'The Financial Crisis' has led to a decade of poor returns for pension schemes and lower retirement incomes. Credit-based investment strategies that track the business cycle, are allowing preservation of investors' capital. This book provides analysis and investment strategy plans to generate equity-like-returns with bond like volatility.

Globally, the retail industry loses in excess of $230 billion a year due to 'shrinkage' - the euphemistic term used by the industry to cover financial losses that retailers face through spoilage, damage, error and theft. It is a problem that has proved stubborn to resolve and highly resilient to the swathe of 'solutions' developed to try and reduce its impact.
This book is an attempt to develop fresh thinking on how to effectively manage retail loss by challenging the existing preconceived ideas about not only what constitutes shrinkage, but also the approach that should be adopted to deal with it. It is premised upon developing a systemic and systematic understanding of the root causes of shrinkage, recognising the pivotal role operational failures have in creating the opportunities and circumstances in which shrinkage can occur.
This text offers one of the most comprehensive and challenging accounts of retail loss prevention to date. Designed for students and practitioners alike, it provides new insights into a problem that has plagued the retail industry since its inception.

This is an in-depth look at how to improve decisions on major projects at the concept stage, when there is scant information available. The book describes how to evaluate judgemental information. It looks at how scant information can actually be a strength, and can help establish a broad overall perspective.

The global energy system stands at the verge of a far-reaching paradigm shift. The established model of centralized supply services will be challenged by new, decentralized technologies, with Germany being an international role model for energy efficiency and renewable energy generation.

This book guides readers through the broad field of generic and industry-specific management system standards, as well as through the arsenal of tools that are needed to effectively implement them. It covers a wide spectrum, from the classic standard ISO 9001 for quality management to standards for environmental safety, information security, energy efficiency, business continuity, laboratory management, etc. A dedicated chapter addresses international management standards for compliance, anti-bribery and social responsibility management. In turn, a major portion of the book focuses on relevant tools that students and practitioners need to be familiar with: 8D reports, acceptance sampling, failure tree analysis, FMEA, control charts, correlation analysis, designing experiments, estimating parameters and confidence intervals, event tree analysis, HAZOP, Ishikawa diagrams, Monte Carlo simulation, regression analysis, reliability theory, data sampling and surveys, testing hypotheses, and much more. An overview of the necessary mathematical concepts is also provided to help readers understand the technicalities of the tools discussed. A down-to-earth yet thorough approach is employed throughout the book to help practitioners and management students alike easily grasp the various topics.

As globalization creates the need for leaders who transcend national borders, this book provides an insider's view of what makes them special. This is the first book to present a framework for understanding this fast-growing and influential group and it provides tools for readers to discover their own inner competitive edge.

Case Studies in Service Innovation provides the reader fresh insight into how innovation occurs in practice, and stimulates learning from one context to another. The volume brings together contributions from researchers and practitioners in a celebration of achievements with the intention of adding to the wider understanding of how service innovation develops. Each case presents a brief description of the context in which the innovation occurred, the opportunity that led to the innovation and an overview of the innovation itself, also addressing how success was measured, what success has been achieved to date and providing links to further information.

The book is organized around five major themes, each reflecting recognized sources of service innovation: Business Model Innovation: new ways of creating, delivering or capturing economic, social, environmental and other types of value; The Organization in its Environment: an organization engaging beyond its own boundaries, with public private partnerships, sourcing knowledge externally, innovation networks, and open or distributed innovation; Innovation Management within an Organization: an organization actively encouraging innovation within its own boundaries using project teams, internal governance of innovation, and methods or tools that stimulate innovation; Process Innovation: changes in service design and delivery processes, such as consumer led innovation or consumers as part of the innovation process, service operations management, and educational processes; Technology Innovation: the use of technology, including ICT enabled innovation, ICTs that are themselves innovative and support the delivery of new services, new ICT services, new ways of delivering services associated with ICT products, and technology other than ICT.

The final part of the book is given to four extended cases allowing for a more in-depth treatment of innovation within a complex service system. The extended cases also illustrate two important and growing trends, firstly the need for, and benefits of, a more customer centric approach to service innovation and secondly the need for better understanding of public services and the role of public-private partnerships in identifying and achieving innovation.

The theory of path dependence continues to attract great interest in a range of disciplines. An increasing number of scholars have started to explicitly use this theory for studying organizational inertia and institutional rigidities. This volume presents a collection of papers from various international conferences that address these issues.

Managing Towards Supply Chain Maturity takes a view of the crucial issues involved in supply chain management, namely risk, information and social capital management. Over the last dozen or so years, the outsourcing and offshoring processes have grown in importance. It is now more and more the case that enterprises concentrate on their key competences while transferring operations or specific tasks to other countries. Modern supply chains are becoming supply networks; hence there is a need for conscious and concerted implementation of methods to manage risk, information and social capital. These issues are very important for the efficiency and competitiveness of supply chains and are discussed in detail. The discussion includes the results of research and introduces the concept of risk, information and social capital management that will ensure supply chain excellence and maturity according to the Poirier's model that has been taken as the point of reference for this study. From a managerial point of view this study can play a significant role in determining the best risk and information management practices in the context of the outsourcing and offshoring of business processes.

An expert guide to navigating and unlocking the secrets of the business world to advance anyone's career.

So many people are trying to navigate a corporate world that is laden with secrets; cleverly hidden and unspoken rules to a game that most employees don’t know they are playing. In order to find the success that most people want in their careers, it requires navigating this unspoken set of guidelines effectively.

Secrets of the Career Game is geared towards arming individuals with the knowledge they need to understand how to evaluate their own competencies, build their toolset to open doors for progression, and establish a network that will accelerate their growth.

Digital technologies maintain an important tool in today s business economy. As the economy continues to change, businesses seek out solutions in order to enhance and develop their organization. Business Innovation, Development, and Advancement in the Digital Economy highlights the competitive advantages on the emerging digital economy. Bringing together the classic economy theory and the developments of new technology, this book provides research on current innovations in the digital economy. It is vital resource for practitioners, researchers as well as graduate and undergraduate students.

"This stimulating collection tackles the question that is uppermost in most of humanity's minds and hearts right now. The novel debating approach that is taken generates a rich understanding of the range of ways in which bad leadership is created, manifested and most importantly, remedied." - Professor Brad Jackson, Waikato Management School, The University of Waikato, New Zealand "In the midst of a world full of incompetent and incoherent leaders this book is exactly what we need: a veritable cornucopia of critical leadership studies." - Keith Grint, Professor Emeritus, Warwick Business School, UK "While we like to have leaders who guide, looking at the present state of the world, there are far too many leaders who misguide. It makes this anthology on bad leadership more than timely. The various contributors, taking many different perspectives, highlight the ways leaders can go astray. In these very difficult times, this book will be a must read for anybody interested in this subject." - Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, Clinical Professor of Leadership "Debating Bad Leadership, edited by Anders OErtenblad, is a book for this time! The rise of populism and the emergence of so-called 'strong' leaders in many countries have created a social, political, and economic climate that begs for closer examination of the origins, characteristics, and forms of, especially, bad leadership. Taking as its starting-point the question of why there are so many bad leaders in the corporate world, the impressive collection of chapters compiled in Debating Bad Leadership canvasses a comprehensive array of issues ranging from toxic, psychopathic, leadership and ethical failure to issues of poor selection, ill-considered recruitment, leader (in)competence, conflicted or weak followership, to the very concept of leadership itself. In debating these fundamental issues, this book illuminates and educates, and offers some remedies, both theoretically and practically. Debating Bad Leadership challenges scholars, students and practitioners of leadership to continue this fundamental discussion, for the benefit of us all." - Gabriele Lakomski Professor Emeritus, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. In this book, leadership experts explore why there are so many bad leaders, and suggest remedies for how the current situation could be improved. Some of the experts suggest that reasons for why bad leaders are so common are searched for in people: more specifically leaders-to-become, acting leaders or followers. Others suggest that reasons are to be found in the leadership role (or expectations on those having such role), in the lack of support for leaders, or in beliefs about leadership. On the backdrop of their suggested explanations as to why there are so many bad leaders, the experts suggest remedies that could be taken to decrease the number of bad leaders as well as their negative impact. The very presumption that this book rests upon also gets its fair share of critique, by some of the experts. Anders OErtenblad is Professor of Working Life Science at the University of Agder, Norway. He is the editing founder of the book series Palgrave Debates in Business and Management.

This book includes research presented at the Global Chinese Management Studies Conferences held in Singapore between 2011 and 2014. It covers managerial themes from China that are associated with eco-labels, institutional changes in the context of governance, fusion accounting information, consumers on insuring, corporate social responsibility, financial warning systems, new product development, entrepreneurship, polycentric patterns and even destructive leadership. The papers were written by leading academics from Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore whose perspectives represent a departure from conventional managerial practices. Diversity of Managerial Perspectives from Inside China is essential reading for all researchers interested in the development and significance of management-related topics in the Chinese market.

Reflections of a Serial Entrepreneur includes hundreds of questions and pointers that will be invaluable to any aspiring entrepreneur. Filled with practical, useful, and accurate ideas on every aspect of a newborn company, this is a how-to field manual to getting it done. The author has built and operated five companies in different industries so his ideas cross industry lines and will work for every business. Too many entrepreneurs think their business is unique or harder than others. Stoddard feels the challenges we face are similar and therefore the solutions are universal. His practical and proven techniques will apply to your business regardless of what industry you are in. He brings real world workable and proven techniques to the subject matter and arms the newly minted entrepreneur with the right ammunition to guarantee success. Bud Stoddard has a no-nonsense, tell it like it really is approach that will entertain as well as enlighten the reader. If you have ever considered starting your own business, Reflections of a Serial Entrepreneur is must reading and will return the purchase price a thousand times over.

Examines the shift in leading companies in India towards greater 'value added' and innovative work. Is the move towards greater levels of innovation the future of the services off-shoring industry in India?

Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary research area that evaluates the structural and organizational function of the nervous system. When applied to business practices, it is possible to investigate how consumers, managers, and marketers makes decisions and how their emotions may play a role in those decisions. Applying Neuroscience to Business Practice provides theoretical frameworks and current empirical research in the field. Highlighting scientific studies and real-world applications on how neuroscience is being utilized in business practices and marketing strategies to benefit organizations, as well as emergent business and management techniques being developed from this research, this book is a pivotal reference source for researchers, managers, and students.

Condon explains key aspects of NAFTA and WTO rules on trade in goods and services, foreign direct investment and intellectual property protection and shows how these rules affect global business strategies. Cases are used to illustrate how these agreements work and how they affect crucial business interests. He examines the political context in which the negotiation and enforcement of trade agreements take place and how business people can enforce the rules and influence the negotiations to support global business strategies. He also shows how NAFTA, WTO, and global business strategy affect some of the major issues of our time, such as AIDS, global security, environmental protection, globalization protesters, and illegal migration from Mexico to the United States.

Anyone doing business from, to, and within the NAFTA region will find this essential reading. NAFTA and WTO interact in ways that can make or break a company's strategy. Business strategists must consider the impact of today's rules and how future developments will affect them. However, as Condon makes clear, this book is about more than just business. The globalization of law and business affects the lives of everyone. Scholars, researchers, students, and international business professionals will find the book of value, as will those involved with financial services, international law, and international relations.

Environments needing information technology and management skills combined often find that strategic information and intelligence is not always readily available. How to scan management environments for relevant information and then make sense of the information remains a challenge.Managing Strategic Intelligence: Techniques and Technologies builds a network of excellence in effectively managing strategic information for senior management. It focuses on environment information scanning and organization-wide support for strategic intelligence. Managing Strategic Intelligence: Techniques and Technologies prompts further development for theories and best practices in strategic intelligence, and provides future direction for innovative systems by using intelligent agents. This book also provides practical guidance to organizations on developing effective approaches, mechanisms, and systems to scan, refine, and support strategic information provision.

This book provides a holistic and pragmatic approach to performance management throughout the business value chain, and demonstrates the optimal design and use of performance management in order to achieve competitive advantage. A wealth of best practices, case studies and real-world examples are used to reveal the diversity of performance measurement methods, methodologies and principles in practice. Readers will gain comprehensive insights into the status quo of performance management, including primary functions such as supply, operations and sales, and secondary functions like finance, human resources, and information systems. Focusing on 'best-in-class' performance excellence, the book offers the ideal guide for any organization pursuing competitive advantages across all corporate functions and focusing on value-adding activities.

Aimed at managers and executives wanting insight into how to better drive change at the micro and macro level, Ready for Change? Provides guidance in understanding the factors within different business disciplines that enable and disable lasting change through examples of good practice and 'not so good' practice within real organisations.

Too many new products fail. Mainly because new products are hard to differentiate from exisiting products and they don't capture the customer's imagination. The failure is due to a poor understanding of customers' needs. Companies need to take a radical approach to identifying customers' real needs, and this book demonstrates innovative ways to acheive this.

Strategic alliances are taking on an increasingly important role in international business. This collection of articles by leading scholars addresses fundamental questions on the governance and contractual mechanisms underlying alliances such as: When are alliances an effective governance structure? Which governance mechanisms underlie strategic alliances? How does alliance governance change over time? How do relational governance mechanisms operate and relate to formal governance? What are the main contractual elements of alliances?

Strategy is the most central issue in management. It has to do with defining the purpose of an organization, understanding the market in which it operates and the capabilities the firm possesses, and putting together a winning plan. There are many influential frameworks to help managers undertake a systematic reflection on this issue. The most dominant approaches are Michael Porter's "Competitive Strategy" and the "Resource-Based View of the Firm," popularized by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. Arnoldo Hax argues there are fundamental drawbacks in the underlying hypotheses of these approaches in that they define strategy as a way to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This line of thinking could be extremely dangerous because it puts the competitor at the center and therefore anchors you in the past, establishes success as a way of beating your competitors, and this obsession often leads toward imitation and congruency. The result is commoditization - which is the worst outcome that could possibly happen to a business.

The Delta Model is an extremely innovative view of strategy. It abandons all of these assumptions and instead puts the customer at the center. By doing that it allows us to be truly creative, separating ourselves from the herd in pursuit of a unique and differentiated customer value proposition. Many years of intense research at MIT, supported by an extensive consulting practice, have resulted in development of powerful new concepts and practical tools to guide organizational leaders into a completely different way of looking at strategy, including a new way of doing customer segmentation and examining the competencies of the firm, with an emphasis on using the extended enterprise as a primary way of serving the customer. This last concept means that we cannot play the game alone; that we need to establish a network among suppliers, the firm, the customers, and complementors - firms that are in the business of developing products and services that enhance our own offering to the customer. Illustrated through dozens of examples, and discussion of application to small and medium-sized businesses and not-for-profits, the Delta Model will help readers in all types of organizations break out of old patterns of behavior and achieve strategic flexibility -- an especially timely talent during times of crisis, intense competition, and rapid change.

This is a very timely book! Public procurement for innovation has become a prominent tool of demand-side innovation policy in recent years. A better understanding of the underlying assumptions and intentions, as well as the opportunities of this bundle of instruments and their limitations, is highly relevant for both innovation policy analysts, students and practitioners. The book presents the latest knowledge and insights of world-leading experts in the field of public procurement for innovation.' - Stefan Kuhlmann, University of Twente, the Netherlands, President of the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and InnovationPublic procurement for innovation (PPI) is a demand-side innovation policy instrument. It occurs when a public organization places an order for the fulfillment of certain functions or needs, which cannot be met at that moment or within a reasonable period of time through a new or improved product. Providing evidence of the benefits to public and private actors from selective use of this policy instrument, this book illustrates the requirements and constraints for its operationalization. It significantly improves our knowledge of the key determinants of effective public procurement, aiming to promote innovative capabilities in the supplying sectors and beyond. It also provides case studies and conceptual contributions that help extend the frontier of our understanding in areas where there are still significant knowledge gaps. Scholars interested in the study of innovation policies and practitioners involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of PPI will benefit from this state-of-the-art exploration. Contributors: Y. Caloghirou, J. Edler, C. Edquist, A.T. Furtado, L. Georghiou, Y. Li, J. Nauta, P. Panaghiotopoulos, A. Protogerou, C. Garcia Ribeiro, J. Rigby, M. Rolfstam, L. Tsipouri, E. Uyarra, V. Valovirta, H. van Meerveld, N.S. Vonortas, G. Whyles, J. Yeow, J.M. Zabala-Iturriagagoitia