Grounded in extensive research and field testing, Design-Centered Entrepreneurship presents a concise problem-solving approach to developing a unique business concept. Step-by-step guidelines provide insight into exploring market problem spaces, uncovering overlooked opportunities, reframing customer problems, creating business solutions, and sustaining success and an entrepreneurial culture. Drawing on methodologies from the world of design, the book helps students of entrepreneurship fill in the missing piece that transforms opportunity recognition into a viable business concept. Plenty of useful diagrams help to organize key concepts, making them easily accessible to readers. This second edition has been updated to include social entrepreneurship, more international examples and enhanced support materials. The digital supplements include a virtual creative problem-solving profile, slides, and an instructor manual. Design-Centered Entrepreneurship is the ideal text for entrepreneurship and new venture creation courses with a focus on design thinking.

Internet Strategy: The Road to Web Services Solutions reminds readers that several attempts have been made to convince the world that DOT.COM was developed to take over businesses, and the traditional way of creating businesses and running organizations would be condemned to the past. One of those attempts led to the Application Service Provision model, from which the current Web Services business model takes its origins. As organizations start to carefully invest again, ""Internet Strategy: The Road to Web Services Solutions"" shows that the focus is on delivering value and enabling growth. The book concentrates on how to create, execute and evolve a customer-centric strategy of any Internet-based management strategy in order to provide valuable customer experiences. ""Internet Strategy: The Road to Web Services Solutions"" presents how enabling technologies are as important as ever. It points out that there's a need to move to new levels in thinking and execution, to help organizations maintain cost efficiencies and enable growth in revenues and profitability.

This book addresses the usefulness of knowledge discovery through data mining. With this aim, contributors from different fields propose concrete problems and applications showing how data mining and discovering embedded knowledge from raw data can be beneficial to social organizations, domestic spheres, and ICT markets. Data mining or knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) has received increasing interest due to its focus on transforming large amounts of data into novel, valid, useful, and structured knowledge by detecting concealed patterns and relationships. The concept of knowledge is broad and speculative and has promoted epistemological debates in western philosophies. The intensified interest in knowledge management and data mining stems from the difficulty in identifying computational models able to approximate human behaviors and abilities in resolving organizational, social, and physical problems. Current ICT interfaces are not yet adequately advanced to support and simulate the abilities of physicians, teachers, assistants or housekeepers in domestic spheres. And unlike in industrial contexts where abilities are routinely applied, the domestic world is continuously changing and unpredictable. There are challenging questions in this field: Can knowledge locked in conventions, rules of conduct, common sense, ethics, emotions, laws, cultures, and experiences be mined from data? Is it acceptable for automatic systems displaying emotional behaviors to govern complex interactions based solely on the mining of large volumes of data? Discussing multidisciplinary themes, the book proposes computational models able to approximate, to a certain degree, human behaviors and abilities in resolving organizational, social, and physical problems. The innovations presented are of primary importance for: a. The academic research community b. The ICT market c. Ph.D. students and early stage researchers d. Schools, hospitals, rehabilitation and assisted-living centers e. Representatives from multimedia industries and standardization bodies

Cooperation between science and business (S2B cooperation) is a very important issue from the points of view of the domestic economy, companies, and universities. This is mainly because such cooperation is a catalyst for faster and reliable development - not only of enterprises, but also of the entire economy. Thanks to S2B cooperation, enterprises can gain and commercialize new and ground-breaking solutions. Universities in turn can give their research a more practical dimension to increase its economic applicability, which helps universities prepare future staff to work in modern enterprises. The aim of this publication is to indicate how cooperation between universities and business can be implemented in an international dimension. It shows the role of modern universities in supporting the development of enterprise and entire economies as well as the role of modern enterprises that use resources located in universities (including knowledge resources). This unique combination has a positive impact on the results and developmental opportunities for each of them. Any potential obtained in this manner is the basis for creating a competitive advantage on the market. This book is devoted to a specific area of cooperation between enterprises and universities and will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of entrepreneurship, knowledge management, international relations, and higher education.

Generating huge interest and backed by the global WorldWideWeb consortium the semantic web is the key initiative driving the future of the World Wide Web. Towards the Semantic Web focuses on the application of Semantic Web technology and ontologies in particular to electronically available information to improve the quality of knowledge management in large and distributed organizations. Ontologies are formal structures supporting knowledge sharing and reuse. They can be used to represent explicitly the semantics of structured and semi-structured information which enable sophisticated automatic support for acquiring, maintaining and accessing information. Covering the key technologies for the next generation of the WWW, this book is an excellent mixture of theory, tools and applications in an important area of WWW research.

• Aims to support more efficient and effective knowledge management and focuses on weakly-structured online information sources.

• Covers highly significant contributions to the semantic web research effort, including a new language for defining ontologies, several novel software tools and a coherent methodology for the application of the tools for business advantage.

• Provides guidelines for introducing knowledge management concepts and tools into businesses.

• Introduces an intelligent search tool that supports users in accessing information and a tool environment for maintenance, conversion and acquisition of information sources. Also describes information visualisation and knowledge sharing tools.

• Describes a state-of-the-art system for storage and retrieval of metadata expressed in RDF and RDF Schema. Also discusses a system for automatic metadata extraction.

• Examines three significant case studies providing examples of the real benefits to be derived from the adoption of semantic-web based ontologies in "real world" situations.

This book provides several inventory models for making the right decision in inventory management under different environments. Basically, the optimal ordering policies are determined for situations with and without shortages in production-inventory systems. The chapters in the book include various features of inventory modeling i.e., inflation, deterioration, supply chain, learning, credit financing, carbon emission policy, stock-dependent demand, among others. The book is a useful resource for academicians, researchers, students, practitioners, and managers who can be benefited with the policies provided in the chapters of the book.

Current models of corporate citizenship largely consider business as one coherent entity. This view of business as a corporate force overlooks the growing evidence that most businesses are run by families. Family businesses are the most common form of business in existence - across countries, continents and geopolitical divides - and yet we know remarkably little about their approach to corporate citizenship. Where families run businesses, they create a concentration of family values that - for good or ill - influence the way business practices and behaviours develop. The role of the family in business has, therefore, an influence on the development of society that is partially mediated through corporate citizenship. This book pulls together current thinking from several diverse research fields that intersect with family business research to offer insight into current research and examples of practice for those studying and researching in the fields of family business, business values and corporate practice. The book will also explore the fact that family businesses tend to take a longer-term approach to business and that this is reflected in their behaviour towards the environment, community engagement, employee development and innovation. Bringing together contributions from researchers in the diverse fields of family business, philanthropy, community engagement, corporate social responsibility, innovation and policy, this book explores the many ways in which family businesses contribute to the corporate citizenship agenda.

In this book, Edosa explores common challenges which limit the value that organisations can get from data. What makes his book unique is that he also tackles one of the unspoken barriers to data adoption-fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the intangible, fear of the investment needed and, yes, fear of losing your job to a machine. With his talent for distilling clarity from complexity, Edosa tackles this and many other challenges. -Tim Carmichael, Chief Data Officer, Chalhoub Group This book offers fresh insight about how to solve the interactional frictions that hamper the flow of data, information and knowledge across organisations. Yet, rather than being stuck with endless polarising debates such as breaking down silos, it shifts focus back towards the ultimate "to what end." -Jacky Wright, Chief Digital Officer (CDO), Microsoft US If you care about AI transformation, empowering people or advancing organisational success in an increasingly digital world, then you should read this book. -Yomi Ibosiola, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Union Bank A retail giant already struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic was faced with a disastrous situation when-at the end of a critical investment in an artificial intelligence project that had been meant to save money-it suddenly discovered that its implementation was likely to leave it worse off. An entire critical service stream within an insurer's production system crashed. This critical failure resulted in the detentions of fully insured motorists for allegedly not carrying required insurance. Making Data Work details these two scenarios as well as others illustrating the consequences that arise when organizations do not know how to make data work properly. It is a journey to determine what to do to "make data work" for ourselves and for our organisations. It is a journey to discover how to bring it all together so organisations can enable digital transformation, empower people, and advance organisational success. It is the journey to a world where data and technology finally live up to the hype and deliver better human outcomes, where artificial intelligence can move us from reacting to situations to predicting future occurrences and enabling desirable possibilities.

This book reflects the tremendous changes in the telecommunications industry in the course of the past few decades - shorter innovation cycles, stiffer competition and new communication products. It analyzes the transformation of processes, applications and network technologies that are now expected to take place under enormous time pressure. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the TM Forum have provided reference solutions that are broadly recognized and used throughout the value chain of the telecommunications industry, and which can be considered the de facto standard. The book describes how these reference solutions can be used in a practical context: it presents the latest insights into their development, highlights lessons learned from numerous international projects and combines them with well-founded research results in enterprise architecture management and reference modeling. The complete architectural transformation is explained, from the planning and set-up stage to the implementation. Featuring a wealth of examples and illustrations, the book offers a valuable resource for telecommunication professionals, enterprise architects and project managers alike.

The ultimate textbook in Business Information Systems for future Managers Business Information Systems: Technology, Development and Management for the Modern Business, 6th Edition by Bocij, Greasley, and Hickie is a leading text that will help you understand the relevance and impact of information systems in today's business environment. Written in a language that is easy to follow, this text does not assume any prior knowledge of IS or ICT and is ideal for students attending courses related to Business Information Systems and Management Information Systems at an Undergraduate or Postgraduate level. Starting from basic concepts this book provides a comprehensive and accessible guide to: understanding the technology of Business Information Systems choosing the right Information System for an organisation developing and managing an efficient Business Information System employing information systems strategically to achieve organisational goals Taking a problem-solving approach, this thoroughly revised edition defines new concepts and studies the theory of information systems according to the most recent business and technological advances, covering contemporary key topics such as: Big Data Analytics Cloud Computing Industry 4.0 Internet of Things With new business examples, case studies, and web links fully integrated throughout, this must-have guide will provide you with all the tools you need to understand the opportunities and benefits Information Systems bring to an organisation and successfully run a business.

E-Business Strategy, Sourcing and Governance is based on the premise that it is difficult, if not impossible, to manage a modern business or public organization without at least some knowledge of the planning, use, control and benefits of information technology. Managers need to have an understanding of strategy development for IS/IT that covers e-business strategy, sourcing of service, and governance of IS/IT decision rights. ""E-Business Strategy, Sourcing and Governance"" presents emerging perspectives that influence IS/IT strategy work, such as new e-business models, the growing number of sourcing options and revised models for governance of IS/IT.

The aim of this book is to investigate the discursive power of two original, theoretical lenses when applied to real outsourcing arrangements and phenomena. The Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Foucauldian perspectives are brought to bear on five outsourcing relationships in order to test the application of these discourses to rich qualitative data over the outsourcing contractual life-cycle. This will be the first study illustrating the relevance of Foucauldian concepts of governmentality, discourse and power relations to the study of outsourcing arrangements, and will also incorporate the perspectives of both client and supplier organizations. Using discourse analysis, the objective is to critically deconstruct and provide fresh insight into the normative 'outsourcing' discourse that has grown up around global sourcing practices over the last 30 years.

Uses practical business cases in regional Australia to illustrate opportunities and challenges confronting businesses in non metropolitan regions

Uses practical business cases in regional Australia to illustrate opportunities and challenges confronting businesses in non metropolitan regions

This book puts successful startup tools in the hands of creators: performers, artists, entertainers, creatives, and media makers seeking to launch like a business and generate more income. Readers will learn essential entrepreneurial principles taught to founders in the startup community. Creatives who read this book will learn: How to launch their creative startups Ways to run and market their venture efficiently Effective methods to test new services, products, and experiences To incorporate their entire skill set in an authentic way That they can do all of this now, without business classes or special training With actionable information, real-world case studies as examples, and specific steps to build business acumen from an artistic perspective, this book puts entrepreneurial tools into the frameworks and mindsets of those working in creative fields. Paula Landry, MBA, is a creator, writer/filmmaker, and musician who has been teaching and coaching creatives for a decade, through undergraduate and graduate programs in New York City, as well as at various non-profits.

This book is based on the review of literature on different themes related to business and management in the Asia Pacific context. All seven chapters included in this book explore the past, present and future of business and research. They cover diverse topics in the Asia Pacific context ranging from different ways of thinking to innovation implementation and efficiency, responsible tourism, internal marketing to leadership. This book will be useful for researchers, practitioners and policy makers. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Asia Pacific Business Review.

This book presents the concept of a fuzzy-based recommender system for user account privacy settings that can be used for citizen participation on online political platforms. The elaborated components are exemplarily based on the needs of a political platform implemented during the presidential election in Ecuador. The book readdresses the issue of privacy paradox demonstrating that, indeed, users' actual decisions of being private in most cases diverge with their initial privacy intentions. The two concepts presented in the book - the citizen privacy profile framework and the prototype fuzzy-based privacy settings recommender system - can be adapted by different organizations such as government institutions, NGOs, or private online service providers to meet their specific needs. The book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the areas of usage modeling, privacy, system design, and for service providers in eDemocracy.

Modern Actuarial Risk Theory contains what every actuary needs to know about non-life insurance mathematics. It starts with the standard material like utility theory, individual and collective model and basic ruin theory. Other topics are risk measures and premium principles, bonus-malus systems, ordering of risks and credibility theory. It also contains some chapters about Generalized Linear Models, applied to rating and IBNR problems. As to the level of the mathematics, the book would fit in a bachelors or masters program in quantitative economics or mathematical statistics. This second and much expanded edition emphasizes the implementation of these techniques through the use of R. This free but incredibly powerful software is rapidly developing into the de facto standard for statistical computation, not just in academic circles but also in practice. With R, one can do simulations, find maximum likelihood estimators, compute distributions by inverting transforms, and much more.

Within entrepreneurship education, Team Academy is seen by some as an innovative pedagogical model that enhances social connectivity, as well as experiential, student-centred, and team-based learning. It also creates spaces for transformative learning to occur. This second book of the Routledge Focus on Team Academy book series includes chapters from contributors working with the TA methodology in academic institutions around the world that discuss the challenges, benefits, and approaches to embedding the TA methodology in practice (around coaching, assessment, transformative learning, partnerships, programme evolution, etc.). This book is aimed at academics, practitioners, and learners engaged in the Team Academy methodology, pedagogy, and model, as well as those interested in the area of entrepreneurial team learning. Readers will be inspired to innovate in their delivery methodologies and to explore learning-by-doing approaches to creating value. The book also aims to challenge the discourse around entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities, offering insights, research, stories, and experiences from those learning and working in the Team Academy approach.

Software and systems quality is playing an increasingly important role in the growth of almost all profit and non-profit organisations. Quality is vital to the success of enterprises in their markets. Most small trade and repair businesses use software systems in their administration and marketing processes. Every doctor's surgery is managing its patients using software. Banking is no longer conceivable without software. Aircraft, trucks and cars use more and more software to handle their increasingly complex technical systems. Innovation, competition and cost pressure are always present in on-going business decisions. The question facing all these organisations is how to achieve the right quality of their software-based systems and products; how to get the required level of quality, a level that the market will reward, a level that mitigates the organisation's risks and a level that the organisation is willing to pay for. Although a number of good practices are in place, there is still room for huge improvements. Thus, let us take a look into the two worlds of "Embedded systems" and "ICT systems" and let us learn from both worlds, from overlaps and individual solutions. The next step for industrialisation in the software industry is required now. Hence, three pillars will be focused in this book: (1) a fundamental notion of right software and systems quality (RiSSQ); (2) portfolio management, quality governance, quality management, and quality engineering as holistic approach over the three layers of an enterprise, i.e. strategic, tactical, and operational layer; and (3) an industrialisation framework for implementing our approach.

Unique shortform textbook on entrepreneurship Saves time for students of entrepreneurship and small business management Covers key theories and topics

Digitisation and digital transformation are not only a topic of the media, but are also taking place in companies. The digital transformation affects the most diverse fields, from procurement to sales and from organisation to strategy development. This task requires the commitment of every company management and cannot simply be delegated. This book aims to help managers and entrepreneurs to set up structures in their organisation that allow them to approach the digital transformation systematically. The topics covered range from the configuration of digitisation strategies and new management roles such as the Chief Digital Officer to the importance of IT infrastructures, HR management and corporate culture as enablers of digital transformation. A simple framework serves as an orientation framework that structures the management tasks and clearly summarises the various concepts and instruments. In the 2nd revised and expanded edition, the focus is on organisational aspects, in particular the role of start-ups for the digital transformation, the design of the so-called Digital Innovation Units and the role of the CDO. Secondly, the design and management of digitisation projects is considered in more detail. And thirdly, the concept of digital transformation is further specified and delimited. In addition, the advancing technological development is taken into account. "Prof. Thomas Hess provides a concrete overview of many important aspects to be considered in the digital transformation of companies. Clearly worth reading." Stefan Winners, Chief Digital Officer at Hubert Burda Media "Beyond the buzzword - Finally someone manages to systematically untangle the chaos surrounding digital transformation. With his book, Thomas Hess truly establishes the guardrails for managing digital transformation projects. While others promise much and deliver little, Thomas Hess gives the reader a design framework rather than a patent remedy." Dr Christoph Steiger, former board member and CDO of Hoffmann Group "Clearly more than just another book on the topic of digital transformation! With exciting insights from science and practice, Thomas Hess provides a toolbox for digital transformation. Relevant for business and relevant researchers." Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Hubert OEsterle, University of St. Gallen

Blockchain and other trustless systems have gone from being relatively obscure technologies, which were only known to a small community of computer scientists and cryptologists, to mainstream phenomena that are now considered powerful game changers for many industries. This book explores and assesses real-world use cases and case studies on blockchain and related technologies. The studies describe the respective applications and address how these technologies have been deployed, the rationale behind their application, and finally, their outcomes. The book shares a wealth of experiences and lessons learned regarding financial markets, energy, SCM, healthcare, law and compliance. Given its scope, it is chiefly intended for academics and practitioners who want to learn more about blockchain applications.

In this book, Edosa explores common challenges which limit the value that organisations can get from data. What makes his book unique is that he also tackles one of the unspoken barriers to data adoption-fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the intangible, fear of the investment needed and, yes, fear of losing your job to a machine. With his talent for distilling clarity from complexity, Edosa tackles this and many other challenges. -Tim Carmichael, Chief Data Officer, Chalhoub Group This book offers fresh insight about how to solve the interactional frictions that hamper the flow of data, information and knowledge across organisations. Yet, rather than being stuck with endless polarising debates such as breaking down silos, it shifts focus back towards the ultimate "to what end." -Jacky Wright, Chief Digital Officer (CDO), Microsoft US If you care about AI transformation, empowering people or advancing organisational success in an increasingly digital world, then you should read this book. -Yomi Ibosiola, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Union Bank A retail giant already struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic was faced with a disastrous situation when-at the end of a critical investment in an artificial intelligence project that had been meant to save money-it suddenly discovered that its implementation was likely to leave it worse off. An entire critical service stream within an insurer's production system crashed. This critical failure resulted in the detentions of fully insured motorists for allegedly not carrying required insurance. Making Data Work details these two scenarios as well as others illustrating the consequences that arise when organizations do not know how to make data work properly. It is a journey to determine what to do to "make data work" for ourselves and for our organisations. It is a journey to discover how to bring it all together so organisations can enable digital transformation, empower people, and advance organisational success. It is the journey to a world where data and technology finally live up to the hype and deliver better human outcomes, where artificial intelligence can move us from reacting to situations to predicting future occurrences and enabling desirable possibilities.

This book provides an understanding of innovation models and why they are important in the business context, and considers sources of innovation and how to apply business frameworks using real-world examples of innovation-led businesses. After providing a solid background to the key concepts related to innovation models, the book looks at why innovation takes place and where the sources of innovation lie, from corporate research to crowd-sourced and government-funded initiatives. Innovation models across manufacturing, services and government are explored, as well as measuring innovation, and the impact of design thinking and lean enterprise principles on innovation and sustainability-driven imperatives. Offering a truly comprehensive and global approach, Business Innovation should be core or recommended reading for advanced undergraduate, postgraduate, MBA and Executive Education students studying Innovation Management, Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship.