This book provides a solid foundation for a comprehensive, systemic and water-centric approach to water management. Said approach integrates two performance principles essential for sustainable water use systems, namely equity and efficiency. Further, it decreases the policy space for decision-making encountered by water managers and makes it easier to arrive at reasonable solutions because of the bounded rationality inherent in its development. By combining the distributive and aggregative principles, the approach offers a transparent and autonomous structure for gathering water data and enabling stakeholder involvement. Lastly, it employs and promotes a unifying language for all types of water use systems, e.g. urban, agricultural and industrial.

This edited book frames a new ethos of management that cares for society, future generations and nature whilst also serving the interests of business and the wider community. Employing the practical wisdom of faith traditions, the chapters develop the use of spirituality as a resource for creating business models that take pressing social problems - such as quality of life at work, over-consumption, environmental degradation and climate change - into account. Spanning entrepreneurship, leadership, management education and business models, the chapters in this book aim to develop a spiritually-based caring model of management to face the challenges and reality of the 21st century.

The purpose of this book is to study the association of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) with financial performance, capital structure, innovative activities, corporate risk, working capital management and accounting quality. Undoubtedly, CER has been developed into a crucial corporate issue around the world. CER has been incorporated within various sectors, countries and includes many types of activities and dimensions. A fundamental issue that is addressed in this book, is how corporate finance and accounting are affected by CER activities and how it impacts company performance. In order to analyse this interrelation, the authors focus on a sample of firms from 28 EU member countries. The purpose of this book is to study the association of CER with financial performance, capital structure, innovative activities, corporate risk, working capital management and accounting quality. The book also intends to provide useful policy recommendations as well as to offer constructive impulses for future research.

This book explains how the traditional paradigm of private and public organizations is changing as a result of the multiple factors that are affecting the way in which goods and services are produced, and for whom they are produced. In view of these disruptive trends, the theory of the firm needs to be updated and to some extent rethought. Moreover, diverse challenges and opportunities such as climate change, aging populations, and new public accountability requirements are necessitating novel frameworks to ensure the long-term survival of public and private organizations. Against this backdrop, the authors contribute to the debate over the firm's primary interest by proposing a new way of viewing the nature of the firm and its relationship with stakeholders. In addition, they carefully analyze the challenges and opportunities mentioned above, evaluating their significance for various important aspects of organizations through different lenses. Global in scope, the book also takes the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals into account. Accordingly, it will be of interest to all readers seeking a better understanding of the evolving nature of firms and organizations in our changing world.

Modern supply chains are enjoying new opportunities for innovation and growth. Build competitive advantage, optimize cost and encourage ethical business practices with the process of strategic sourcing. Effective Strategic Sourcing brings together tools and techniques to develop comprehensive sourcing strategies and drive performance and margin improvement in an ethical, environmentally responsible way. From supplier research and risk analysis to category management and cost modelling, it answers key questions around make versus buy, outsource versus insource and RFI versus RFP. Top supply chain leaders from a range of industries offer their insights and experience in interviews covering the challenges inherent in modern strategic sourcing. The book also focuses on how supply chain and procurement professionals can address sustainability concerns by thinking globally and acting locally and aiming for net-zero carbon footprint sourcing. Learn from the experts and thrive in the 'new normal' with this essential guide to maximising the benefits of strategic sourcing.

This book explores the interaction between sustainability, corporate responsibility, consumers, and the market. It aims to discover if consumers are seeking out small, ethical, socially responsible firms to buy from rather than large corporations; if markets and organisations are supported by a new sensitivity to social responsibility and sustainability ideas; if the integration of corporate responsibility strategies and practices change how market sectors are assembled. Bringing together international case studies - including research on the Italian wine industry, German butchers, Spanish football, Polish marketing and the Portuguese financial sector - this book is valuable reading for scholars working on corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and good governance. Chapter 12 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book focuses on the legal and social aspects of corporate governance through doctrinal and empirical research papers presented at the 9th International Conference on Governance Fraud Ethics and Social Responsibility held at National Law University Delhi in 2018. The papers encompass the internal and external factors that affect the interests of a company's stakeholders, including shareholders, customers, suppliers, government regulators and management, and several other important players. The book provides better clarity on the concept of corporate governance and how it is intertwined with factors such as sustainability, social responsibility and the role of government, taxation and audit, and shareholder engagement.

Emerging economies arguably have different socio-fiscal dynamics compared to developed economies. On one side they have the need for corporate interventions in national development, on the other hand, they do not have enough research to support the agenda. In recent times there has been a conscious effort to legislate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in some of these countries in order to bring about sustainable development. Yet, it is this legislation, which is debated among many others. This book provides its readers with a comprehensive interpretation of the various CSR perspectives in emerging economies through academic research and case studies from practice. It not only points out the challenges, the debates, but also the dynamics of implementation and the impact of such CSR spent. This book therefore is targeted both towards academics as well as practitioners in an attempt to bring about an active academic-industry interface as CSR as a management function is part of dynamic social science.

This book highlights cutting-edge ecodesign research, covering product and service design, smart manufacturing, and social perspectives in ecodesign. Featuring selected papers presented at EcoDesign 2019: 11th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, it also includes diverse, interdisciplinary approaches to foster ecodesign research and activities. In the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it addresses the need for the manufacturing industry to design innovations for sustainable value creation, taking into account technological developments, legislation, and consumer lifestyles. Further, the book discusses the concept of circular economy, which originated in Europe and aims to increase resource efficiency by shifting away from the linear economy. Focusing on product life cycle design and management, smart manufacturing, circular economy, and business strategies, and providing useful approaches and solutions to these emerging concepts, this book is intended for both researchers and practitioners working in the broad field of ecodesign and sustainability.

This is the first book to articulate how to address interlinkages among sustainable development goals (SDGs), which are keys to implementing those goals by 2030. At the heart of the book is a resilience approach to the enabling relevant systems, practices, and education and research. While SDGs are well known at different levels from local to global spheres, a major gap can be seen between goals and approaches, as approaches are lacking for addressing interlinkages among SDGs. The United Nations General Assembly in 2015 acknowledged interlinkages as being of crucial importance in ensuring the purpose of the goals. However, few actual approaches have been specified to address the interlinkages or interconnections at both the policy and practical levels. Thus, it is urgent to face the question of how to address the interlinkages by stakeholders-not only policy communities and researchers but also practitioners and students, especially innovators who can go beyond existing boundaries. By highlighting that challenge, this book lays out a path for addressing interlinkages among SDGs by applying a resilience approach to the issues of a sustainable society. The resilience approach has been developed from combinations of different modes of thinking and practices, including the systems approach, systems and design thinking, and resilience thinking and practices. Based on this overarching approach, innovators seek out the relevance of that approach to their SDGs-related practices at the system, local, and educational levels. The book therefore serves as a guide to how the resilience approach can contribute to accelerating implementation of SDGs by 2030.

The book provides a holistic and practical approach to lean management throughout the business value chain. The lean management framework and tools demonstrate the optimal design and use of methods, tools and principles for companies and organisations. The author describes comprehensively how lean management enables companies to concentrate on value-adding activities and processes to achieve a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. A wealth of best practices, industry examples and case studies are used to reveal the diversity and opportunities of lean management methodologies, methods and principles. Moreover, the book shows how lean management principles are ultimately applied in industries like automotive, healthcare, education and services industries.

Fostering inclusive green growth in Africa means addressing existing and emerging development challenges, while efficiently managing Africa's natural capital and building resilience to environmental, social and economic risks. Although this new paradigm for development has the potential to create tremendous business opportunities, there are also challenges. This book provides empirical evidence on the conditions for the emergence of green businesses in Africa. It includes 13 case studies, which identify the determinants of small and medium-size enterprises' engagement in inclusive and sustainable growth in rural Africa, and the factors that hinder eco-innovation in business and entrepreneurial activities. Furthermore it discusses appropriate regulations and policies to stimulate the development of green business in Africa. Offering insights into the relationship between eco-innovation, labor productivity and business competitiveness in rural Africa, this book appeals to scholars, policy makers and practitioners interested in a green economy for Africa.

This book discusses corporate citizenship, corporate responsibility and business ethics across Africa generally, and Botswana specifically. It begins by contextualizing Botswana within the broader context of Africa, using nine other countries - Angola, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe - to provide a comparative perspective, examining the common factor: that weak legalization makes it challenging for corporate social responsibility to be actualized.From this background, the book then discusses Botswana as a key study. Botswana has been described as 'Africa's economic miracle' due to its growing economy since independence This puts it in a unique position for the implementation and study of corporate social responsibility. The interdisciplinary team of authors employ various research methods to examine the complex relationship between business, society, corporations and social justice issues.This book will be valuable reading for any academic working on corporate social responsibility in Africa, and will present an interesting insight to an often neglected area of study. France Maphosa is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Botswana. His research interests include migration and transnationalism, the sociology of entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, urban and rural livelihoods, labour studies and alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Langtone Maunganidze is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe. His research interests include industrial sociology, business and society, rural livelihoods and sustainable development, and entrepreneurship.

This book provides a platform for discussing the challenges that organizations face in order to implement sustainability, ethics, and effective corporate governance, all of which are important elements of "standing out" from other companies. Examining the background of the New European Consensus on development with the new guiding motto 'Our World, Our Dignity, Our Future', the authors explore how this new legislation on sustainability issues around the world is forcing companies to deal directly with sustainability issues. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda), adopted by the United Nations in September 2015, is the international community's response to global challenges and trends in connection with sustainable development. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at its core, the 2030 Agenda is a transformative political framework designed to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development globally. It balances the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, including the key issues of governance and peaceful and inclusive societies, and recognizes the essential interlinkages between its goals and targets, i.e., that they must be implemented as a whole and not selectively. The respective chapters in this volume raise a number of questions regarding companies' ability to implement sustainability, ethics, and effective corporate governance. Simultaneously, they explore how organizations must adapt to sustainability-related developments.

An accessible textbook for professionals, undergraduate, graduate and executive students in business studies and economics that are interested in effective approaches towards sustainability challenges. The first textbook to take a multidisciplinary approach to address wicked problems relating to the SDGs. Provides a guide for action research by practitioners, as well as students.

This book highlights cutting-edge ecodesign research, covering product and service design, smart manufacturing, and social perspectives in ecodesign. Featuring selected papers presented at EcoDesign 2019: 11th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, it also includes diverse, interdisciplinary approaches to foster ecodesign research and activities. In the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it addresses the need for the manufacturing industry to design innovations for sustainable value creation, taking into account technological developments, legislation, and consumer lifestyles. Further, the book discusses the concept of circular economy, which originated in Europe and aims to increase resource efficiency by shifting away from the linear economy. Focusing on product life cycle design and management, smart manufacturing, circular economy, and business strategies, and providing useful approaches and solutions to these emerging concepts, this book is intended for both researchers and practitioners working in the broad field of ecodesign and sustainability.

This edited collection collates the most up-to-date and important research within the area of operations and logistics management. Boasting the combined expertise of one of the largest logistics and operations management academic teams in Europe, it provides both depth and diversity in a balanced portfolio. The first two sections are concerned with key contemporary issues in the subject area, providing a current and up-to-date overview of the field. Section three presents a selection of important cross-cutting themes that impinge upon and inform teaching, research and practice, while the final section includes a celebration of research highlights and showcases cutting-edge applications from leaders in the field. Invaluable to students, researchers and academics alike, this book is compulsory reading for those active within operations and logistics research.

This book explores a range of important theoretical and practical issues in the field of computational network application tools, while also presenting the latest advances and innovations using intelligent technology approaches. The main focus is on detecting and diagnosing complex application performance problems so that an optimal and expected level of system service can be attained and maintained. The book discusses challenging issues like enhancing system efficiency, performance, and assurance management, and blends the concept of system modeling and optimization techniques with soft computing, neural network, and sensor network approaches. In addition, it presents certain metrics and measurements that can be translated into business value. These metrics and measurements can also help to establish an empirical performance baseline for various applications, which can be used to identify changes in system performance. By presenting various intelligent technologies, the book provides readers with compact but insightful information on several broad and rapidly growing areas in the computation network application domain. The book's twenty-two chapters examine and address current and future research topics in areas like neural networks, soft computing, nature-inspired computing, fuzzy logic and evolutionary computation, machine learning, smart security, and wireless networking, and cover a wide range of applications from pattern recognition and system modeling, to intelligent control problems and biomedical applications. The book was written to serve a broad readership, including engineers, computer scientists, management professionals, and mathematicians interested in studying tools and techniques for computational intelligence and applications for performance analysis. Featuring theoretical concepts and best practices in computational network applications, it will also be helpful for researchers, graduate and undergraduate students with an interest in the fields of soft computing, neural networks, machine learning, sensor networks, smart security, etc.

This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR), examining economic sciences and managements to show the complexity of the contemporary perception and development of CSR in Poland. It considers well-being of workers, the importance of the common good and social innovations in relation to profit. It addresses consumers and organizations, underlining the role and importance of small and medium sized enterprises. This book shows the possibility of improvement management systems by using CSR in business operations. It is valuable reading for academics working in corporate social responsibility, business ethics and in Polish management more generally.

This book describes how international negotiations can be conducted in a structured, professional and effective manner. It also offers recommendations based on examples of successful negotiations from both economically leading countries such as the USA, China and Japan, as well as smaller countries such as the Netherlands, Israel and Morocco. Providing practically relevant experiences from middle and top management positions in different business sectors, the contributors focus on all elements of negotiations, spanning from preparation, execution, strategies and tactics to non-verbal communication and psychological factors. Moreover, the chapters offer detailed introductions to more than 25 countries around the globe, which can be used as a reference guide to doing business in the specific contexts.