Where Today Meets Tomorrow

Long before Microsoft or Apple occupied their legendary corporate campuses, there was the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. Completed in 1956 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2014, this icon of midcentury design was celebrated modern architect Eero Saarinen's (1910 – 1961) first major commission completed independent of his father, Eliel Saarinen, and its story offers a unique perspective on his work. Longtime GM designer Susan Skarsgard weaves a detailed insider's account of the early days of General Motors, the initiation of the technical center project under Eliel Saarinen, its design and construction under Eero Saarinen, and the enthusiastic acclaim the campus received upon its opening. Many leading lights of midcentury modernism were involved in the project as design consultants or artists, including Harry Bertoia, Alexander Girard, Florence Knoll, and Alexander Calder. This lavishly illustrated account is a unique document of a landmark project, presented in photographs and architectural drawings, interviews, documents, and ephemera, many never before seen.

Business today is up against a myriad of complexities -- disruptive competition and technologies, volatile economic forces, and a complex and evolving work force. There is unending pressure to do more with less, deliver short-term goals while driving long-term sustainability, all while finding and retaining the top talent to get it done. Learning how to navigate these pressures is the difference between a thriving business and a dying one. To break out, businesses need to rethink the fundamental drivers for success. In Purpose Meets Execution, Efron shows us the most powerful driver of success is a culture of purpose combined with executional excellence. Efron has developed a framework that merges the power of a purpose-driven organization with executional excellence. He applies proven diagnostics to determine if the company has a clear and meaningful sense of organizational purpose and whether that purpose is effectively aligned with business practices across functional areas. He works with each company to address gaps and create a plan for continuous improvement. When companies understand and implement a plan and process to balance purpose and execution, they: Create an unbeatable competitive advantage in the market by paving the way to find and retain the best of the current and next generation workforce Delight customers Deliver exceptional and sustainable results.

EBES conferences have been intellectual hub for academic discussion in economics, finance, and business fields and provide network opportunities for participants to make long lasting academic cooperation. This is the 21st issue of the Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics (EBES’s official proceeding series) which includes selected papers from the 34rd EBES Conference – Athens. Due to the COVID-19, the conference presentation mode has been switched to "online/virtual presentation only”. In the conference, 148 papers by 296 colleagues from 40 countries were presented. Both theoretical and empirical papers in this volume cover diverse areas of business, economics, and finance from many different regions. Therefore, it provides a great opportunity to colleagues, professionals, and students to catch up with the most recent studies in different fields and empirical findings on many countries and regions.