Suchergebnisse

From the dawn of humanity, the dialectic relationship between technology and society has been one of the driving forces behind changes in both realms. Trends in technological developments and their applications are, ultimately, the result of individual and collective choices.

Multi-faced Social Transformations: Challenges and Studies brings together the proceedings of the 7th Slovenian Social Science Conference, "The Challenges of Social Transformations", held in September 2014. It was organized by the School of Advanced Social Studies (SASS), the Slovenian National Committee of the Management of Social Transformations programme (MOST), and the Slovenian National Commission for UNESCO. The multidisciplinary contributions presented here analyse various aspects of the economic, social, and cultural transformations that accompany the contemporary globalized world.The book consists of four sections dealing with particular areas of transformations. These include a range of political, economic and cultural dimensions that are observed from the macro-level, in social systems and structural changes, to the micro-level, in aspects of individuals' lives. The book will be of interest for academics in the field of social sciences, as well as for civil society activists and policy makers. The frames of the transformations are not limited to the European space, and provide a more global perspective

The book presents a model of the major factors of developmental performance, their inter-relations and effects that are supposed to generate sustained societal development. They include cultural traditions, social capital, cognitive mobilization, quality of governance, entrepreneurial spirit, social cohesion and openness toward international environments. These factors are measured by many empirical indicators; the data are presented for the old and new members of the European Union as well as the other European nations. The significance of the factors in the model is both tested and confirmed using the fuzzy set analysis. Successful accomplishment of institutional reforms is necessary but not sufficient condition for system competitiveness. The results imply that broader socio-cultural factors discussed in the book are necessary: a country can only embark on positive developmental trends if all factors are present simultaneously, since cumulative effect and synergy are required