This volume offers a collection of studies on problem of organization's efficiency, criteria for evaluating the efficiency, tools and methods for measuring the efficiency. The articles included present an interdisciplinary look at efficiency, its essence and the principles of its measurement. The contributions also identify a broad spectrum of conditions for achieving efficiency in various types of organizations and systems (e.g. public institution, non-profit organizations), representing various industries. The book collects selected papers presented at the 7th International Conference "Efficiency as a Source of the Wealth of Nations", held in Wroclaw, Poland, in May 2017.

This book offers a case-study approach to stakeholder theory that moves beyond theoretical analysis to the applied. As stakeholder theory has moved into the mainstream of management thinking in business ethics and a number of the management disciplines, there is an increasing need to explore the subtleties of stakeholder engagement via examples from practice. The case studies in this volume explore a number of aspects of the idea of stakeholder engagement, via the method of clinical case studies. Edited by leading scholars in the field of business ethics and stakeholder theory, this text affords a solid grounding in theory, brought to new levels of applied understanding of stakeholder engagement.

Open Innovation describes an emergent model of innovation in which firms draw on research and development that may lie outside their own boundaries. In some cases, such as open source software, this research and development can take place in a non-proprietary manner. Henry Chesbrough and his collaborators investigate this phenomenon, linking the practice of innovation to the established body of innovation research, showing what's new and what's familiar in the process. Offering theoretical explanations for the use (and limits) of open innovation, the book examines the applicability of the concept, implications for the boundaries of firms, the potential of open innovation to prove successful, and implications for intellectual property policies and practices. The book will be key reading for academics, researchers, and graduate students of innovation and technology management.

This book describes various methods of analysis for ascertaining the effects of agglomeration economies, which are important for formulating regional economic policies. Specifically, it describes new analytical approaches using productivity and productive efficiency analyses as methods for understanding agglomeration economies. Additionally, the book provides application results for Japanese regions and proposes desirable regional policies. According to the new analytical methods advocated in this book, agglomeration economies are larger in major metropolitan areas than in local regions, and in the manufacturing sector than in the non-manufacturing sector. These results are consistent with general knowledge. Moreover, the majority of productivity growth pertaining to regional economies is explainable by improvements to accessibility. Improving accessibility for regions reduces transportation costs between them and strengthens agglomeration economies, which, in turn, enable the sustainable development of regional economies. Therefore, this book highlights the need not only to reinforce existing agglomeration areas, but also to form a network between these agglomerations and to strengthen it, so as to realize regional economic growth despite a decreasing population.

The "Good to Great" For Outsourcing Not surprisingly, the companies and leaders that are successful outsourcers engage in similar practices-key practices that other companies regardless of size can emulate. In my two decades of consulting to major corporations on global sourcing and outsourcing, I've seen similar trends and patterns among firms that have succeeded in outsourcing and have summarized them as seven best practices in successful outsourcing. This book is about sharing those practices, these seven secrets. The seven chapters on the seven secrets that follow expound the key attitudes and behaviors that successful outsourcers share-and offer concrete guides for replicating their success within your own organization. I've paired what I know from my work with Neo Advisory (Formerly neoIT), as an advisor to firms looking to outsource, with sage advice and stories from executives at organizations that are successful outsourcers, many of whom were among the first to outsource, including Applied Materials, Lenovo, Virgin, Cisco, FedEx and Plantronics. The end result is a book designed specifically for ilevel executives and practitioners at organizations positioned at all stages of outsourcing maturity.

The two-volume book studies the economic and industrial development of Japan and China in modern times and draws distinctions between the different paths of industrialization and economic modernization taken in the two countries, based on statistical materials, quantitative analysis and multivariate statistical analysis. The first volume analyses the relationship between technological innovation and economic development in Japan before World War II and sheds light on technological innovation in the Japanese context with particular emphasis on the importance of the patent system. The second volume studies the basic conditions and overall economic development of industrial development, chiefly during the period of the Republic of China (1912-1949), taking a comparative perspective and bringing the case of modern Japan into the discussion. The book will appeal to academics and general readers interested in economic development and the modern economic history of East Asia, development economics, as well as industrial and technological history.

This book places knowledge, learning and innovation at the heart of cross-sector collaborations. Collaboration for innovation is a topic that has attracted widespread interest from academics, business strategists and government officials. To date the collaborations have focused on the performance management process and more specifically on how to encourage collaboration. However, businesses across the world are realizing that for cross-sector collaboration to be successful, it is necessary for firms to share knowledge and innovation through a process of learning. The book contributes to this by providing fresh insights into ways to stimulate cross-sector collaboration. It presents diverse methods and approaches to unify the dimensions of knowledge, learning and innovation and discusses how collaboration can be created, sustained, and expanded.

This book examines key aspects of the increasingly important phenomenon of reshoring - the decision of companies to reverse offshoring by bringing manufacturing back from overseas. The aim is to equip readers with a full understanding of the current extent of reshoring, its drivers, and the associated opportunities and challenges. The impact of governments' economic policies on the location choices of entrepreneurs in an era of globalization is carefully analyzed, drawing on experiences in the United States and Italy, where contrasting encouragement is provided for reshoring decisions. The effect on reshoring of recent developments regarding technology, the environment, and other factors is assessed in depth, and readers will also find close scrutiny of the relationship between reshoring and manufacturing performance. The book will be of interest to all academics, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in the manufacturing industry and will be an excellent teaching aid for a variety of courses in different disciplines at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

* The ELS model of enterprise security is endorsed by the Secretary of the Air Force for Air Force computing systems and is a candidate for DoD systems under the Joint Information Environment Program. * The book is intended for enterprise IT architecture developers, application developers, and IT security professionals. * This is a unique approach to end-to-end security and fills a niche in the market.

The book provides a comprehensive examination of patterns and determinants of production networks in East Asia, a key driver in the region's global success. It provides the reader with an accessible understanding of the theoretical literature on production networks and recent developments in empirical analysis at the industry and firm-levels. The topics covered in the book include: gross trade in parts and components and gravity models, trade in value added, industry case studies, and micro data econometric studies of firm heterogeneity in production networks. The micro data econometric studies explore key aspects of the heterogeneity of firms in East Asian production networks such as technological capability, the entry of small and medium enterprises into production networks, business use of free trade agreements, and access to credit. Blending new sources of data, empirical tools and econometric methods this book is highly recommended for readers who seek to understand the workings of the complex web of production networks in East Asia.

This book presents state-of-the-art probabilistic methods for the reliability analysis and design of engineering products and processes. It seeks to facilitate practical application of probabilistic analysis and design by providing an authoritative, in-depth, and practical description of what probabilistic analysis and design is and how it can be implemented. The text is packed with many practical engineering examples (e.g., electric power transmission systems, aircraft power generating systems, and mechanical transmission systems) and exercise problems. It is an up-to-date, fully illustrated reference suitable for both undergraduate and graduate engineering students, researchers, and professional engineers who are interested in exploring the fundamentals, implementation, and applications of probabilistic analysis and design methods.

The 'Resource-Based View of the Firm' has emerged over the last fifteen years as one of the dominant perspectives used in strategic management. It addresses the fundamental research question of strategic management: Why it is that some firms persistently outperform others?
Resource-Based Theory provides a considered overview of this theory, including the latest developments, from one of the key thinkers in its development. In broad terms it offers an alternative to Michael Porter's approach, focusing more on the competences and capabilities of the firm, rather than its positioning in its chosen markets.
Jay B. Barney has long been recognised as one of the leading contributor to the resource-based theory literature. In this book he has collaborated with Delwyn N. Clark to produce the first book to examine the theory in a holistic and in-depth manner. The authors explore not only the applications of the theory in research, teaching, and practice, but also its early roots in traditional economic theory, development and proliferation in the 1990s, and later influence on management thinking.

This book introduces the main concepts of manufacturing systems and presents several evaluation approaches for these systems' evaluation. The relevant macroergonomics methods are summarized and the theoretical framework for Macroergonomic Compatibility construct is explained. This book presents a Macroergonomic Compatibility Model which proposes an instrument in the form of a Macroergonomic. The authors introduce a methodology to obtain a novel Macroergonomic Compatibility Index that enables manufacturing companies to assess and follow their progress on the implementation of macroergonomics practices.

Small is beautiful--but how small is small, and what practical steps can we take to achieve its beauty? By the 21st century we may have found the answer: the creative compartment, a group of a few hundred people who work together in a totally open way. The intense communication within a compartment generates enormous adaptability and a creative problem-solving capability seldom found in today's organizations. In Creative Compartments, Gerard Fairtlough draws on his wide experience and on a profound analysis of the operation and interaction of small organizations. He sets out a clear agenda for organizational design, and his novel proposals will benefit anyone in any organization--large or small, business or nonprofit--that strives for continuing success into the 21st century.

The political and social predicates that make the large firm possible and that shape its form are not always taken into account, despite the fact that variation in the political and social environment can deeply affect which firms, which ownership structures, and which governance arrangements survive and prosper. Focusing on the US, the larger nations in continental Europe, and Japan, Mark Roe uses statistical and qualitative analyses to explore the relationship between politics, history, and business organization.

In order to increase the economic opportunities available, enterprise development plays a crucial role in the progression of socio-economic development for small and medium enterprises. Enterprise Development in SMEs and Entrepreneurial Firms: Dynamic Processes explores the process of enterprise development and its reconstruction of entrepreneurial identities, critical competencies as well as market turnaround for SMEs. This book aims to be a critical resource in the understanding of enterprise strategies adopted and lessons learned for management development. It is a successful resource for students, researchers and professionals interested in the growth SMEs.

Not surprisingly, the companies and leaders that are successful globalizers engage in similar practices - key practices that other companies regardless of size can emulate. In my two decades of operating and consulting to over 200 major corporations on outsourcing and globalization, I've seen similar trends and patterns among firms that have succeeded in services globalization and have come to recognize that there are seven best practices. This book is about sharing those practices, these seven secrets. The seven secrets also includes sage advice and wisdom from executives at organizations that are successful globalizers, including Applied Materials, Lenovo, Cisco, Fedex, Virgin and Plantronics. The end result is a book designed for executives at organizations positioned at all levels of global maturity.

A critical mass of events has been transforming the American work scene, bringing unprecedented and irreversible changes in how American corporations relate to world markets and how they interact with their workforce. These changes are bringing about New Paradigms in corporate structure, organization, and operation. For many corporations, these changes involve substantial alterations such as recasting worklife. Rebirth is often validly used as a descriptive term for corporations that successfully weathered the massive onslaught of global economic, demographic, and technological changes in the last decade and the imperatives confronting many others for years to come. Officials, executives, and students need to know how and why new policies, strategies, organization designs, and employment relationships are indicated as well as lessons learned and guidelines from which to launch new policies and employment relationships. This is necessary because: these parties must enact or guide developments; or, they are a part of the changes and need the understanding of the factors which have changed their work roles, their expectations for the future and in many cases their standard of living.

This book is written to provide understanding and sufficient examples and guidelines for planners, strategists, and senior managers so that they can start to address the specifics of their situations. It provides numerous exhibits encompassing New Paradigm features; point-by-point features of newer employment relationships (based on a new psychological contract); timely and useful reference information sorted out according to key topics. New Paradigm organizations are characterized by management credibility, mutual trust, and cooperative working relationships. Employee involvement and participative management are hallmarks of the New Paradigm companies.

As the size and complexity of a company change in the course of its evolution it experiences predictable stages of growth. During these stages, a company discovers that what worked in the past no longer works. At such times, managers have to juggle the three variables of organizational evolution--the firM's purpose, its business and management processes, and its human resource issues--and keep them in balance as they reinvent new ways of structuring the firm. Typically, tension develops as one variable is stressed at the expense of the others. Managers need to know how to delegate decision making without abdicating overall control of the organization. The model developed here derives from the authors' understanding of how successful firms have managed these tensions.

Fletcher and Taplin deal with teamwork, leadership, and the nature of dynamic change while successfully avoiding the cliches to which many experts in those areas are prone. They discuss teamwork in the context of wider performance and process issues. They address leadership not by talking about personality traits but by examining the tensions within authority structures as senior managers attempt to reconcile organizational logics (history and past practices that have sustained the firm) and their own definition of the challenges that face the firm. The authors argue that such contradictions follow a predictable pattern. Managers can either ignore the underlying instability or confront it in ways that will ease the transition and sustain the organization's dynamic growth.

This book is the seventh volume in a series entitled "Contemporary Logistics in China," authored by researchers from the Logistics Center at Nankai University. In the spirit of the six preceding annual volumes, this book carries on the ideal of providing a systematic exposition on the logistics development in China for the English-speaking community at large. Specially, this volume captures China's logistics development at a crucial turning point. On the one hand, it reflects the new horizon advocated by the Government's One-Belt-One-Road Initiative global cooperation strategy; on the other, it explores the Internet revolution, which has had major impacts on e-commerce and urban logistics in China. Subjects covered in this volume encompass the macro-factors pertaining to logistics development, region-specific plans, industry-wide transformation, globally-oriented moves, and current hot topics. The expositions on and analyses of these subjects are based on the latest available sources and statistical data. As with the previous volumes, the ultimate aim of this book is to present a timely portrait of the rapid growth of China's logistics market and the status quo of its logistics industry. In so doing, the book offers an in-depth analysis of critical issues involved in the ongoing dynamic and multi-faceted development, and provides a valuable reference resource for interested readers in the academic and professional fields.

Packed with compelling insights and vivid illustrations, The Transformation of Management is the first comprehensive guide to the way organizations will need to manage if they are to survive and succeed in the new, global economy. Here is the secret not only to beating your competitors and so being one of the winners today, but to beating evolution so that you can go on winning tomorrow. In short here is a way to take control of your own destiny, to manage change and thereby to shape a successful future for yourself and your ogranization.

China's long-term economic success is driven by new firms, new sectors and new business practices. This book explores the establishment of new private firms and listed companies, the development of knowledge industries, in particular the IT and banking sectors and the co-evolution of public governance and business institutions. The contributors discuss the role of local institutions in coordinating business activities and unleashing entrepreneurship, arguing that the sudden growth of new firms and industries is facilitated by changes in business behaviour and institutions. Initial private exchange and investment in an environment of ill-functioning markets are shown to depend on local networks and local business culture which, in turn, rely on local tax regimes setting incentives for inherited bureaucracies to engage in economic transformation. Finally, the book establishes local institutions and local governance as crucial dimensions of China's emerging business system. Contributing to the theory of endogenous institutional change, The Chinese Economy in the 21st Century will be of great appeal to academics and students interested in management, comparative business systems, transition economics, evolutionary economics, Chinese studies and Asian studies.

In this volume, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology provides managers with the practical guidance they need to make decisions about the crucial process of employee selection in today's changing business environment. An outstanding group of contributors--each with direct experience creating effective selection programs for contemporary organizations--makes applicable proven strategies for the design and management of the selection process. They examine selection management in its organizational, social, and legal contexts and help human resource professionals forge links between selection and other critical HR functions such as training, development, recruitment, and resourcing.

Martin Starr addresses two of the most important concerns in business today: the globalization of commerce and the problem that U.S. business is having competing with other companies worldwide. Starr approaches these problems from the standpoint of how American corporations can develop business alliances with corporations elsewhere, rather than competing with them, and how they can build on their own strengths by incorporating the strengths of others. He fully analyzes the massive changes that are creating a new global-based economy, and offers strategies and tactics that can help corporate America to improve its global standing.

Following a brief introductory essay, the work is divided into four main sections. Part I looks at the causes of economic turmoil, focusing on the long-wave cycles of technological change that have placed the industrialized United States at a disadvantage. Part II examines the effects of technological change, in particular the increasing need for flexible manufacturing systems and new methods of management. The reorganization of established firms, and the use of global corporate alliances, is the focus of Part III, while Part IV explores timing, the new competitive variable of the 1990s, and the strategies of time-based management. Also included are two research reports that describe how Japanese firms employ alliances and how foreign firms view the effect of alliances. This book will be an essential resource for managers and executives in all types of corporations, as well as for students in business and related fields.