Autopoietic systems show a remarkable property in the way they interact with their environment: on the one hand building blocks and energy (including information) are exchanged with the environment, which characterizes them as open systems; on the other hand, any functional mechanisms-the way the system processes, incorporates building blocks, and responds to information-are totally self-determined and cannot be controlled by interventions from the environment. Information systems in an organization seem to accept the autopoietic system way of development and can help managers to understand the operations of their organizations better. Autopoiesis and Self-Sustaining Processes for Organizational Success is an innovative reference book that presents the meaning of autopoietic organizations for social and information science, examines how autopoietic organizations are information self-producing and self-controlled, and provides a framework for its development in modern organizations. The book focuses on analyzing autopoiesis features such as self-managing, self-sustaining, self-producing, self-regulating, etc. Moreover, as the aforementioned characteristics receive a new interpretation in IT environments, the book also includes an exploration of IT solutions that enable the development of these characteristics. This book is ideal for professionals, academicians, researchers, and students working in the field of information economics and management in various disciplines such as information and communication sciences, administrative sciences and management, education, computer science, and information technology.

This book provides in-depth insights into the practices that lead to success in outsourcing global services. Written by internationally acclaimed academics, it covers best practices on IT outsourcing, business process outsourcing and netsourcing. This book is a must read for any practitioner, academic or student concerned with global sourcing.

This book contends that structural reforms, the essential third arrow in Abe's 'Abenomics', will not happen. As a result, Abenomics is merely a combination of reckless monetary policy and ambiguous fiscal policies which will fail to regenerate Japan's fragile economy and cut sovereign debt.

This book brings together original research on the role of networks in regional economic development and innovation. It presents a comprehensive framework synthesizing extant theories, a palette of real-world cases in the aerospace, automotive, life science, biotechnology and health care industries, and fundamental agent-based computer models elucidating the relation between regional development and network dynamics. The book is primarily intended for researchers in the fields of innovation economics and evolutionary economic geography, and particularly those interested in using agent-based models and empirical case studies. However, it also targets (regional) innovation policy makers who are not only interested in policy recommendations, but also want to understand the state-of-the-art agent-based modeling methods used to experimentally arrive at said recommendations.

"Teams that embrace bold goals and breakthrough strategies can accomplish remarkable results. This book will be invaluable to anyone embarking on that path."
- Bart Butzer
Executive Vice President, Target Corporation

"Yellow's continued industry leadership will result in large part from embracing Bill Davidson's philosophy and approach."
- Bill Zollars
CEO, Yellow Corporation

"Strategic change is a high-risk, high-return proposition. Davidson's framework provides a sure, firm foundation for success."
- Roger MacFarlane
CEO, UTi Worldwide

"This is a serious piece of work which should be required reading for all business leaders. If you plan on remaining or becoming number one in your industry, have your top management team read this right away."
- Bob Herson
CEO, Executive Focus International, Inc.

"I could not put it down-stunning insights into corporate strategy and tactics."
- Randall Lunn
General Partner, Palomar Ventures

The literature on innovation in Africa is rapidly expanding, and a recurring thread in the emergent literature is the pervasiveness of systemic weaknesses that inhibit the innovation process. Despite these, firms are able to innovate in Africa. It is then logical to ask: how do African firms manage to overcome the prevalent constraints and learn to innovate? This book directly tackles this question, with a view to improving our understanding of the innovation landscape in Africa. The book brings together some of the latest innovation research from across the African continent, ranging from Tanzania and Ethiopia in the east to Nigeria in the west. The chapters included in the collection adopt different but complementary theoretical and methodological approaches to address a rich mix of interrelated issues. These issues include the factors that enhance or inhibit innovation in African firms, the sources of (knowledge/information for) innovation, policy options for overcoming constraints and facilitating firm-level innovation, the nature and roles of brokers and intermediaries in dealing with innovation constraints and in facilitating the innovation process and the role of interactive learning and acquisition of embodied technology in the innovation process. This book was originally published as a special issue of Innovation and Development.

"This book investigates the business strategies chosen by oil and gas service companies operating in China, Singapore and Malaysia. It provides an analytical view of the reliability of strategic theoretical frameworks based on Western business practice but applied in a non-Western business environment like Asia"--Provided by publisher.

This book, written by an interdisciplinary team of authors, explores the transformation of organizations in today's volatile, uncertain, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. It demonstrates the need to manage organizations in a dynamic way, and to revisit and in some cases reinvent working and leadership styles that seemed appropriate during past decades and centuries. In turn, the book puts forward a model based on three distinct pillars of organization and leadership to suit disruptive times: the concepts of 'Sustainable Purpose', 'Travelling Organization', and 'Connecting Resources'. These pillars challenge many of our traditional organizational patterns and meet the need for effective transformative approaches.

This book focuses on the application of revenue management in the manufacturing industry. Though previous books have extensively studied the application of revenue management in the service industry, little attention has been paid to its application in manufacturing, despite the fact that applying it in this context can be highly profitable and instrumental to corporate success. With this work, the author demonstrates that the manufacturing industry also fulfills the prerequisites for the application of revenue management. The book includes a summary of empirical studies that effectively illustrate how revenue management is currently being applied across Europe and North America, and what the profit potential is.

This book sets out to examine small technologically innovative enterprises in Europe from the viewpoint of ten international researchers. Drawing on original empirical research, the contributions describe the different aspects of the business development and innovation process, including the creation and development of technology-based enterprises, the growth of the firm, different types of networking activities, and various development strategies when the firm is established.

In recent decades, the world has witnessed the emergence of a global knowledge economy in which functional regions increasingly play a role as independent and dynamic market places. These are integrated with other functional regions by means of flows of information, knowledge, and commodities. This contemporary and illuminating book provides a state-of-the-art overview of current research on innovation and entrepreneurship in functional regions. There are numerous questions regarding entrepreneurship and innovation in functional regions that have not yet been answered - until now. Some of the issues that the expert contributors in this field question are - How do firms compete and how do they develop their competitive strategies? How important are entrepreneurial actions and innovation? How important are firm size, firm maturity and corporate structure for innovation? Entrepreneurship and Innovations in Functional Regions will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of entrepreneurship, business economics, innovation and regional science.

This book is a comprehensive review of the current state of digital innovation, Internet activity, and e-business in the life sciences arena and a practical guide for managers planning, developing, and implementing e-strategies in the pharmaceutical industry. The authors provide numerous examples of innovative, best practice and lay the strategic foundation for using e-business across the pharmaceutical value chain from drug discovery to physician promotion to direct-to-consumer marketing.

Manufacturing managers are still focused on the short-term tactical issues related to their business. Strategic issues tend to receive less attention. However, manufacturing can play an important strategic role. This book helps managers consider the strategic roles their operations can play and to provide guidance as to what actions can be taken.

Building a successful Advisory practice is not very complicated, but it does take a tremendous amount of energy and effort. You need to utilize proper strategies, techniques and also become relentless with consistency to succeed. What I want to instill in the newly developing advisor is a sense of ownership. This more business type mindset can be the difference between having lasting success or coming up short. I once managed a program where I was charged with developing new Advisors. I brought in an executive to speak to a class where he explained that his role was to assist them when they had their initial struggles developing and managing their business. His experience showed that many of the advisors he worked with started off strong but eventually struggled and failed to continue growing their business. After hearing this I spent several years researching this very concern. What I found was that it was very real and happened to many advisors between the 3rd and 5th years of their careers, dependent upon how fast their initial growth was. This caused me to spend a great deal of time working with advisors that had either broken through this plateau or never encountered this period at all. This book is a culmination of the strategies that have proven to provide advisors with success in managing their business. It is hard-work but needs to be consistent work. It is very tedious work but such is the risk that could provide you with your ultimate reward. You see everyone in this business starts off with the idea of wanting to be good at what they do. But it is the elite performer that puts in the effort that goes along with becoming great I wish you all the success that this business can provide you in the future.

The purpose of this book is to focus on the contribution of one of the most prominent scholars in the strategy field, Michael Porter, from both a practitioner, that is Chief Executive Officer (CEO), perspective, and from a research perspective. Using such a dual perspective may improve the relevance of strategy research for the business community. Four leading chief executives, two from European multinationals (Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Unilever N.V.) and two from important Dutch public organizations (the Port of Rotterdam and the Ministry of Economic Affairs), were invited to reflect on Porter's contributions to four levels of analysis: (1) business level strategy, (2) corporate level strategy, (3) regional competitiveness and finally (4) national competitiveness. Against this background, the book is structured as follows: Chapters 2 to 8 deal with the four mentioned levels of analysis from a dual perspective - theoretical and managerial. The two final chapters aim to find out how Porter's theories are related to each other and whether and how the different levels of analysis can be connected.

This book provides a thorough analysis of strategy formulation at country and company level in Arab countries and corporations. It also deals with the issue of entrepreneurial initiative in Arab countries and issues of actual practice of entrepreneurship. The role of the financial markets, especially venture capital and private equity, are examined.

On one hand, marginals are complex organizational systems. On the other hand, they are an example of elegant, applied organizational operations. In The Marginal Organization, Tafoya focuses on organizations often described as part of an informal economy, informal sector, underground economy, or unofficial economy. He presents these systems first as organizations and then as organizations operating outside of society's mainstream, as marginal organizations. He outlines a means for studying marginals so that underlying behavioral patterns can be identified, examined and, if needed, addressed.
A simple approach to a study of marginal organizations might conclude they exist simply to meet the needs of their stakeholders - they do not. Thinking of marginals as competing in the context of other organizations allows the reader the opportunity to explore new themes, such as when and how marginals may be more inventive and innovative that mainstream organizations, and what one might conclude about illegal marginals like drug pushers and prostitutes. Tafoya's newest contribution to the field of organizational study is not to be missed.

The rapidly increasing rate of world change demands not just incremental change that organizations have used in the past, but fast, radical alterations of their strategy, culture, structure, and processes. Nothing less than transformation will do, says Dr. Oden--a complex, continuing effort that may be closer to revolution than evolution. Oden lays it out in his customarily clear, programmatic way. He covers actions that must precede the initiation of a transformation; guidance on how to perform the technical, social, and behavioral tasks, and the actions required to wrap up and integrate everything into a complete, workably transformed organization. His book provides a clear goal for the transformation, an excellent description of transformational leadership, and a simple, powerful model of the process. The result is essential reading for upper management in private and public sector organizations and for their colleagues in the academic community.

Part I covers the preparatory actions that organizations should take before initiating a transformation, without which the effort is doomed to failure, says Dr. Oden. In Part II he covers the technical or engineering aspects of the transformation. First he develops a process map of the organization as the basis for process improvement; then he diagnoses the existing and future organization to determine how processes should be improved. In Part III he looks at the various organizational change methods that are available, conducts a broad design of the total organization, and then designs the human resource support processes for the transformed organization. Finally, in Part IV, Dr. Oden shows how to incorporate the redesigned processes into the existing system--the most difficult part of the transformation--and ends by showing how better integration can be achieved to provide better overall transformational results.

Through the application of information architecture principles, the development of a comprehensible strategic planning process and a useable planning document together will provide an effective solution to any business s strategic planning problems. Applying Principles from IT Architecture to Strategic Business Planning describes the principles of IT architecture to develop the creation of an information model of business strategic requirements. Highlighting the importance of organizational goals within a business, this book is an essential read for employees on a managerial and executive level who are involved in the organizational development of a company.

Every city, region and state wants to do better--or at the very least, not do worse. Places have a strong and vigorous concern with and stake in generating a stronger economic performance. This concern spans a broad spectrum of constituents and interests, including business, labor, non-profit organizations, government, and private residents. However, such decision makers mandated with the strategic management of their place receive little guidance or insight from scholars in terms of a systematic framework for evaluating how to generate and sustain a competitive advantage for their place. While an entire academic field exists devoted to analyzing how firms and organizations can create and sustain a competitive advantage and ultimately a strong economic performance--the field of strategic management in business schools--no such analogous field exists which is devoted to guiding and informing decision makers mandated and concerned with the strategic management of their place. Everything in Its Place seeks to fill this intellectual void, explaining the underlying economic and social factors and the broad spectrum of policies and instruments that can actually influence and enhance economic performance in places. Several academic fields have generated a number of important theories, empirical findings, and case studies that shed considerable light on identifying and unraveling the underlying forces about what shapes this economic performance. Combined in this book with the actual experiences and instincts garnered from practitioners and policy makers, these insights are integrated together in into a coherent, inclusive framework to guide and inform thought leaders and scholars in the strategic management of places.

Dr. Morris argues that through its Western mode of thought, a philosophy of separation, the U.S. is losing its edge in worldwide business competition. Separating is pluralistic, says Morris, while the Eastern mode of thought is unitary--it seeks to combine. Morris maintains that in business, the Eastern way of thinking is winning. He thus calls for U.S. corporations to combine their various functions and simplify them, to develop what he terms a common operating system that can successfully achieve market power, a way to block existing and potential competitors from access to targeted markets. It means adopting what for U.S. business is an entirely new way of thinking, and out of this develop a new approach to business strategy formulation. How this can be done, how the various functions of the organization can be linked into a non-linear, unitary structure, and why this must be done, is Dr. Morris's theme. A unique, innovative, ultimately pragmatic discussion for corporate executives throughout the organization, and new food for thought throughout academia.

"Market Power and Business Strategy" consists of seven modules, not chapters. Chapters, says Morris, imply a linear approach to learning and strategy. His book calls for a circular approach. Readers can begin the book anywhere, and will find after finishing it that the effect on their understanding is cumulative. Not only will they get a new way of considering individual functions within the organization, but they will also be struck by how these functions can be combined. The key is in the operating system. It's common to all functions, but because of the way Western thought has developed, the commonality has become hidden. Morris uncovers it by examining in detail the two ways of thinking, Western and Eastern, pluralistic and unitary, and compares them in the contexts of marketing, human resource, finance, and other resources that exist within organizations. In doing so, he focuses sharply on marketing, in the belief that marketing strategy cannot be formulated in a vacuum. It must be derived from all intra-organizational disciplines, just as they must build their own strategies with markets and marketing uppermost in mind. With examples from everyday business situations and a wrap-up module that proves his thinking is by no means Utopian, Morris will challenge many strongly held beliefs, to which he would respond: that's the best way to learn.

The Theory of Entrepreneurship examines the interiors of the entrepreneurial value creation process, and offers a new unified and comprehensive theory to afford empirical investigations as well as delineate a broader view of the entrepreneurial contextual milieu.

Providing the most up-to-date tools and techniques for pricing interest rate and credit products for the new financial world, this book discusses pricing and hedging, funding and regulation, and interpretation, as an essential resource for quantitatively minded practitioners and researchers in finance. This book will be required reading for quantitative practitioners who need to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in derivatives pricing, and will also be of interest to academic researchers and students interested in how instruments are priced in practice.