social interaction—that is, through 'soft' networks. To a growing degree, competitive networking also demands technological capability, whether in high-tech sectors, `smokestack' industries ...

Hard and Soft Networks for Urban Competitiveness

Empowerment has become a widely used management term in the last decade or so, though, in practical terms, it shares the ambiguity of its predecessors in the HRM tradition. This paper sets out to unravel the web of meaning surrounding empowerment to show what a contested concept it is, and hence why its application in organizational settings is fraught with misunderstanding and tension. It does so by taking an approach that contributes to the examination of HRM discourse and management rhetoric. To demonstrate the ambiguity of empowerment as a concept, the paper reviews the various ways in which the term has been used across non-management disciplines (women, minority groups, education, community care, politics), culminating with a review of the use of empowerment in contemporary management theory. The paper concludes that organizations and managers have chosen to coin a phrase which is open to different, sometimes contradictory, meanings and which, when applied, evokes both subjective attitudes and objective behaviour, means different things in varying contexts, and is affected fundamentally by individual differences in perception and experience. Unless organizations offer clear operational definitions when using empowerment, instead of purely acquiescing to a vague and seductive version of the concept, they are abdicating responsibility for the unpredictable consequences that result.

The Meaning of Empowerment: The Interdisciplinary Etymology of A New Management Concept

Learning to Meet the Global Challenge PART ONE: CHALLENGE-CAPABILITY-RESPONSE The Global Challenge Economic Capability Britain's National and Local Position Britain's Institutional Capability Reactions to Economic Challenges The Current Response PART TWO: FIELDS OF ACTIVITY: VERTICAL PROGRAMMES Enterprise Education Training PART THREE: THE LOCAL DIMENSION: HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION Local Networks Dimensions of Local Capability Large Cities and Metropolitan Cores Metropolitan Fringes Dispersed Industrial Areas Central Places and Rural Areas PART FOUR: AN AGENDA FOR THE 1990S Towards a National Strategy

Enterprise and Human Resource Development: Local Capacity Building

Why TECs and LECs? Britain's need for change establishing the TECs and LECs managing the TECs and LECs local fit TECs, LECs and government training education enterprise economic and community development fulfilling the mission the search for business empowerment.

Andrew McCoshan

Papers

Enterprise and Human Resource Development: Local Capacity Building

Local empowerment and business services : Britain's experiment with training and enterprise councils