After a decade of treating the topic of e-commerce with awe and confusion, we can now step back and analyze the subject more objectively. From launching an electronic storefront to managing complex supply chain operations, most companies have ventured into e-commerce; but even the best-run bricks-and-mortar enterprises have run into snags in the virtual world. Even mighty Wal-Mart, for example, took its website through several redesigns and sales strategies, and Borders eventually outsourced its Internet sales activites to rival, Amazon. Despite the horror stories of abysmal customer service, lost information, catastrophic meltdowns, and the excesses of the dot.com boom, the Internet is now an essential tool and medium for conducting business. Today, the key question is not whether your firm should invest in e-commerce, but how you can do so most profitably. In Implementing E-Commerce Strategies, Marc Epstein goes beyond the hype to focus on the practical angles of designing, executing, and successfully managing an e-commerce strategy that works for your company. While many books have addressed the "what" and "why" of e-commerce, Epstein zeroes in on the elusive "how." Showcasing the experiences of 32 companies (both successes and failures) in a wide variety of industries, he explores such issues as: Corporate culture and strong leadership from the executive suite Integrating e-commerce into corporate strategy Aligning goals, accountabilities, and performance metrics to support e-commerce initiatives Building systems that can measure the value of your e-commerce investments. No business can avoid e-commerce--and its capacity for creating spectacular opportunities or wasting precioustime and resources. How your firm handles these challenges may very well determine whether or not it will survive.

For a company to grow it needs to generate more margin of profit. It can generate more profit if it provides more value to customers. For this, it needs to put more value in each of the value activities. Agrawal, Satpathy, and Mohapatra demonstrate how a firm can use innovation at all levels (strategic, functional and operational) to provide benefits to the entire value chain. Particularly in developing economies, there is a need for business alignment with innovation strategy and execution of strategies, and this book explains these to the readers through real-word examples and case studies, taking the environment into consideration and concentrating on not just growth but sustainable growth.

Doing business in China requires attention to a broad range of issues. While many executives focus on local conditions, others train their eyes on regional and national developments. By painting a picture of the entire Chinese landscape, this book provides western corporate decision makers with tools for crafting a sustainable China business strategy. The comprehensive analyses presented herein will not only enable business executives to rationalize their China investment but also help them communicate their China business plan to stakeholders, building corporate consensus and support.

"China Investment Environment & Strategies" could be used to: Identify strategic options for the China market. Conduct comprehensive site selection analysis. Evaluate the viability of a China strategy. Convince skeptics of a China operation. Secure stakeholders' commitment to China business. Improve communications with Chinese partners and consumers.

Companies owned by Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S. capitalize on cultural and historical affinity with China to build successful businesses there. By understanding the rules of engagement that these overseas Chinese follow, the odds of success for western companies in the China market will be improved.

As marketing roles continue to evolve, expand and embrace the complexities of the modern world of business, marketers are under increasing pressure to perform as individuals and teams. The Whole Marketer argues that now is the time to take stock of technical skills required, examine the latest thinking, identify capability gaps and discover how to be fulfilled in a professional context and as a human. Abigail Dixon looks at the functions of a marketing team through a lens of personal development. Her rich experience comes from leading marketing teams, and training hundreds of marketers at varied stages of their career to achieve formal qualifications. The book will help marketers to be a better version of themselves tomorrow.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of the Brazilian sugarcane complex with a special focus on technological advances that promote sustainable development. It first examines the question why sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil is considered a superior alternative to fossil fuel compared to other biofuels produced on an industrial scale and subsequently analyzes the most dynamic areas within the sugarcane sector with regard to relevant actors, technologies and markets in order to determine if the sector can be considered an innovation system. The empirical research presented here is based on multiple research methods and derives its data from interviews with Brazilian experts of the sugarcane sector and by a thorough literature review. The book will be of special interest to researchers and practitioners interested in understanding the key mechanisms in successful innovation systems that promote a transition towards sustainable development and mobility.

This book presents a broad overview of risk management in the banking industry, with a special focus on strategic thinking and decision-making. It reveals the broader context behind decision models and approaches to risk management in the financial industry, linking the regulatory landscape for capital management and risk to strategic thinking, together with behavioral and cultural assessments.

This book identifies and discusses the main challenges facing digital business innovation and the emerging trends and practices that will define its future. The book is divided into three sections covering trends in digital systems, digital management, and digital innovation. The opening chapters consider the issues associated with machine intelligence, wearable technology, digital currencies, and distributed ledgers as their relevance for business grows. Furthermore, the strategic role of data visualization and trends in digital security are extensively discussed. The subsequent section on digital management focuses on the impact of neuroscience on the management of information systems, the role of IT ambidexterity in managing digital transformation, and the way in which IT alignment is being reconfigured by digital business. Finally, examples of digital innovation in practice at the global level are presented and reviewed. The book will appeal to both practitioners and academics. The text is supported by informative illustrations and case studies, so that practitioners can use the book as a toolbox that enables easy understanding and assists in exploiting business opportunities involving digital business innovation.

What happens when previously autonomous firms from different countries, each with their own identities, routines and capabilities, come together inside a single multinational corporation? Can a cooperative strategy be established that advances the development of the multinational as a whole, or do mutual misunderstandings and the unintended consequences of strategic interaction among the players' lead instead to endemic conflict and disintegration?
This book tackles these novel and important questions through an empirical study of the strategic constitution of an 'actually existing' multinational. It does so by tracing the historical construction of the multinational corporation from the confluence of multiple formerly independent firms and analyzing the interacting web of strategies pursued by different actors within it. The analysis reveals how workers, unionists, subsidiary managers, and corporate executives pursue separate strategic games rooted in their local contexts, whose global outcome contrasts sharply with idealized views of the multinational as an integrated and coordinated organization.
By comparing these findings to those of the broader literature, the book proceeds to a theoretical examination of the challenges of managing the multinational, and the difficulties of resolving them through conventional organizational means. The authors propose new procedural solutions aimed at fostering mutual recognition and knowledge exchange within the multinational corporation, and explore how a multinational public may be created to press for the necessary reforms in corporate governance. As the success of such reforms is far from preordained, the book concludes with a seriesof alternative scenarios that illustrate the many obstacles to a smooth continuation of the globalization process.
This is an important and original study of significance for researchers, academics, and advanced students of international business, business strategy, comparative management and organizational studies.

Passage of the European Data Protection Directive and other national laws have increased the need for companies and other entities to improve their data protection and privacy controls. Clients, stakeholders, and the public are clamoring for it. Klosek introduces the various legal means to protect personal data in the United States and the European Union, targeting her book at American and international businesses that may have difficulty complying with the European Directive. She explains its main elements and practical effects, presents primary components of national privacy laws abroad and in the United States, and gives advice on some steps companies can take to improve the level of protection they afford to the data they possess.

Klosek offers a comprehensive review of the American and European systems for providing protection to personal information in the Internet age. She explains the European Data Protection Directive, the national data protection laws of the fifteen countries of the European Union, and the laws and other initiatives for protecting individual personal data. She endeavors to discuss the protection of personal data in general but focuses on, and emphasizes, the protection of personal data within the context of the Internet. In doing so, she provides much useful, fascinating information on the obvious and non-obvious means of collecting and processing personal data through the Internet. Among its unusual features, the book helps United States corporate decision makers assess the effect data protection laws will have in Europe and the U.S., and how companies that are operating web sites that cross international boundaries can ensure they stay in compliance with data protection laws in countries in which their web sites may be accessible. The book is essential reading for corporate compliance executives, corporate communications and other top-level organizational administrators, particularly in Internet industries.

This book is based on the findings, issues and questions related to an ongoing decade-old research project named the Innovation Lab (www.innovation-lab.org). The research project focuses on discontinuous innovation in more than thirteen countries, most of which are European, and provides useful insights into its different challenges. It also raises several questions related to the subject, some of which are: how do firms pick up weak signals on emerging - and possibly radically different - innovation? What should firms do when these weak signals hit their "mainstream" process? What are the criteria for allocating resources to a strategic innovation project? What actions should firms take to avoid being left out by the "corporate immune system"? How should firms organize projects that often break existing rules and require new rules to be created?This book attempts to provide answers to the above mentioned questions by gathering information from the research project and also from firms that have tried exploring various ideas, models and insights to tackle discontinuous innovation. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will be of interest to both practitioners and academics alike.

This book is designed to illuminate the features of cross-sector partnerships that make them powerful vehicles to drive social change. Partnerships across market sectors, involving for-profit, non-profit, and government entities, work because they leverage the advantages of each type of organization to arrive at novel solutions to social problems. Unlike previous work that has discussed cross-sector, multi-sector, or public-private partnerships at a conceptual level, this book scours the existing literature and explores real-life examples to demonstrate the practical characteristics that render these partnerships effective at tackling obstreperous social problems. The authors delve into the key formative features of cross-sector partnerships such as leadership, motivation, cooperative capabilities, and arrive at distinct characteristics that drive performance. The authors lay out a succinct roadmap for creating and maintaining viable cross-sector social partnerships, with instructive real-life examples that highlight how these partnerships can be executed effectively.

Whilst existing studies on research management focus on single disciplinary perspectives in isolation, this new collection integrates a range of theories and business models from multiple fields to offer insights and examples of cross-disciplinary management perspectives. As the workplace environment encounters increased disruption and discontinuity, both researchers and practitioners are facing new and unique managerial challenges. Using alternative research methods from two or more scientific and practitioner disciplines, including Sociology, Politics, Psychology and Technology, the chapters suggest numerous solutions to a wide range of challenges. Some of the challenges explored include: Mind-Genomics and data-driven personalized health plans; the high failure rate of mergers and acquisitions; business ecosystems and start-ups; and, international businesses confronting globalization. Generating innovative research findings, as well as practical managerial solutions, The Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives of Management: Challenges and Opportunities aids both scholars and managers to find solutions to existing managerial challenges across a range of industries and disciplines.

This set brings together two essential books in understanding how to deliver and manage business transformation - A Handbook of Business Transformation Management Methodology and Business Transformation Essentials. The Handbook of Business Transformation Management Methodology providesa '360-degree' view on what business transformation means and how to manage it successfully. Suitable for business executives dealing with organizational change, illustrative case studies ensure this is also a valuable resource for academics interested in change and transformation management. Using a variety of case studies including: Allianz SE, Shell, SAP, Vodafone, and Mercedes-Benz, Business Transformation Essentials provides unprecedented insights into characteristics of current transformation programs and the potential that can be leveraged by applying a holistic transformation management approach.

Today, innovation is a key driver for performance and growth in business. It provides a strong competitive advantage and is one of the best ways to speed up the rate of change and adaptation to the global environment. Concurrently, the innovation topic is also regaining more and more visibility and interest among the academic communities worldwide.
However, some of the challenges of innovating are remarkably consistent and recent times have shown the emergence of new ways for stimulating and managing the innovation process, especially from an international perspective. Even if these processes are taking place in very different industries, there are many parallels in successfully managing them.
Thsi voluem explores these new routes and assesses their value both for markets and companies. More specifically, the book is organized around three themes:
- How to stimulate and nurture innovations
- How to commercialize innovations
- How to lead and manage the innovation process

Analyses the history of management in Japan in conceptual terms based on the work of Alfred Chandler. The book demonstrates the difference between family-owned firms and professionally managed firms. The author uses this framework to explore the development of managerial capability and the evolution of managerial systems in Japan. The book was first published in Japanese in 1996.

This book explores the changing socio-economic and technological landscape of the 21 century and what it means. It adopts an industrial economic approach, whilst proposing a road map leading to the adoption of a 'societal market economy' model as an appealing and politically acceptable third-way between capitalism and socialism.

Business firms are currently being forced to make a variety of changes to respond to both threats and opportunities in the international economy. This volume examines in detail the many ways successful companies establish a presence in overseas markets. The authors classify operations in the international environment into four categories. First, companies that do not want to actually establish local production facilities can export directly to targeted markets or engage in turnkey operations. Historically, this has been one of the most important means of acquiring international markets and continues to be a viable strategy today. Second, establishing contractual relationships with foreign companies is effective when a firm does not want to operate a wholly earned subsidy. Third, operating wholly owned facilities in other nations is one of the most preferred methods of gaining and maintaining a presence overseas. Firms typically employ this strategy either by building new facilities or by merging with or acquiring existing companies. The authors demonstrate how the approach used by business depends on the nature of the obstacles a host government places before foreign commerce.

Structural Revolution in International Business Architecture Volume 2 fills important gaps in the existing literature of management science by providing new and improved methods of optimal control system modeling. These research methods are applied in a variety of problems of management science and national economic management. Applications are on oil field development, energy system modeling, resource modeling, time varying control of dynamic system of national economy, and investment planning.

A place-led perspective of entrepreneurial development is becoming increasingly important, given narratives around entrepreneurial ecosystems, contexts, and the design of entrepreneurial institutions. In a world where we recognise entrepreneurial means, ends and values in terms of locations with meaning, this latest volume in Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research explores the phenomenon of Entrepreneurial Place Leadership. Defining Entrepreneurial Place Leadership in terms of how locations with entrepreneurial meaning are created, maintained, exploited, and amplified to generate future value, this edited collection considers how entrepreneurs lead in a complex entrepreneurial landscape. Leading international scholars act as guides through a heterogeneous landscape of individual dwellings, communities, and planned settlements. Topics include: an exploration of entrepreneurial responsibility to place in rural Nova Scotia; an analysis of culture in Entrepreneurial Support Organisations in Spain; a discussion of entrepreneurial implementation of policy in Italy; and the introduction of a tool for managing a complex solution ecosystem in Australia. Each chapter reflects upon the contribution of the author's research to academic theory and makes policy and practice recommendations - as such this book is a useful resource for academics, students, and entrepreneurial place leaders. Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research is an official book series of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE). Each volume is designed around a specific theme of importance to the entrepreneurship and small business community with articles collectively exploring and developing theory and practice in the field.

Creative Cross-Disciplinary Entrepreneurship responds to educational demands created through dramatic changes in the nature of business, by describing how to develop a cross-disciplinary curriculum in Entrepreneurship that further increases students' knowledge base in specific areas of interest and the development of an 'entrepreneurial mindset.'

"This book is a must-read for anyone who is considering owning a franchise. Business ownership is a life-changing event that must be carefully considered and this book is a great first step."
-Angie Shaw, The Entrepreneur's Source

As the American economic landscape shifts, seasoned corporate executives are looking at independent business ownership as a way to secure and control their futures, and franchised businesses are growing in their appeal.

But pouring a large amount of money into a franchise does not guarantee success. In this book, you'll find out: How to determine if you can succeed as a franchise owner; What dangerous pitfalls to avoid as a buyer; The potential rewards of owning your own business; Whether or not the numbers make sense; Ways to raise money for your venture; And much more If you are tired of the corporate world and want to escape the rat race, then let Mitchell York, a successful franchisee and professional certified coach, guide you through the many steps involved in deciding whether or not to buy a franchise and how to do it right. As the former president of LendingTree Inc. and other major companies, he now owns a profitable and growing franchised business, and he's sharing his secrets for success in "Franchise: Freedom or Fantasy?"