Originally published in 1976, this book discusses the management skills needed to evaluate, implement and control computer-based operation. Every chapter contains detailed check lists which guide the reader to formulate policies to deal with real situations. It provides a practical look at an indispensable tool of management, with a set of guidelines to help get the most out of the available technology.

This seventh edition of 'Business Mathematics and Statistics' provides a thorough grounding in basic mathematical and statistical techniques, helping students to learn how to make decisions when presented with incomplete information. Comprehensive coverage of statistical methods, management mathematics and probability and extensive examples and questions make this essential reading for students on business and accounting courses and also students studying economics.

The emergence of new platform business models, notably the sharing economy, is impacting the economy in various ways, altering the structure of many industries, and raising a number of economic and political issues. This book investigates the widespread influence of the sharing economy on businesses and society, as well as examining its underpinning economic principles and development. This volume presents an exhaustive review of the existing knowledge on the sharing economy and addresses several major areas of concern for incumbent businesses. It also explains the business models for those who are interested in embarking on their own ventures and provides an excellent source for further research. It takes an in-depth look at controversial labour policies, such as using labour as self-employed contractors or using regulatory grey areas to expand in markets. It is highly multidisciplinary, establishing links between economics, finance, marketing and consumer behaviour. This contribution on the sharing economy will enable researchers and graduate and doctoral students to expand and improve their understanding of this topic and identify new research problems in all of these areas. The book will also appeal to policy makers, regional and local government decision makers, and those interested in labour markets transformation.

This book examines central aspects of the new technologies and the legal questions raised by them from both an international and an inter-disciplinary perspective. The technology revolution and the global networking of IT systems pose enormous challenges for the law. Current areas of discussion relate to autonomous systems, big data and issues surrounding legal tech. Ensuring data protection and IT security as well as the creation of a legal framework for the new technology as a whole can only be achieved through international and inter-disciplinary co-operation. The team of authors is made up of experienced, internationally renowned experts as well as young researchers and professionals who give valuable insights from numerous different jurisdictions. This book is written for jurists and those responsible for technology in public authorities and companies as well as practising lawyers and researchers.

For courses in Decision Making and Engineering. The Fundamentals of Analyzing and Making Decisions Foundations of Decision Analysis is a groundbreaking text that explores the art of decision making, both in life and in professional settings. By exploring themes such as dealing with uncertainty and understanding the distinction between a decision and its outcome, the First Edition teaches students to achieve clarity of action in any situation. The book treats decision making as an evolutionary process from a scientific standpoint. Strategic decision-making analysis is presented as a tool to help students understand, discuss, and settle on important life choices. Through this text, students will understand the specific thought process that occurs behind approaching any decision to make easier and better life choices for themselves.

Crowdfunding is emerging as a new source of financing for creativity and innovation. It promotes the launching and scaling of new projects for different types of creators by providing networked platforms and handy digital tools. This book provides insight into crowdfunding and how crowdfunding contributes to our communities and society. The book includes an overview of existing discussions across different disciplines, i.e. entrepreneurship, information systems, marketing, and correlates the literature to the best crowdfunding practices. The book begins with origins, basic notions, and antecedents of crowdfunding. In the main parts, it demonstrates the five distinguished facets of crowdfunding: Creativity, diversity, balance, connection, and change. It also addresses the drawbacks of crowdfunding and subsequent outcomes of crowdfunding success. Finally, it provides a perspective on the future of crowdfunding.

This book provides a historical inquiry into the quantification of needs in humanitarian assistance. Needs are increasingly seen as the lowest common denominator of humanity. Standard definitions of basic needs, however, set a minimalist version of humanity - both in the sense that they are narrow in what they compare, and that they set a low bar for satisfaction. The book argues that we cannot understand humanitarian governance if we do not understand how humanitarian agencies made human suffering commensurable across borders in the first place. The book identifies four basic elements of needs: As a concept, as a system of classification and triage, as a material apparatus, and as a set of standards. Drawing on a range of archival sources, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), and the Sphere Project, the book traces the concept of needs from its emergence in the 1960s right through to the present day, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for "evidence-based humanitarianism." Finally, the book assesses how the international governmentality of needs has played out in a recent humanitarian crisis, drawing on field research on Central African refugees in the Cameroonian borderland in 2014-2016. This important historical inquiry into the universal nature of human suffering will be an important read for humanitarian researchers and practitioners, as well as readers with an interest in international history and development.

For one-semester business statistics courses. A focus on using statistical methods to analyse and interpret results to make data-informed business decisions Statistics is essential for all business majors, and Business Statistics: A First Course helps students see the role statistics will play in their own careers by providing examples drawn from all functional areas of business. Guided by the principles set forth by major statistical and business science associations (ASA and DSI), plus the authors' diverse experiences, the 8th Edition, Global Edition, continues to innovate and improve the way this course is taught to all students. With new examples, case scenarios, and problems, the text continues its tradition of focusing on the interpretation of results, evaluation of assumptions, and discussion of next steps that lead to data-informed decision making. The authors feel that this approach, rather than a focus on manual calculations, better serves students in their future careers. This brief offering, created to fit the needs of a one-semester course, is part of the established Berenson/Levine series.

This book provides a set of integrated frameworks-capital, systems, and objects-that transcend managerial or technology hype by focusing on the long-term fundamentals that sustain organizational success, and it contains cases from South East Asia to elaborate this concept. Many organizations are currently addressing two important transformational issues: ecological sustainability and digitization. Sustainability is a goal, an end, and digitization is a process, a means to achieve a goal. This book introduces a flexible model that can be applied to current and future organizational challenges, including sustainability and digitization, because the fundamentals are constant. This book is designed to serve two purposes for the readers: first, to present three conceptual foundations for designing and operating organizations (capital, systems, and objects (section 1)); and second, to provide a reference source for implementing these ideas in your organization (sections 2 and 3). The first section of the book, chapters 1 through 7, sets forth the conceptual foundations. The chapters mix concepts and practical examples to give a new way of thinking about the setting in which one may work many days each year. The second section provides details and associated examples of every one of the thirty-six forms of capital conversion. It also illustrates how the five foundational systems support capital conversion in a variety of ways. Finally, the third section is about measuring capital and systems. The book covers measurement of all types of capital and systems performance and has been written for current and future organizational leaders to change the game and play it more effectively. The book will thus resonate with students of organizational behaviour and leadership strategy, organizational leaders, industry experts, and general readers.

Customers are increasingly seeking "low-cost, high-quality" or what is known as frugal products that meet the buyer's needs while reducing the associated cost of ownership. This book examines the developing principles and theories of frugal innovations across the globe. The authors identify frugal innovation (FI) using a multi-method approach to data analysis. They argue that the concept of frugality as a societal/ethical value has undergone several changes and propose a differentiated model of frugal innovations. They address frugal innovations that have never been accessible to the public. Hands-on case studies across various industry sectors and countries, supported by theory, provide multiple learning opportunities. The authors explore the relationship between FI and digitalisation and technology, and discuss how FI can be applied in the context of contemporary issues such as food security. Further, they articulate the mechanisms by which FI beliefs and values can be incorporated into organisational culture. The final chapters address both ethical and controversial views of frugal innovation. The book is a valuable resource for students in business courses, for industry professionals wanting to improve their triple bottom line, and for educators wanting to influence and change the mindsets of the younger generations to effectively deal with today's and tomorrow's challenges.

Interest in generally expanding the understanding of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially understanding their strategies and operations to enter international markets, is growing rapidly among researchers and academics globally. Government officials, regional and economic specialists, and international trade advisers are directly involved in assisting small and medium-sized enterprises in developing their international marketing expertise. Motivating SMEs to Cooperate and Internationalize consists of research studies, cases, and experiences obtained by researchers and academics from managers of small and medium-sized enterprises in Northern Europe as they worked closely with managers on issues and problems leading to internationalization of enterprises. This book will map not only the attempts of small and medium-sized enterprises in Northern Europe to enter foreign markets, but also to understand how researchers and academics can help small and medium-sized Northern European enterprisers achieve their objectives. This compilation of approaches, perspectives, and experiences will serve as a resource tool for researchers and academics active in international management training programs worldwide and help illustrate how to close the gap between publishing results of their findings and efforts to disseminate their findings among managers of small and medium-sized enterprises in their domains. This book is the first attempt to integrate results of research studies and practices as an illustration of how knowledge of small and medium-sized enterprises has evolved since the 1980s with the contributions of individual researchers and academics in Northern Europe. It will be of relevance to academics and researchers interested in working closely with small and medium-sized enterprises to meet their goals in entering international markets.

European venture capital (VC) funds have historically underperformed their US counterparts. This has resulted in reduced investment into European VC by the traditional institutional investors. This book investigates the factors that give rise to the performance difference. It is based on the author's research at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow which involved a qualitative study of some 64 VC firms in the UK, continental Europe and the US, supplemented by 40 interviews with other stakeholders, including limited partner investors, corporate venturers, entrepreneurs and advisors. Readers will gain an in-depth understanding of the various structural, operational and wider environmental factors that impact on the performance difference between UK/European and US VC funds. The study is unique in that it provides, for the first time, a holistic and extensive analysis of the entire investment process from sourcing deals to exiting deals specifically contrasting Europe and the US in terms of the variables pertaining to the investment process and the impact on the fund performance. Factors impacting on the performance differential are structural, resulting from characteristics of the funds themselves, operational such as the investment practices of the VC firms which manage the funds and environmental such as culture and attitude to risk and the wider ecosystem in which the funds operate. These factors are set out clearly for the reader. The characteristics of the better performing funds in Europe and the US are also investigated. The book is aimed at academics who are researching venture capital fund performance and investment practices and also at practitioners, advisors and policymakers who want to learn about best VC investment practices. Whilst the book is focused on European and US VC investing, the best practices are also pertinent for VC firms and funds setting up in other geographies, particularly in emerging markets. To this end, best practice guidelines based on the research are included.

This volume explores from a legal perspective, how blockchain works. Perhaps more than ever before, this new technology requires us to take a multidisciplinary approach. The contributing authors, which include distinguished academics, public officials from important national authorities, and market operators, discuss and demonstrate how this technology can be a driver of innovation and yield positive effects in our societies, legal systems and economic/financial system. In particular, they present critical analyses of the potential benefits and legal risks of distributed ledger technology, while also assessing the opportunities offered by blockchain, and possible modes of regulating it. Accordingly, the discussions chiefly focus on the law and governance of blockchain, and thus on the paradigm shift that this technology can bring about.

Computational intelligence has a long history of applications to business - expert systems have been used for decision support in management, neural networks and fuzzy logic have been used in process control, a variety of techniques have been used in forecasting and data mining has become a core component of customer relationship management in marketing. While there is literature on this field, it is spread over many disciplines and in many different publications, making it difficult to find the pertinent information in one source. ""Business Applications and Computational Intelligence"" addresses the need for a compact overview of the diversity of applications in a number of business disciplines, and consists of chapters written by leading international researchers. Chapters cover most fields of business, including: marketing, data mining, e-commerce, production and operations, finance, decision-making, and general management. ""Business Applications and Computational Intelligence"" provides a comprehensive review of research into computational intelligence applications in business, creating a powerful guide for both newcomers and experienced researchers.

The modern dependence upon information technology and the corresponding information security regulations and requirements force companies to evaluate the security of their core business processes, mission critical data, and supporting IT environment. Combine this with a slowdown in IT spending resulting in justifications of every purchase, and security professionals are forced to scramble to find comprehensive and effective ways to assess their environment in order to discover and prioritize vulnerabilities, and to develop cost-effective solutions that show benefit to the business. A Practical Guide to Security Assessments is a process-focused approach that presents a structured methodology for conducting assessments. The key element of the methodology is an understanding of business goals and processes, and how security measures are aligned with business risks. The guide also emphasizes that resulting security recommendations should be cost-effective and commensurate with the security risk. The methodology described serves as a foundation for building and maintaining an information security program. In addition to the methodology, the book includes an Appendix that contains questionnaires that can be modified and used to conduct security assessments. This guide is for security professionals who can immediately apply the methodology on the job, and also benefits management who can use the methodology to better understand information security and identify areas for improvement.

Performance Assurance for IT Systems emphasizes the importance of addressing performance and technology-related issues from the beginning of the planning process, at the feasibility and bid stages. It promotes the concept of Performance Assurance throughout the entire system lifecycle, covering technology, relevant processes, and people-related topics. This accessible, jargon-free book shows how to meet the increasing pressure to deliver proposals and systems in shorter timescales, emphasizing pragmatic, cost-effective, and well-designed systems. The book consists of two major parts: Part I covers the processes deployed throughout the system lifecycle, including the choice of technologies, client requirements, sizing, stress testing, and capacity management; Part II provides a technology foundation made up of brief primers on hardware and software technologies, discussing key factors that influence performance and helping management make informed decisions on technical risk. The author includes references to problems encountered on "real life" projects, and provides insight valuable to a variety of IT professionals, from technical architects and developers to IT management.

Unlike other texts that overwhelm students with technical information and jargon, this revised Fifth Edition offers a balanced approach to dealing with HR issues and IT/IS issues by drawing from experts in both areas. It includes the latest research and developments in the areas of information security, privacy, cloud computing, social media, and HR analytics. Numerous examples, best practices, discussion questions, and case studies make this book the most student-friendly and current text on the market.

ECMI, the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry, is the European brand associated with applied mathematics for industry and organizes highly successful biannual conferences. In this series, the ECMI 2010, the 16th European Conference on Mathematics for Industry, was held in the historic city hall of Wuppertal in Germany. It covered the mathematics of a wide range of applications and methods, from circuit and electromagnetic device simulation to model order reduction for chip design, uncertainties and stochastics, production, fluids, life and environmental sciences, and dedicated and versatile methods.

These proceedings of ECMI 2010 emphasize mathematics as an innovation enabler for industry and business, and as an absolutely essential pre-requiste for Europe on its way to becoming the leading knowledge-based economy in the world.

This book explores the possibility of using social media data for detecting socio-economic recovery activities. In the last decade, there have been intensive research activities focusing on social media during and after disasters. This approach, which views people's communication on social media as a sensor for real-time situations, has been widely adopted as the "people as sensor" approach. Furthermore, to improve recovery efforts after large-scale disasters, detecting communities' real-time recovery situations is essential, since conventional socio-economic recovery indicators, such as governmental statistics, are not published in real time. Thanks to its timeliness, using social media data can fill the gap. Motivated by this possibility, this book especially focuses on the relationships between people's communication on Twitter and Facebook pages, and socio-economic recovery activities as reflected in the used-car market data and the housing market data in the case of two major disasters: the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The book pursues an interdisciplinary approach, combining e.g. disaster recovery studies, crisis informatics, and economics. In terms of its contributions, firstly, the book sheds light on the "people as sensors" approach for detecting socio-economic recovery activities, which has not been thoroughly studied to date but has the potential to improve situation awareness during the recovery phase. Secondly, the book proposes new socio-economic recovery indicators: used-car market data and housing market data. Thirdly, in the context of using social media during the recovery phase, the results demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between social media data posted both by people who are at or near disaster-stricken areas and by those who are farther away.

In this monograph, a new process modelling approach for the public sector is described: the PICTURE method. The approach takes into account the specific characteristics of public administrations. Hence several advantages are derived: increased modelling speed, improved user acceptance and enhanced analysis capabilities.

Business intelligence (BI) has evolved over several years as organizations have extended their online transaction processing (OLTP) capabilities and applications to support their routine operations. With online analytical processing (OLAP), organizations have also established the capability to extract internal and external data from a variety of sources to specifically obtain intelligence about non-routine and often less-structured arrangements. BI therefore refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information about the operations of an organization. It has the capability of providing comprehensive insight into the more volatile factors affecting the business and its operations, thereby facilitating enhanced decision-making quality and contributing to the creation of business value. Larger and more sophisticated organizations have long been exploiting these capabilities. Business Intelligence for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) guides SMEs in replicating this experience to provide an agile roadmap toward business sustainability. The book points out that successful BI implementations have generated significant increases in revenue and cost savings, however, the failure rates are also very high. More importantly, it emphasizes that a full range of BI capabilities is not the exclusive purview of large organizations. It shows how SMEs make extensive use of BI techniques to develop the kind of agility endowing them with the organizational capability to sense and respond to opportunities and threats in an increasingly dynamic business environment. It points to the way to a market environment in which smaller organizations could have a larger role. In particular, the book explains that by establishing the agility to leverage internal and external data and information assets, SMEs can enhance their competitiveness by having a comprehensive understanding of the key to an agile roadmap for business sustainability.

This book presents the key interactions in local government and public enterprise, drawing together the challenges for local governance in the practice of public entrepreneurship and its response to collaboration, place and place making. Specifically, this book includes the impact of local partnerships and public entrepreneurs in local policy implementation. It is written by established authors bringing together their experience and practice of local partnerships and public entrepreneurship in place-based strategies, and will be of value to local government, new forms of enterprise partnerships, wider agencies and public entrepreneurship scholars as well as policymakers responsible for implementation of place-based regeneration. This text will be of key interest to students, scholars and practitioners in public administration, business administration, local government, entrepreneurship, public sector management and more broadly to those with interests in public policy, business and management, political science, economics, urban studies and geography.

The digital business world is undergoing phenomenal and sometimes turbulent changes. The digital economy has also seen the rise of entirely new businesses. Traditional 'bricks and mortar' businesses are scrambling to become e-commerce businesses simply to survive in this new era. Whether in original economy or digital, IT investment is important in all businesses. Managing Information Communication Technology Investments in Successful Enterprises reports accounting and other information about business processes to assess performance. Managing Information Communication Technology Investments in Successful Enterprises discusses the impact of the IT revolution on the accounting function, and indicates the process of IT investment and its advantages and limitations. This publication is a revolutionary explanation of the purpose of IT investment and its role in organizations.

This book illustrates the applications of mobile robot systems in warehouse operations with an integrated decision framework for their selection and application. Mobile robot systems are an automation solution in warehouses that make order fulfillment agile, flexible and scalable to cope with the increasing volume and complexity of customer orders. Compared with manual operations, they combine higher productivity and throughput with lower operating costs. As the practical use of mobile robot systems is increasing, decision-makers are confronted with a plethora of decisions. Still, research is lagging in providing the needed academic insights and managerial guidance. The lack of a structured decision framework tailored for mobile robot system applications in warehouses increases the probability of problems when choosing automation systems. This book demonstrates the characteristics of mobile robot systems which reinforce warehouse managers in identifying, evaluating and choosing candidate systems through multiple criteria. Furthermore, the managerial decision framework covering decisions at strategic, tactical and operational levels in detail helps decision-makers to implement a mobile robot solution step-by-step. This book puts special emphasis on change management and operational control of mobile robots using path planning and task allocation algorithms. The book also introduces focus areas that require particular attention to aid the efficiency and practical application of these systems, such as facility layout planning, robot fleet sizing, and human-robot interaction. It will be essential reading for academics and students working on digital warehousing and logistics, as well as practitioners in warehouses looking to make informed decisions.

The Early Development of the Aviation Industry: Entrepreneurs of the Sky provides an introduction to the world of the early aviation industry and the business endeavours of the original aviators. Many of the first pioneers who flew heavier-than-air planes went on to develop considerable industrial concerns. In doing so they exhibited a number of entrepreneurial qualities, which provide useful case studies for those interested in studying how successful entrepreneurs create or develop opportunities at the inception and emergence of high-tech industries. This book looks at the careers of pioneer aviators in the United States, Britain and France such as A.V. Roe, Thomas Sopwith, Glenn Curtiss and William Boeing. It examines this group of entrepreneurs during the start-up and early development stages of an emerging industry undergoing considerable technological change, and relates this experience to contemporary studies and experiences of entrepreneurship. The book explores what made these men successful in their entrepreneurial endeavours to help promote a better understanding of what makes an entrepreneur and what business and economic conditions are needed to allow such men to be successful. This book makes a major contribution to our knowledge of the development of the twentieth century economy and is essential reading for students and academics who are interested in the development of aviation and the nature of entrepreneurial behaviour.