High prices and concerns about energy security in the oil and gas industry are driving expansion into ever more sensitive environments with greater technoological, political and social risks.While brands such as BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are well known, some 70 per cent of oil and gas industry activities are typically contracted out to service providers and their subcontractors. The fallout from the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster has shone a spotlight on alleged systemic failures and ongoing difficulties in contracting relationships. As the governments of oil producing countries - from Nigeria to Kazakhstan to Venezuela - seek to take greater control of their oil and gas resources, there are pressures to expand the role of local businesses in chains of contractors. Government targets for local hiring and procurement paper draws on three years of research and interviews within the oil and gas sector to highlight an array of critical challenges facing oil and gas companies involved in complex supply chains, and to identify urgent and longer-term actions for progress.

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This book traces the growth of managed care as a mechanism for curbing excessive growth in health costs, and the controversies that have risen around for-profit health care. Also examined are decentralization in US health care, and the absence of comprehensive health care planning, access rules, and minimum health care benefit standards. Finally, the author proposes a framework for improving access to quality, affordable health care in a competitive market environment.

Agenda for Change (1991) examines the experiences of five industrialised market economies in a period of profound change in industrial relations. It looks at the national history and culture affecting industrial relations, the obstacles to change and the levers that could effect it, and the respective roles of employers, unions and governments in bringing about improvement. Is there any single model of an industrial relations system to which a country could aspire?

This is the third book in the series Shared Responsibility in International Law, which examines the problem of distribution of responsibilities among multiple states and other actors. In its work on the responsibility of states and international organisations, the International Law Commission recognised that attribution of acts to one actor does not exclude possible attribution of the same act to another state or organisation. Recognising that the applicable rules and procedures for shared responsibility may differ between particular issue areas, this volume reviews the practice of states, international organisations, courts and other bodies that have dealt with the issue of international responsibility of multiple wrongdoing actors in a wide range of issue areas, including energy, extradition, investment law, NATO-led operations and fisheries. These analyses jointly assess the fit of the prevailing principles of international responsibility and provide a basis for reform and further development of international law.