The changing nature of waged work in contemporary advanced industrial nations is one of the most significant aspects of political and economic debate. It is also the subject of intense debate among observers of gender. Capital Culture explores these changes focusing particularly on the gender relations between the men and women who work in the financial services sector. The multiple ways in which masculinities and femininities are constructed is revealed through the analysis of interviews with dealers, traders, analysts and corporate financiers. Drawing on a range of disciplinary approaches, the various ways in which gender segregation is established and maintained is explored. In fascinating detail, the everyday experiences of men and women working in a range of jobs and in different spaces, from the dealing rooms to the boardrooms, are examined. This volume is unique in focusing on men as well as women, showing that for men too there are multiple ways of doing gender at work.

Farming for Us All gives us the opportunity to explore the possibilities for social, environmental, and economic change that practical, dialogic agriculture presents.

The central Gujarat region of western India is home to the entrepreneurial landowning Patel caste who have leveraged their rural dominance to become a powerful global diaspora of merchants, industrialists, and professionals. Investigating the Patels’ intriguing ascent, Vinay Gidwani analyzes its broad implications for the nature of labor and capital worldwide. With the Patels as his central case, Gidwani interrogates established concepts of value, development, and the relationship between capital and history. Capitalism, he argues, is not a frame of economic organization based on the smooth, consistent operation of a series of laws, but rather an assemblage of contingent and interrupted logics stitched together into the appearance of a deus ex machina. Following this line of thinking, Gidwani points to ways in which political economy might be freed of its lingering Eurocentrism, raises questions about the adequacy of postcolonial studies’ critique of Marx and capitalism, and opens the possibility of situating capitalism as a geographically uneven social formation in which different normative or value-creating practices are imperfectly sutured together in ways that can equally impair and enable profit and accumulation. Both theoretically astute and empirically informed, Capital, Interrupted unsettles encrusted understandings of staple concepts within the human sciences such as hegemony, governmentality, caste, and agency and, ultimately, does nothing less than rethink the very constitution of capitalism. Vinay Gidwani is associate professor of geography and global studies at the University of Minnesota.

Building on the authors’ celebrated work in cognitive coaching, this important book provides teachers, schools, and policy leaders with the rationale and new direction for enhancing the development of the intellectual capacity of educators, their performance, and their ultimate effects on student learning. The authors focus on assisting teachers in developing awareness in their own ability to make effective judgments based on all their capabilities and experiences. When teachers weave internal expertise and external criteria together into the exquisite tapestry of teaching and learning, they gain confidence in their ability to make a difference for all students. Rather than spending time becoming better inspectors and enforcers, Cognitive Capital calls for skillful leaders to engage educators’ thought processes which promote practices that have high impacts on their students. “The authors have positioned ‘cognitive capital’ at the center of understanding and developing teacher quality and have succeeded brilliantly.” —Michael Fullan, professor emeritus, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, author of Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School “In contrast to the persistent trend of simplifying teaching via reductive evaluation tools, Costa, Garmston, and Zimmerman dive fearlessly into its complexities. Cultivating ‘cognitive capital’ is a refreshing new direction for educators to embrace. The ideas and recommended actions in this fascinating book support a culture of thoughtful innovation which develops mindful and resourceful professionals. The contemporary learners in our classrooms need nothing less.” —Heidi Hayes Jacobs, president, Curriculum Designers, Inc., curriculum21.com Arthur L. Costa is emeritus professor of education at California State University, Sacramento. Robert J. Garmston is emeritus professor of educational administration at California State University, Sacramento. Diane P. Zimmerman is a former superintendent for the Old Adobe Schools in Petaluma, California.

Secure venture capital? Easy. Getting a business up and running or pushing a brilliant product to the marketplace requires capital. For many entrepreneurs, a lack of start-up capital can be the single biggest roadblock to their dreams of success and fortune. Venture Capital For Dummies takes entrepreneurs step by step through the process of finding and securing venture capital for their own projects. Find and secure venture capital for your business Get your business up and running Push a product to the marketplace If you're an entrepreneur looking for hands-on guidance on how to secure capital for your business, the information in Venture Capital For Dummies gives you the edge you need to succeed.

Today's marketplace is fueled by knowledge. Yet organizing systematically to leverage knowledge remains a challenge. Leading companies have discovered that technology is not enough, and that cultivating communities of practice is the keystone of an effective knowledge strategy. Communities of practice come together around common interests and expertise- whether they consist of first-line managers or customer service representatives, neurosurgeons or software programmers, city managers or home-improvement amateurs. They create, share, and apply knowledge within and across the boundaries of teams, business units, and even entire companies-providing a concrete path toward creating a true knowledge organization. In Cultivating Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder argue that while communities form naturally, organizations need to become more proactive and systematic about developing and integrating them into their strategy. This book provides practical models and methods for stewarding these communities to reach their full potential-without squelching the inner drive that makes them so valuable. Through in-depth cases from firms such as DaimlerChrysler, McKinsey & Company, Shell, and the World Bank, the authors demonstrate how communities of practice can be leveraged to drive overall company strategy, generate new business opportunities, tie personal development to corporate goals, transfer best practices, and recruit and retain top talent. They define the unique features of these communities and outline principles for nurturing their essential elements. They provide guidelines to support communities of practice through their major stages of development, address the potential downsides of communities, and discuss the specific challenges of distributed communities. And they show how to recognize the value created by communities of practice and how to build a corporate knowledge strategy around them. Essential reading for any leader in today's knowledge economy, this is the definitive guide to developing communities of practice for the benefit-and long-term success-of organizations and the individuals who work in them. Etienne Wenger is a renowned expert and consultant on knowledge management and communities of practice in San Juan, California. Richard McDermott is a leading expert of organization and community development in Boulder, Colorado. William M. Snyder is a founding partner of Social Capital Group, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Learn from the Best Great leaders of innovation know that creativity is not enough. They succeed not only on the basis of their ideas, but because they have the vision, reputation, and networks to win the backing needed to commercialize them. It turns out that this quality--called "innovation capital"--is measurably more important for innovation than just being creative. The authors have spent decades studying how people get great ideas (the subject of The Innovator's DNA) and how people test and develop those ideas (explored in The Innovator's Method). Now they share what they've learned from a multipronged research program designed to determine how people compete for, and obtain, resources to launch new ideas: How you can build a personal reputation for innovation What techniques you can use to amplify your innovation capital How you can garner attention for your ideas and projects and persuade audiences to support them What it means to provide visionary leadership and how you can achieve it Featuring interviews with the superstars of innovation--individuals like Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Elon Musk (Tesla), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo), and Shantanu Narayen (Adobe)--this book will help you position yourself and your ideas to compete for attention and resources so that you can launch innovations with impact.