Ang Tao Te Ching ni Lao Tzu
Translated by Florentino T. Timbreza
Link HERE.

The "Tao Te Ching" is a unique book filled with valuable teachings related to human wisdom, ethics, meaningful living, and effective leadership. It describes the "Tao" as the supreme reason in everything. According to Lao Tzu (sometimes spelled as Lao Tsu or Laozi), the "Tao" is nameless because it transcends all that can be named. It is beyond any single designation, as assigning it a name would imply limitation or confinement. The "Te" refers to the natural self or the essence of a being, suggesting that every creature has its inherent state of being unaffected by its surroundings.

The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders
By Max Anderson and Peter Escher
Link HERE.

The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders emerges as a crucial intervention in the aftermath of the 2008 US economic collapse, offering a path towards corporate transformation. This book meticulously outlines the downfall of US business practices, the MBA community's response to the call for change, and the methods to ensure this transformation is both feasible and sustainable.

Note: This review was originally written on October 17, 2012.

Authors: Fernando Martin Y.Roxas, John Paolo R.Rivera, & Eylla Laire M.Gutierrez
Source: Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management Volume 45, December 2020, Pages 387-398
Abstract: Tourism planning and development has revolved around sustainability concepts and issues. Addressing concerns on sustainability, environmental conservation, and local community involvement has become increasingly challenging. Success in developing sustainable destinations has been deemed to be a function and result of effective governance. However, tourism governance remains indistinct on the questions of how tourism stakeholders interact and how this interaction can be beneficial in achieving sustainability. By appealing to the fundamental principles and practices of sustainability and how stakeholder involvement and participation are fused into sustainable tourism development, we develop a 5-point tourism stakeholder framework that will explain how tourism stakeholders can harness their roles and collaborative advantages in governing destinations through regulation, conservation, and livelihood. Findings will have propositions on how tourism stakeholders can advance pursuit of sustainable tourism.
 

Authors: Octavi Bono i Gispert & Salvador Anton Clavé
Source: Journal of Destination Marketing & Management Volume 17, September 2020, 100465
Abstract: The concept of governance has achieved a growing presence in academic debates in recent years, although it has not done so in the same way in the area of tourism destination management. The research presented here allows us to see how the actors in the Catalan tourism system perceive and understand governance and identifies dimensions and models of governance. A categorization comprising seven dimensions of tourism governance (participation, coherence, responsibility, effectiveness, know-how/quality, openness, and simplification) is provided through the construction of a semantic network based on the actors' understanding of their own practices. By applying principal component analysis to the set of variables associated with each category, five different models of governance approaches are obtained (Transparent Strategy, Liable Outcomes, Hermetic Results-oriented-ism, Democratic Moralism, and Democratic Bureaucracy).

Author: Virgilio M.Maguigad
Source: Tourism Management Perspectives Volume 7, July 2013, Pages 25-33
Abstract: Tourism is a development option that is pursued in the Philippines from the 1970s until present where it is a pillar of the country's economy. Arrivals from foreign origins are increasing at double digit growth rates while domestic tourism continues to outpace international arrivals. Recent legislation on tourism during the past two years continues to place importance on the industry as an engine of growth. However, such legislation should be viewed against the backdrop of local governance structures, power relations, and stakeholder linkages that include processes on comprehensive land use planning and tourism. The country faces a lack of environmental planners, where tourism planning is a sub-specialization. The current political ecology is that of a national government that relinquished its broad powers in land use and tourism planning to local governments that since 1992 have struggled to keep abreast with the implementation demands of national legislation. These testy relationships in turn create negative consequences to the natural environment well-documented in the experiences of Boracay Island. Tourism planning in the wider environmental planning spectrum in the country is in need of re-evaluating linkages, working relationships, and power relations between the various stakeholders in the land use-tourism planning processes, given the challenges of existing political and administrative frameworks in the national and local governments.