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.

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.

The increasing penetration of IT in organizations calls for an integrative perspective on enterprises and their supporting information systems. MERODE offers an intuitive and practical approach to enterprise modelling and using these models as core for building enterprise information systems. From a business analyst perspective, benefits of the approach are its simplicity and the possibility to evaluate the consequences of modeling choices through fast prototyping, without requiring any technical experience. The focus on domain modelling ensures the development of a common language for talking about essential business concepts and of a shared understanding of business rules. On the construction side, experienced benefits of the approach are a clear separation between specification and implementation, more generic and future-proof systems, and an improved insight in the cost of changes. A first distinguishing feature is the method's grounding in process algebra provides clear criteria and practical support for model quality. Second, the use of the concept of business events provides a deep integration between structural and behavioral aspects. The clear and intuitive semantics easily extend to application integration (COTS software and Web Services). Students and practitioners are the book's main target audience, as both groups will benefit from its practical advice on how to create complete models which combine structural and behavioral views of a system-to-be and which can readily be transformed into code, and on how to evaluate the quality of those models. In addition, researchers in the area of conceptual or enterprise modelling will find a concise overview of the main findings related to the MERODE project. The work is complemented by a wealth of extra material on the author's web page at KU Leuven, including a free CASE tool with code generator, a collection of cases with solutions, and a set of domain modelling patterns that have been developed on the basis of the method's use in industry and government.

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.

This is the first book to present field studies on the application of subject-oriented business process management (S-BPM). Each case presents a specific story and focuses on an essential modeling or implementation issue, and most end with implications or suggestions for further studies. Significant variables and success factors are identified that were discovered during the respective study and lead to suggesting S-BPM novelties. For each case, the authors explain step-by-step how the story develops, and provide readers guidance by detailing the respective rationale. The studies covered are clustered according to three main S-BPM themes: Part I "Business Operation Support" documents approaches to the practical development of S-BPM solutions in various application domains and organizational settings, while Part II "Consultancy and Education Support" highlights cases that can help to train readers in S-BPM modeling and knowledge acquisition for S-BPM lifecycle iterations. It also refers to architecting S-BPM solutions for application cases based on hands-on experience. Part III "Technical Execution Support" focuses on concepts for utilizing specific theories and technologies to execute S-BPM models. It also addresses how to create reference models for certain settings in the field. Lastly, the appendix covers all relevant aspects needed to grasp S-BPM modeling and apply it based on fundamental examples. Its format reconciles semantic precision with syntactic rigor.>Addressing the needs of developers, educators and practitioners, this book will help companies to learn from the experiences of first-time users and to develop systems that fit their business processes, explaining the latest key methodological and technological S-BPM developments in the fields of training, research and application.

Many industrial applications built today are increasingly using emerging behavior engineering technologies: this book looks at various research and practical issues for researchers and students working in computer science and engineering, and for industry technology providers interested in behavior engineering and applications. Behavior Engineering and Applications encompasses intelligent and efficient computational solutions, including models, architectures, algorithms and specific applications, focused on processing, discovering, understanding and analyzing the behavior captured by the above data. Focusing on applying any engineering paradigm to systemically process, discover, understand and analyze these data, this book also addresses problems in a variety of areas and applications that related to behavior engineering. This book includes chapters derived from selected papers from The 2016 International Conference on Behavior Engineering (ICBE), as well as separate contributions the editors selected cutting-edge research related to behavior engineering.

The recent surge of technology outsourcing has intensified the cross-cultural effects of information systems designs and constructions, as well as the potential shortage of suitable information specialists at strategic locations. Millions of dollars of investments in information systems are at risk of being underutilized or rejected by users for cultural reasons. ""Information Resources Management: Global Challenges"" addresses challenges in managing information resources in dynamic social environments across cultures, including research on key factors for social acceptance of information technology, and user adoption of information management methods. ""Information Resources Management: Global Challenges"" explores new paradigms under which information resources will generate original meanings for a contemporary generator of users, with increasing interest toward user-centered and culturecentric information systems.

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.

This write-in workbook is an invaluable resource to help students improve their Maths and English skills and help prepare for Level 1 and Level 2 Functional Skills exams. The real-life questions are all written with a Construction Multi-Skills context to help students find essential Maths and English theory understandable, engaging and achievable. Written by Gary Taylor, lecturer with a wealth of experience in the Construction Multi-Skills and Plumbing industries, this workbook is an effective resource to support Maths and English learning in the classroom, at work and for personal study at home.

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.

Cyber risk is the second highest perceived business risk according to U.S. risk managers and corporate insurance experts. Digital assets now represent over 85% of an organization's value. In a survey of Fortune 1000 organizations, 83% surveyed described cyber risk as an organizationally complex topic, with most using only qualitative metrics that provide little, if any insight into an effective cyber strategy. Written by one of the foremost cyber risk experts in the world and with contributions from other senior professionals in the field, Managing Cyber Risk provides corporate cyber stakeholders - managers, executives, and directors - with context and tools to accomplish several strategic objectives. These include enabling managers to understand and have proper governance oversight of this crucial area and ensuring improved cyber resilience. Managing Cyber Risk helps businesses to understand cyber risk quantification in business terms that lead risk owners to determine how much cyber insurance they should buy based on the size and the scope of policy, the cyber budget required, and how to prioritize risk remediation based on reputational, operational, legal, and financial impacts. Directors are held to standards of fiduciary duty, loyalty, and care. These insights provide the ability to demonstrate that directors have appropriately discharged their duties, which often dictates the ability to successfully rebut claims made against such individuals. Cyber is a strategic business issue that requires quantitative metrics to ensure cyber resiliency. This handbook acts as a roadmap for executives to understand how to increase cyber resiliency and is unique since it quantifies exposures at the digital asset level.

This book captures a range of important developments that have occurred in Information Systems over the last forty years, with a particular focus on India and the developing world. Over this time, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Information Systems (IS) have come to play a critical role in supporting, complementing and automating managerial decisions, shaping and transforming industries, and contributing to deep societal and economic change. This volume examines a range of topics for those interested in the adoption and use of these technologies across varied situations. It combines empirical studies on the application and impact of IS with commentaries, debates and insights on the transformative role that IT and the IT industry have played, and continue to play, within India as well as globally. The book draws attention to issues and challenges that organizations grapple with in tech-enabled environments, and provides insights on the role of automation and computational techniques. It explores the global impact of the technology revolution on economic growth and development, electronic globalization, and the wider opportunities and challenges of a hi-tech world. The chapters cover various themes such as e-government in India, internet-based distribution systems, internet banking, and use of collaborative IT tools and functions to support virtual teams in the software industry and the business process outsourcing industry. Other chapters focus on methodological advances, such as systems thinking which finds applications in organizational decision-making, and the use of fuzzy logic. This volume will interest professionals and scholars of information technology and information systems, computer studies, IT systems, economics, and business and management studies.

More than ever, organisations are facing a data avalanche from various sources, be they in electronic or hard copy format. How an organisation manages this ever-increasingly important resource - data - can benefit or hinder its ability to achieve its objectives. Creating and Managing a CRM Platform for Your Organisation not only covers how the principles of data management, including data quality and data security, can be applied to an organisation's customer relationship management (CRM) platform, but also highlights how aspects of data management, marketing and technology are needed to operate, develop and manage a CRM platform in order to carry out tasks such as reporting and analysis, developing data plans, undertaking data audits, data migrations and campaign mailings which will result in an organisation using data effectively in order to achieve its goals and objectives. The issues and topics covered apply to all organisations that use a CRM platform and the data it contains as part of their business activities, regardless of the industry sector or size of the organisation. A comprehensive overview of the practices that can be effectively implemented when managing a CRM platform, this book is essential reading for professionals involved in the administration of the CRM platform within their organisation and data management.

This volume shows that in today's globalized world, clusters are an important factor in explaining the different growth rates of firms, cities and regions. Drawing on the expertise of an international contributor team, it covers topics such as clusters and small and medium-sized enterprise competitiveness, innovation and science parks, clusters and multinationals, and information and communication technology clusters. It reveals great diversity in terms of the origin of clusters, the organizational relationships at play, and the characteristics of the firms involved. Taking lessons from a rich variety of literature and empirical cases, the book provides valuable insights for regional development and industrial policy. Economic Clusters and Globalization will be of interest to scholars and policymakers in economic geography, regional studies, entrepreneurship and international business.

Strategic Renewal is an original research anthology offering insight into a subject area which, although critical for the sustained success of organizations, has received relatively little attention as distinct from the more general phenomenon of strategic change. Firstly, by providing a summary of the literature, this research anthology helps graduate students and new researchers grasp the current state of affairs in the field. Secondly, this research anthology will help update the knowledge base of the existing researchers in the field. By bringing together various studies, the research anthology determines the core concepts of the field and elucidates the key gaps and future research areas. Through contributions building on the knowledge bases of other disciplines, this research anthology develops an interdisciplinary research agenda, giving the reader an in-depth understanding of the mediating, moderating, and antecedent variables concerning strategic renewal. Strategic Renewal aims to provide a state-of-understanding to the subject, as well as a clear picture of the cross-disciplinary landscape that informs the subject. Thus, this research anthology is essential reading for managers, consultants, and other practitioners, as well as students and scholars of business.

NOTE: Before purchasing, check with your instructor to ensure you select the correct ISBN. Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, and registrations are not transferable. To register for and use Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products, you may also need a Course ID, which your instructor will provide. Haeussler, Paul, and Wood establish a strong algebraic foundation that sets this text apart from other applied mathematics texts, paving the way for students to solve real-world problems that use calculus. Emphasis on developing algebraic skills is extended to the exercises-including both drill problems and applications. The authors work through examples and explanations with a blend of rigor and accessibility. In addition, they have refined the flow, transitions, organization, and portioning of the content over many editions to optimize manageability for teachers and learning for students. The table of contents covers a wide range of topics efficiently, enabling instructors to tailor their courses to meet student needs.

This book explores intra-team interaction in workplace settings devoted to technological breakthroughs and innovative entrepreneurship. The first set of studies to investigate these economically important institutions through the lens of talk-at-work, this book begins by discussing the ethnomethodological traditions of Conversation Analysis and institutional interaction and linking them to innovation and entrepreneurship. The book offers rich and detailed empirical accounts of teams talking new technologies and new ventures into being. By focusing on the observable language of teams in action, the book reveals the situated practices that teams use to enact their work, including the means by which team members verbally grapple with the uncertainties inherent in doing work in uncharted domains. The book presents important findings about the conversational accomplishment of work and demonstrates the value of examining the practices of teams in action. A valuable contribution to studies of talk-in-interaction, as well as entrepreneurship-as-practice, this book can help to bridge the gap between scholarly investigations and the practical experiences of entrepreneurs. The author closes by considering the ways that practice-based studies of entrepreneurial work can improve issues of diversity and inclusion within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This book is intended to serve as an invaluable sourcebook for scholars and students interested in innovation, entrepreneurship, and organizations as well as those focused on applied Conversation Analysis. The book's insights are presented in a richly detailed manner while remaining accessible to readers who are new to the methodologies and activity contexts.

This book offers a fresh method of assessing and managing risks in SMEs, by adopting a multidisciplinary approach. In small and medium companies, the risk management process cannot be often formalised and procedures are usually integrated unconsciously into the decision-making process. Therefore, to enhance the flexibility of these companies, increase their market share and allow them to grow and manage risks more effectively, the first step is to improve the way decisions are made. Consequently, it is fundamental for those companies to improve the awareness about the way reasonable decisions are made, which can be achieved only through a proper knowledge and the definition of the Risk Appetite Framework. Therefore, by improving knowledge, the risk appetite and awareness in the decision making, companies will implicitly start developing a risk consciousness, which can be translated into a sound risk approach. SMEs need to understand the importance of an effective internal control system. Hence, the central point is the necessity to start reconsidering the company as a unique entity, by adopting a holistic approach. The book explores whether small and medium companies should adopt a formalised risk management process and, more importantly, the role that the development of an appropriate risk mindfulness and approach to expand existing functions plays in these entities. It suggests an appropriate way of thinking about risk, starting with the amalgamation of both past and present theories, and enabling SMEs to find a solution to improve the effectiveness of their risk management strategies.

Cyber risk is the second highest perceived business risk according to U.S. risk managers and corporate insurance experts. Digital assets now represent over 85% of an organization's value. In a survey of Fortune 1000 organizations, 83% surveyed described cyber risk as an organizationally complex topic, with most using only qualitative metrics that provide little, if any insight into an effective cyber strategy. Written by one of the foremost cyber risk experts in the world and with contributions from other senior professionals in the field, Managing Cyber Risk provides corporate cyber stakeholders - managers, executives, and directors - with context and tools to accomplish several strategic objectives. These include enabling managers to understand and have proper governance oversight of this crucial area and ensuring improved cyber resilience. Managing Cyber Risk helps businesses to understand cyber risk quantification in business terms that lead risk owners to determine how much cyber insurance they should buy based on the size and the scope of policy, the cyber budget required, and how to prioritize risk remediation based on reputational, operational, legal, and financial impacts. Directors are held to standards of fiduciary duty, loyalty, and care. These insights provide the ability to demonstrate that directors have appropriately discharged their duties, which often dictates the ability to successfully rebut claims made against such individuals. Cyber is a strategic business issue that requires quantitative metrics to ensure cyber resiliency. This handbook acts as a roadmap for executives to understand how to increase cyber resiliency and is unique since it quantifies exposures at the digital asset level.

For over a century, creativity has unfolded as a valuable field of knowledge. Emerging from disciplines like psychology, management and education, the field of creativity is making strides in others including the arts and engineering. Research and education in this field helped it establish an identity as evidenced by a growing number of courses and specialised journals. However, this progress has come with a price. In a domain like management, institutionalisation of creativity in learning, research and practice has left creativity subordinated to concerns with standardisation, employability and economic growth. Values like personal fulfilment, uncertainty, improvement and connectedness which could characterise systemic views on creativity need to be rescued to promote more and inclusive dialogue between creativity stakeholders. The author aims to recover the importance of creativity as a systemic phenomenon and explores how applied systems thinking, or AST, can further support creativity. This demonstrates how creative efforts could be directed to improve quality of life for individuals as well as their environments. The book uses the systems idea as an enquiring device to bring together different actors to promote refl ection and action about creative possibilities. The chapters offer conceptualisations, applications and refl ections of systems ideas to help readers make sense of the field of creativity in academia and elsewhere. Complemented by the author's own personal, conceptual and practical journey, the insights of the book will act as a vital toolkit for management researchers, career-driven students, practitioners and all creators to define and pursue creative ideas and thrive through their journeys to benefit themselves, other people and organisations.

This book explores the application of breakthrough technologies to improve transportation performance. Transportation systems represent the "blood vessels" of a society, in which people and goods travel. They also influence people's lives and affect the liveability and sustainability of our cities. The book shows how emergent technologies are able to monitor the condition of the structure in real time in order to schedule the right moment for maintenance activities an so reduce the disturbance to users. This book is a valuable resource for those involved in research and development in this field. Part I discusses the context of transportation systems, highlighting the major issues and challenges, the importance of understating human factors that could affect the maintenance operations and the main goals in terms of safety standards. Part II focuses on process-oriented innovations in transportation systems; this section stresses the importance of including design parameters in the planning, offering a comparison between risk-based and condition-based maintenance and, lastly, showing applications of emergent technologies. Part III goes on to reflect on the technical-oriented innovations, discussing the importance of studying the physical phenomena that are behind transportation system failures and problems. It then introduces the general trend of collecting and analyzing big data using real-world cases to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of adopting extensive smart sensors for gathering information on the health of the assets. The last part (IV) explores cultural and behavioural changes, and new knowledge management methods, proposing novel forms of maintenance and vocational training, and introduces the need for radical new visions in transportation for managing unexpected events. The continuous evolution of maintenance fields suggests that this compendium of "state-of-the-art" applications will not be the only one; the authors are planning a collection of cutting-edge examples of transportation systems that can assist researchers and practitioners as well as students in the process of understanding the complex and multidisciplinary environment of maintenance engineering applied to the transport sector.

Lankhorst and his co-authors present ArchiMate (R) 3.0, enterprise modelling language that captures the complexity of architectural domains and their relations and allows the construction of integrated enterprise architecture models. They provide architects with concrete instruments that improve their architectural practice. As this is not enough, they additionally present techniques and heuristics for communicating with all relevant stakeholders about these architectures. Since an architecture model is useful not only for providing insight into the current or future situation but can also be used to evaluate the transition from 'as-is' to 'to-be', the authors also describe analysis methods for assessing both the qualitative impact of changes to an architecture and the quantitative aspects of architectures, such as performance and cost issues. The modelling language presented has been proven in practice in many real-life case studies and has been adopted by The Open Group as an international standard. So this book is an ideal companion for enterprise IT or business architects in industry as well as for computer or management science students studying the field of enterprise architecture. This fourth edition of the book has been completely reworked to be compatible with ArchiMate (R) 3.0, and it includes a new chapter relating this new version to other standards. New sections on capability analysis, risk analysis, and business architecture in general have also been introduced.

Originally published in 1996 The Social Role of Higher Education is an anthology of nine papers, it presents cases studies showing how culture influences the social role of higher education in various nations. It examines how environments get defined and how they shape universities, and how knowledge and academic work interact in national contexts. This book focuses on how both developed and developing countries' systems of higher education are affected by their own culture and their place within the larger global context.

This book, originally published in 1989, studies both the growth and the barriers to growth of small firms. It examines market and industrial structures, also the role of investment institutions and their handling of small business accounts. There are chapters on management attitudes and ability considered as a potential barrier to development, and other problems such as lack of finance and of a suitably qualified workforce. The book stresses the importance of communicating the latest advances in technology to small firms, and urges the need to re-think government tax and procurement policies.

This book, originally published in 1982, review the resurrection of the small firm, partly by a multi-disciplined examination of the existing literature on small and new firms and partly by reporting the results of a study of firms new (in the early 1980s) to the North East of England. Part 1 deals with the role of small firms as sources of potential or actual competition, and their role in research and innovation. In Part 2 the theoretical foundations for the study of entrepreneurs and their new firms are laid, using concepts from a cross-section of the social sciences. Part 3 tests some of the theories outlined in Part 2 and reviews the problems which the entrepreneurs faced in starting and developing their business and the impact which such businesses had upon the local economy. Part 4 reviews the lessons of the preceding parts in the context of the regional and national economy of the UK.