Christian Langkamp Libri

The financial crisis has shown that a significant proportion of the assets held by large corporations are exposed to credit risk that must be managed. This doctoral thesis sets out to analyse the contextual and organisational framework within which these activities are set and the practices employed by professionals in the field. This analysis draws on a set of interview-based data from large corporations in Europe and Brazil, predominantly from the chemical, energy, trading, and general manufacturing industries. Due to their diverse natures, the subjects of customer and financial institution counterparty credit risk are treated separately, addressing for each the organisation of the function, data acquisition process, and IT setup recommendable in order to effectively drive risk management, including a review for the practitioner to analyse his or her processes. A final chapter with analyses regarding trade credit insurance, sovereign risk, and quantitative special items rounds off the text making it into a comprehensive treatise on credit risk management in an industrial corporation.

Practical Friendship brings insights together from ancient and contemporary philosophy, theology, psychology and sociology to identify what good friendship means and how we can live it. Based on the analysis it proposes we adopt a role based view of friendship, that also can be used to analyse loneliness. Based on research and anecdotal evidence the book compiles a range of recommendations on how to maintain our friendships in good repair and how to foster friendship in old age. The book addresses an audience of professionals working to fight loneliness in our society as well as lay people wanting to reflect on how to improve the friendships in their lives. Additional sections are addressed at researchers in sociology and psychology who want to expand their understanding of friendship in order to tune their research to generate insight for loneliness-support.

'Freundschaft leben', die deutsche Fassung von Practical Friendship, bringt verschiedene Ansichten aus der antiken und modernen Philosophie, Theologie, Psychologie und Soziologie zusammen, um ein Bild davon zu erstellen, was gute Freundschaft bedeutet und wie wir sie am besten pflegen. Aufgrund der in diesem Buch erstellten Analyse wird eine Rollensichtweise der Freundschaft vorgeschlagen, mit der das Problem der Einsamkeit untersucht werden kann. Auf der Grundlage von aktueller Forschung und angereichert mit anekdotischen Bildern ist das Buch als eine Art Leitfaden erstellt, auf was wir in unseren Freundschaften achten können, um sie zu verbessern und in einem guten Zustand zu halten. Das Buch wendet sich an Leser, die als Psychologen oder Sozialarbeiter oder interessierte Mitbürger unserer Gesellschaft helfen, bessere Beziehungen aufzubauen und Einsamkeit zu vermeiden. Die deutsche Edition lässt den rein statistisch-methodischen Anhang aus, der in englischer Sprache veröffentlicht ist auf www.practicalfriendship.com.