This book intends to theoretically conceptualize and empirically investigate upcoming and established practices of community-based initiatives in various countries in which both citizens and governments join efforts and capacities to solve wicked issues. It aims to include and compare cases from various countries, departing from the notion that community-based initiatives take place in an institutional context of governmental structures, rules, procedures, regulations, and routines. This leads to government involvement in these initiatives and sharing the public space. Furthermore, the editors take into account what kind of leadership roles, knowledge, and resources are present and how they evolve in this collaborative or coordinative effort, which in turn can enhance the capacities of community-based initiatives. This book joins excellent researchers from renowned universities all over the world, aiming for a balance between upcoming scholars and renowned scholars in the field of community-based initiatives and governance capacity. Contributors were carefully selected on the basis of their experience in the field of community-based initiatives, citizens' engagement and governance capacity approaches. Aimed at researchers and academics, this volume will be of interest to those in the fields of business, economics, public administration, political science, social enterprise, sociology and third sector studies.

Service chain management enables service organisations to improve customer satisfaction and reduce operational costs. In this book, Christos Voudouris and his BT colleagues together with experts from industry and academia present the latest innovations and technologies used to manage the operations of a service company. The viewpoints presented are based on the BT experience and on associated research and development. Service chain management is looked at both from the enterprise perspective and from the standpoints of the service professional and customer. The focus is on real-world challenges.

This book presents a range of qualitative and quantitative analyses in areas such as cybersecurity, sustainability, multivariate analysis, customer satisfaction, parametric programming, software reliability growth modeling, and blockchain technology, to name but a few. It also highlights integrated methods and practices in the areas of machine learning and genetic algorithms. After discussing applications in supply chains and logistics, cloud computing, six sigma, production management, big data analysis, satellite imaging, game theory, biometric systems, quality, and system performance, the book examines the latest developments and breakthroughs in the field of science and technology, and provides novel problem-solving methods. The themes discussed in the book link contributions by researchers and practitioners from different branches of engineering and management, and hailing from around the globe. These contributions provide scholars with a platform to derive maximum utility in the area of analytics by subscribing to the idea of managing business through system sciences, operations, and management. Managers and decision-makers can learn a great deal from the respective chapters, which will help them devise their own business strategies and find real-world solutions to complex industrial problems.

* Provides tailored guidance for entrepreneurs who are also life partners, and women entrepreneurs, based on the authors' decades of successful experience * Covers such important issues for all entrepreneurs as risk tolerance and mitigation, infrastructure scaling, and exit strategy * Offers insights on trends and opportunities for entrepreneurs in a post-COVID19 world

This book integrates the concepts of big data analytics into mental health practice and research. Mental disorders represent a public health challenge of staggering proportions. According to the most recent Global Burden of Disease study, psychiatric disorders constitute the leading cause of years lost to disability. The high morbidity and mortality related to these conditions are proportional to the potential for overall health gains if mental disorders can be more effectively diagnosed and treated. In order to fill these gaps, analysis in science, industry, and government seeks to use big data for a variety of problems, including clinical outcomes and diagnosis in psychiatry. Multiple mental healthcare providers and research laboratories are increasingly using large data sets to fulfill their mission. Briefly, big data is characterized by high volume, high velocity, variety and veracity of information, and to be useful it must be analyzed, interpreted, and acted upon. As such, focus has to shift to new analytical tools from the field of machine learning that will be critical for anyone practicing medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the 21st century. Big data analytics is gaining traction in psychiatric research, being used to provide predictive models for both clinical practice and public health systems. As compared with traditional statistical methods that provide primarily average group-level results, big data analytics allows predictions and stratification of clinical outcomes at an individual subject level. Personalized Psychiatry - Big Data Analytics in Mental Health provides a unique opportunity to showcase innovative solutions tackling complex problems in mental health using big data and machine learning. It represents an interesting platform to work with key opinion leaders to document current achievements, introduce new concepts as well as project the future role of big data and machine learning in mental health.

This book approaches big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and business intelligence through the lens of Data Science. We have grown accustomed to seeing these terms mentioned time and time again in the mainstream media. However, our understanding of what they actually mean often remains limited. This book provides a general overview of the terms and approaches used broadly in data science, and provides detailed information on the underlying theories, models, and application scenarios. Divided into three main parts, it addresses what data science is; how and where it is used; and how it can be implemented using modern open source software. The book offers an essential guide to modern data science for all students, practitioners, developers and managers seeking a deeper understanding of how various aspects of data science work, and of how they can be employed to gain a competitive advantage.

While intense efforts of clarification have been made to distinguish between the concept of system and ecosystem, and between the different forms of ecosystems, very few works have addressed the issues of how these different forms of ecosystems are interacting in a dynamic perspective, or of how the notion of a dynamic ecosystem could emerge from the static frame of a system approach. The five chapters in this volume precisely aim at adding to this literature by highlighting the interplay between different types of innovation systems. A common thread among the five chapters of the book is the recognition of the need to develop new lenses to formally account for adaptative behaviour within clusters, networks, or regional innovation systems using the ecosystem metaphor. The diversity and heterogeneity of agents, the complexity of relationships, and new forms of organisation (underground, middleground, and upperground) are the main characteristics of innovation ecosystems, in contrast to more traditional concepts like clusters or networks. In essence, the five chapters add various complexity dimensions (relationships, knowledge, systems, etc.) to the existing knowledge on ecosystems. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Industry and Innovation.

Understanding experience at work, especially in toxic organizations, is a multidimensional undertaking that must include all senses. The use of applied poetry has its primary value as an evocative approach to sensing, knowing, and understanding workplace experience. Poetry at its best condenses into relatively few words, metaphors, and images what conventional social science narratives would take much longer to articulate. Where poetry often hints and alludes, narrative seeks to spell out, expound, and complete. Where poetry leaves much mental space for the listener or reader to fill in with one's imagination, narrative fills in the spaces with rich detail. Applied poetry and its contextual stories offer a way of accessing workplace experience that is unique and valuable in terms of understanding lives at work. The use of complementary psychodynamic theories, like all theories, is a way of trying to account for what we have found and experienced and in particular why it happened. "Why," the authors suggest, is critical in terms of understanding the sensing, images, and metaphors evoked by the poetry and stories that may resonate with hearers and readers for reasons that are unconscious and are rooted in the past. These transferences that come forward from life experience into the present are the critical data we work with. These are the data of psychoanalysis. This book both widens and deepens the scope of organizational research offered by other researchers, theorists, and approaches to understanding, interpreting, explaining, leading, and consulting with workplace organizations. Its triangulating integration of applied poetry, experience and stories behind the poetry, and the three psychoanalytic models of explaining life in workplaces, is a new and distinct contribution to organizational research, leadership, and consulting efforts to help organization members solve real, underlying problems and not offer simplistic, formulaic solutions based solely on a study of the organization's surface. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of organizational studies, leadership, and management.

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.

* Unlike other books on differentiation strategy, goes into detailed, clear explanations of the underlying concepts and principles * Goes beyond general guidelines to provide actionable, 'how to' details to create a differentiation strategy * Based on a process with proven results for large clients in such industries as hospitality management

Despite the growing attention towards the importance of practical wisdom in business today, little research has been done about the concept of practical wisdom in the Indigenous, Asian and Middle-Eastern traditions. Contemporary studies of wisdom are dominated by the philosophical traditions of Western thought, which is based on the ancient Greek concepts of wisdom. Much less is known about how practical wisdom, as illuminated by these other traditions, can be implemented in today's organizational settings. This book thus fills an important gap in understanding wisdom and how it is applied in a poly-cultural world. Wisdom is culturally bound. Wisdom is poly-cultural and interweaves individuality and communality. Practical wisdom is inextricably connected to many needs of contemporary personal and professional life. Moreover, the increasingly growing poly-culturality around the world requires a better understanding of how practical wisdom is understood in different cultures and traditions. Accordingly, there is a need for a) poly-cultural understanding of the concept of wisdom and b) the role of practical wisdom in a world crying out for wisdom. This book underlines the importance of developing a poly-cultural and interdisciplinary understanding of the concept of practical wisdom in today's complex environment. The book offers significant insight into the implications of the non-Western traditions of wisdom and how such an understanding of the non-Western traditions can help us better and more critically understand and appropriately address new multi-faceted complex emerging phenomena. While the Western traditions offer valuable insight into the implication of wisdom in modern life, an integrated view that brings together the Western and non-Western traditions can provide a more critical and practical insight into how to apply practical wisdom in a contemporary poly-cultural environment.

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

This book focuses on the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) in Africa and examines the role of the private sector in the fight against poverty. The BOP concept, which is a market-based approach to poverty eradication, presents a great avenue for businesses to develop opportunities and new business models that enable and empower those in the BOP population in Africa to raise their socio-economic welfare and well-being. The BOP market and the business interest in the BOP in Africa is rising. This book furthers our understanding of the characteristics of BOP markets in Africa, and the challenges and opportunities to address poverty and development in a sustainable manner. The book covers various themes of BOP markets and their embeddedness in social-cultural settings in Africa. The different chapters employ a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to advance research and practice of BOP in Africa. The book chapters reflect multiple diversities that characterise sub-Saharan Africa based on studies in 13 country contexts and from five industry sectors. This book is recommended reading for managers and policy makers, as well as students and academics interested in Base of the Pyramid markets.

Organizations can make data science a repeatable, predictable tool, which business professionals use to get more value from their data Enterprise data and AI projects are often scattershot, underbaked, siloed, and not adaptable to predictable business changes. As a result, the vast majority fail. These expensive quagmires can be avoided, and this book explains precisely how. Data science is emerging as a hands-on tool for not just data scientists, but business professionals as well. Managers, directors, IT leaders, and analysts must expand their use of data science capabilities for the organization to stay competitive. Smarter Data Science helps them achieve their enterprise-grade data projects and AI goals. It serves as a guide to building a robust and comprehensive information architecture program that enables sustainable and scalable AI deployments. When an organization manages its data effectively, its data science program becomes a fully scalable function that's both prescriptive and repeatable. With an understanding of data science principles, practitioners are also empowered to lead their organizations in establishing and deploying viable AI. They employ the tools of machine learning, deep learning, and AI to extract greater value from data for the benefit of the enterprise. By following a ladder framework that promotes prescriptive capabilities, organizations can make data science accessible to a range of team members, democratizing data science throughout the organization. Companies that collect, organize, and analyze data can move forward to additional data science achievements: Improving time-to-value with infused AI models for common use cases Optimizing knowledge work and business processes Utilizing AI-based business intelligence and data visualization Establishing a data topology to support general or highly specialized needs Successfully completing AI projects in a predictable manner Coordinating the use of AI from any compute node. From inner edges to outer edges: cloud, fog, and mist computing When they climb the ladder presented in this book, businesspeople and data scientists alike will be able to improve and foster repeatable capabilities. They will have the knowledge to maximize their AI and data assets for the benefit of their organizations.

This book focuses on market developments of crowdfunding, crowdinvesting, crowdlending, social trading, robo-advice, personal financial management, online payment and mobile payment in Germany. FinTech companies are an important driver of innovation in the financial industry. By making financial transactions more user-friendly and transparent, these firms potentially contribute to financial stability and economic growth. The authors define and categorize the different market segments that have emerged. They further provide an assessment of current market volumes and make forecasts for the next 5, 10 and 20 years. Particular attention is given to the empirical findings resulting from scholarly research. Furthermore, the authors evaluate how the German FinTech market ranks relative to international standards. This book will appeal to finance and entrepreneurship researchers as well as practitioners from banking and tech industries. "This book offers a fresh and fascinating look at the FinTech market. The authors provide a rigorous economic analysis of the FinTech market in Germany and offer many insights that are of interest to practitioners, academics, and policymakers alike." -Professor Douglas Cumming, Schulich School of Business "Germany is one of the fastest growing FinTech markets in Europe. This book not only provides a comprehensive and systematic overview on the developments and actors, but undertakes a visionary outlook on the forthcoming decades based on scientific methods." -Dr. Thomas Puschmann, Head of Swiss FinTech Innovation Lab

This book introduces, explains, and illustrates the theories, concepts, and methods needed for sound enterprise engineering. These are based on foundational insights, specifically those concerning the employee-centric theory of organization, which are put into practice by coherently and consistently applying them to enterprise design and change. The book consists of five main chapters, the first of which emphasizes the importance of linking foundational insights with the enterprise engineering design science for practicing them in enterprise design within the scope of enterprise governance concerned with enterprise change. Chapter 2 summarizes the necessary philosophical, ontological and ideological foundations of enterprise design and change. Subsequently, chapter 3 outlines essential aspects of enterprise change and describes the relation between enterprise governance and the process of enterprise design, while chapter 4 details the enterprise engineering design science and the actual enterprise design process, its various perspectives and both its intermediate and final results. Lastly, chapter 5 illustrates in detail the application of all the process steps in a single, extensive example. In this way, the book shows how all the cornerstones of enterprise design and change, as well as the employee-centric theory of organization can be applied. The book is mainly intended for students in areas such as business administration, management and organization science, governance, and enterprise and information systems design. However, professionals working in these areas will also benefit from the book, as it provides them with all the elements needed for engineering enterprise design, and details their application.

Achieving Successful Business Outcomes: Driving High Performance & Effective Transformations in a Continuously Evolving Business Environment Navigating in space is exponentially more difficult than navigating on the road - because there are too many directions to investigate, too many unknowns to be prepared for and infinite pathways to chart in the galactic system. So it is with business. Business environments are extremely demanding and change continuously, precipitated by innumerable actors and conditions. Business success cannot be predicated on the pedigree of a leader or a prescribed theory alone, as start-ups have amply proven. Large companies have tried to copy nimble-footed start-ups while start-ups, after achieving a certain size, have been forced to adapt to unchartered territory. Disruptions seems to be the order of the day. This book is about achieving successful business outcomes. An aircraft has a complex dashboard of dials, where only a critical few need to be monitored continuously, and other subsets warrant attention only during specific phases of the flight. A well-modeled business can be managed successfully using a similar strategy. But the larger question is how to model a business, with closely correlated variables, to represent the reality of the environment and to allow for devising, formulating and adjusting business strategy and actions in real-time. The author uses a simple but well-researched STA-Triangle (space, time and action) model to achieve this purpose. The core of the STA model is to help navigate effectively in a rapidly changing business environment. Unlike traditional business studies that use a single lens to define business rules or organizational practices, it uses the combination of space, time and action as the driver of outcomes - something fundamental and core to human thinking across the ages. This book contains both theoretical and practical applications - the former helps propel further research and analysis and the latter helps practicing leaders confidently drive their firms forward in any environmental conditions. It will also help causal readers understand how the future is evolving and how different organizations are responding to this change. The author includes more than a hundred supporting examples and tools that help create highly incisive and unique views for calibrating strategy and execution. Visit the authors' website at www.alokksinha.com

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.

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.

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.

Finance Mathematics is devoted to financial markets both with discrete and continuous time, exploring how to make the transition from discrete to continuous time in option pricing. This book features a detailed dynamic model of financial markets with discrete time, for application in real-world environments, along with Martingale measures and martingale criterion and the proven absence of arbitrage. With a focus on portfolio optimization, fair pricing, investment risk, and self-finance, the authors provide numerical methods for solutions and practical financial models, enabling you to solve problems both from mathematical and from financial point of view.

Plastics have occupied an important place in the modern medical industry. It has substituted traditional devices and products made of metal, other materials, and ceramics. Over recent years, increased reliance on transparent plastic pharmaceutical and medical products has produced remarkable breakthroughs that improve medical attention delivery and allow it to be more comfortable for the masses to live better and longer lives. The purpose of this handbook is to provide a strategic perspective on the market to identify opportunities for growth and promising niches in the medical plastics market. It also helps in analyzing emerging trends in medical plastics to facilitate new product development. The medical plastics market is a new field with a broad scope and unending opportunities for manufacturers and suppliers and medical practitioners from healthcare. With a combination of the right material and technology, it has a lot to offer to the patients with affordable pricing. By keeping the worth of the medical plastics market in mind, we have set some objectives. This book identifies growth factors in the medical plastics market and analyzes critical factors of success to compete. The author presents background on the medical plastics market by its usage, products, processes, and innovation. He also reviews existing studies on the medical plastics market for topics like market size, market growth, segment growth, and geographic markets.

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 is designed to help MIS and information center managers and their staffs to efficiently and cost effectively meet the needs of end-users in their organizations. Focusing on managerial aspects of information centers, Robert J. Thierauf explores the ways in which new information technology--spreadsheets, query languages, report writers, word processing, etc.--can be placed in the hands of end-users without the interdepartmental conflict and loss of systems control often associated with such transitions.

This book provides a theoretical and application-oriented analysis of deterministic scheduling problems in advanced planning and computer systems. The text examines scheduling problems across a range of parameters: job priority, release times, due dates, processing times, precedence constraints, resource usage and more, focusing on such topics as computer systems and supply chain management. Discussion includes single and parallel processors, flexible shops and manufacturing systems, and resource-constrained project scheduling. Many applications from industry and service operations management and case studies are described. The handbook will be useful to a broad audience, from researchers to practitioners, graduate and advanced undergraduate students.