Drawing on the author's recent and ongoing research this book explores how to build the organizational capability to realise the strategic potential of information technology. It tackles the gap between theory and practice and how to gain wider adoption of successful socio-technical and benefits-driven approaches to investments in IT.

This book provides a general overview of the challenges of economic development for the five billion people living in developing countries. While they constitute over 80 percent of the world's population, they account for only 40% of the world's output, and are home to 2.6 billion people living on less than $2.00 per day. Thinking on economic development has shifted over time. Early theories that stressed capital formation and a heavy reliance on the public sector proved inadequate. Gradually, economists began to see that development was a complex, multifaceted problem that combined economic issues with problems of poverty and income distribution, insititution building and governance. While there have been many failures, there have also been many successes. Countries such as China, Chile, Ghana, and Korea demonstrate that good policies and strong institutions can result in remarkable progress. However, many poor countries, particularly those in Africa continue to lag behind. Closing this gap remains a major challenge for the world, particularly as the growing population and output of developing countries accelerate tensions in such areas as trade, immigration and financial flows.

This book investigates the EU's regional growth dynamics and, in particular, the reasons why peripheral and socio-economically disadvantaged areas have persistently failed to catch up with the rest of the Union. It shows that the capability of the knowledge-based growth model to deliver its expected benefits to these areas crucially depends on tackling a specific set of socio-institutional factors which prevents innovation from being effectively translated into economic growth. The book takes an eclectic approach to the territorial genesis of innovation and regional growth by combining different theoretical strands into one model of empirical analysis covering the whole EU-25. An in-depth comparative analysis with the United States is also included, providing significant insights into the distinctive features of the European process of innovation and its territorial determinants. The evidence produced in the book is extensively applied to the analysis of EU development policies.

This book is based upon the operating system of the company, Added Value, founded by the author, and now one of the world's largest marketing and branding consultancies. With the use of many examples and case studies the author shows how the five I's process--Insight, Ideas, Innovation, Impact, and Investment Return--can be used to create top-line demand-led growth and the tools and techniques available to achieve this. This is a unique approach with proven success.

This book provides managers, leaders and practitioners with a dynamic framework that links several variables associated with performance management which can be applied across organizations and industries worldwide. Based on empirical evidence and experiences, this book provides a critical understanding of the interrelationship of organizational culture with performance management process (PMP) planning and implementation. The elements of the framework are approached from a macro-level-view and are balanced with conciseness and realism based on applied success studies, making this book a valuable educational, training and development resource tool for leaders and managers at all levels. The topic of performance in organizations is like the weather-everyone likes to talk about it, but few understand what is truly happening-or understand why? Individuals and organizations are no different when it comes to performance, regardless of performance level of focus: individual, team, unit, or organization-wide. Teams and organizations often miss opportunities to not only improve performance, but also leverage and sustain high performance. Organizational performance, organizational culture and organizational success are interrelated and should reinforce one another. This can be achieved through an effective performance management process (PMP) that lives, functions and thrives at multiple levels within institutions. This book will help organizations and institutions achieve performance management success by identifying comment elements, along with some patterned variation, that are applicable to a successful PMP. Featuring hands-on resource reference tools for immediate use and application, this book is useful for leaders, managers, scholars, students and policy makers in management, leadership, and organizational culture.

Innovation is critical for securing competitive advantage and achieving business success. Yet, for many organizations it remains elusive. This book shows how to build innovative teams who will deliver innovations capable of transforming performance. It includes the strategy of building innovative teams and the practical tools that will form part of this process.

This book explores the luxury industry and how it has undoubtedly been one of the fastest-growing sectors since the 1970s, and one in which Europe has managed to strengthen its competitiveness in the world market. While many aspects of globalization remain abstract and intangible, the luxury industry has created markets where previously there were none, by educating Japanese about the history of French handbags, Chinese about the finest wines, and setting global standards for an elite, inspirational lifestyle. In this edited volume, a wide range of scholars comes together to analyze the history of the business and the innovations in management and marketing that have emerged from it. Invaluable for scholars, industry figures, and dilettantes alike, it will define the field of study for years to come.

The impact of political lobbyists remains highly controversial. No-one has explored when they matter. This book tells readers when lobbyists count and analyzes the relationship between lobbying, policy outcomes and the impact of external factors to reveal the professional lobbyist's limited effect on policy. On most policy issues lobbyists simply do not matter. But, on rare occasions lobbyists can make a difference and this book explains when they matter and why.

This book addresses the core challenges currently faced by traditional companies. In the age of digitization many industries are now challenged by disruptions of the traditional value chain: new competitors are coming into play, traditional products don't sell any more, and profits are at risk. As such, CEOs need to adopt new business models for these established industries, while many companies have to reinvent themselves by developing new products for new markets. In this book, leading CEOs share their experiences in transforming established companies. They provide insights on transforming industries and demonstrate what it takes to redefine companies from the ground up. Issues such as organizational transformation, new product development, implementing a new organizational spirit, and many more are discussed.

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.

The aim of this book is to analyze the quality of entrepreneurial management and economic development in the Latin American region from a microeconomic point of view. It seeks to explain the Latin American way of business management as well as envision ways in which Latin American businesses can increase productivity and innovation in order to successfully compete in the global market.

Latin America comprises nearly 8.5% of the global population and represents over 8% of the global GDP, yet it is home to only 12 (or less than 2.5%) of the world s 500 largest companies. In this volume, the author analyzes the unique dynamics of Latin American corporate culture to consider the particular obstacles to more successful performance. Drawing evidence from dozens of companies across the eight largest Latin American economies, he notes that Latin American companies have evolved in the context of a highly aristocratic and oligarchic society, dominated by patriarchal families from the upper classes. Corporate structure, especially in family-owned companies, is based largely on patronage and privilege and often characterized by unnecessary hierarchy, redundant responsibilities and poor communication and information management systems.Operating in relative isolation, with little incentive to invest in innovation to compete against foreign products has reinforced this conservative culture.

Taking a fresh perspective that focuses at the firm level, with an emphasis on corporate administration, the author presents a compelling explanation for Latin America s delay in economic development and offers insights for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, identifying promising industrial sectors and improving productivity and competitiveness on the global stage."

This book addresses resurgence of the American economy, and the firms, regions, and technologies that are driving this growth. Best argues that America has developed a new model of technology management and regional innovation based on the principle of systems integration. This book, which both builds on Best's earlier work and engages with the ideas of Michael Porter, is a rich and important source of ideas.

As the Web paradigm shifted from the business-centered to user-centered one (this paradigm shift has become known as Web 2.0 ) it has become a Web platform as a method to quickly reach a large pool of consumers. Web 2.0 has changed the nature of a user from a content consumer to a content generator. While the pre-Web 2.0 era is characterized by read-only websites and proprietary web applications, Web 2.0 brought about a variety of interactive community-based initiatives that leverage data, harness distributed intelligence, and utilize a rich multimedia. E-Business Applications for Product Development and Competitive Growth: Emerging Technologies is a comprehensive framework of knowledge provided by research and practitioner experts within the e-business research field. Emerging e-business theories, architectures, and technologies are outlined to stimulate information into research and business communities. This book will serve as an integrated e-business knowledge base for those who are interested in the advancement of e-business theory and practice through a variety of research methods including theoretical, experimental, case, and survey research methods.

Based on his diverse personal experiences and two decades of interdisciplinary research, Dr. Ehin unveils the "mysteries" and shows the practicality of tapping into the ever evolving, yet extraordinarily powerful, informal networks present in all social groups. What this book reveals is the extraordinarily dynamic and tight linkage between three "hidden" organizational success factors responsible for most work accomplished in both for profit and nonprofit ventures, especially in the development of new innovations. The book shows why in a knowledge economy it is essential to design organizations that facilitate the fundamental collaborative and creative qualities of human nature rather than unconsciously suppressing them. In doing so, it is made obvious why most mergers and change efforts fail and the reasons why an average employee only works at two-thirds of his/her capacity.

This work clearly demonstrates how "smart" institutions can harness, rather than manage, these invisible emergent forces and in the process avoid the dismal record of past organizational transformation initiatives. Hidden Assets is a must read not only for top executives, knowledge professionals, and organizational scholars, but for everyone associated with private, public, or voluntary social institutions.

The diversity of the workforce and the implications for management continue to be the focus of a great deal of interest. This is partly because of the importance and urgency of the issues that diversity entails and also because of a growing recognition that many of the dilemmas of diversity management are not proving amenable to easy solutions. Indeed, recent research demonstrates that Britain and the US are, in many ways, becoming more, rather than less unequal societies. This book suggests that metaphor and dialectic play a powerful role in shaping our understandings of ourselves and each other. It draws on original research in organizations and in management education to explore how we can become more aware of these processes within ourselves and challenge those assumptions and stereotypes that contribute to maintaining people in disadvantaged positions.

Alliances are becoming an ever more important strategic weapon to succeed in many industries. This book describes how various leading firms have succeeded in learning how to manage their alliance portfolios and uses cutting edge research to offer advice on alliance management skills.

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.

In the changing geography of innovation, multinational corporations play a key role as creators of knowledge. Innovation and the Multinational Firm investigates how innovation is managed within these firms by focusing particularly on subsidiaries and host-locations.

This unique book unveils an invaluable paradigm for companies wishing to create new knowledge. Mitsuru Kodama's new theoretical framework is achieved using a combination of approaches including knowledge sharing, knowledge integration, strategy, organization, corporate culture and leadership. The author presents his new theoretical framework using two models which demonstrate the means for actors both within and outside the company to formulate and implement micro strategies through the structure of dynamic strategic human networks. Detailed case studies are then used to support the theoretical framework. These include specific applications of knowledge innovation from networked strategic communities including large corporations, joint ventures, customer-oriented solution businesses and IT-based management. Research and managerial implications arising from these theoretical frameworks are also explored. Bridging theory and practice and providing international scope, this book will be invaluable to academics and students with an interest in business and management, and to managers in the IT, telecommunications, and electronics industries.

Participation and social responsibility in innovation is the core theme of this book. Both are issues of organization and not of ethics, or the enforcement of other forms of obligations on individual actors. The need is for a democratization of innovation that can make innovation open to broad participation.

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.