This book presents a close look at the main developments in IT, business processes and offshore outsourcing. The authors study these topics in both theory and practice, exploring the rising prominence of outsourcing with a multi-dimensional, contextual perspective.

This contributed volume is a result of discussions held at ABICT'13(4th International Workshop on Advances in Business ICT) in Krakow, September 8-11, 2013. The book focuses on Advances in Business ICT approached from a multidisciplinary perspective and demonstrates different ideas and tools for developing and supporting organizational creativity, as well as advances in decision support systems.This book is an interesting resource for researchers, analysts and IT professionals including software designers. The book comprises eleven chapters presenting research results on business analytics in organization, business processes modeling, problems with processing big data, nonlinear time structures and nonlinear time ontology application, simulation profiling, signal processing (including change detection problems), text processing and risk analysis.

South Africa, its economy and its consumers are different in many ways. Feedback from both the academic world and the marketplace points to the fact that marketing strategies cannot simply be transposed from one country to the next. Accepted approaches to marketing in developed and other developing countries often do not achieve the same success here. Marketing in South Africa provides a window into the South African consumer landscape, approaching marketing concepts in a distinctly South African way. For the first time, Marketing in South Africa gives specific details of the UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing's consumer segmentation model. This feature is supported by almost 30 top academic and marketing practitioners who give a unique and innovative look at some of South Africa's most challenging marketing issues. In addition, over 20 case studies, many of which emanate from the UCT Unilever Institute's ongoing research over the last 17 years, allow students and practitioners to appreciate how best to apply principles to this diverse market. The book includes many video clips from the UCT Unilever Institute as well as other advertisements and YouTube clips. Marketing in South Africa can be used by undergraduate students, postgraduate students and practitioners in the arenas of strategic marketing, consumer behaviour, marketing communications, salesmanship and market research.

Real-world supply chains and networks are inherently complex, formed by a large number of self-governing interconnected agents which dynamically update their behavior rules and connections based on context and environment changes. Oftentimes, these complex systems fail, almost inexplicably, due to unforeseen events leading to disruption. Exploration and research of the mechanisms behind the failure of supply chains and networks have revealed that those capable of surviving are not only robust, but resilient. The purpose of this book is to explain the meaning of resilience and its design in the broad context, and with a focus on the design and management of supply chains and supply networks. Written by Dr. Reyes Levalle, an experienced supply chains designer and supply networks engineer, the book is intended for beginners and advanced professionals, students, designers, policy makers, and managers. It is a pioneering effort to base resilience engineering and management on CCT, the collaborative control theory and tools.

In today's world, widespread change in business and technology creates a dynamic and chaotic work environment, pushing intelligent use of information communication technologies (ICTs) to survive.""Information and Communication Technologies Management in Turbulent Business Environments"" informs today's business managers of important ICT strategy in changing business environments, techniques for effective ICT development, and ICT challenges for the future. A cutting-edge research publication for practitioners, researchers, and academicians, this book covers topics such as e-technology, knowledge management, and security and risk management.

Promoting organizational knowledge is an important consideration for any business looking toward the future. Understanding the dynamics of knowledge-intensive organizations is a crucial first step in establishing a strong knowledge base for any organization. Organizational Knowledge Dynamics: Managing Knowledge Creation, Acquisition, Sharing, and Transformation introduces the idea that organizational knowledge is composed of three knowledge fields: cognitive knowledge, emotional knowledge, and spiritual knowledge. This book is useful for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in knowledge management, intellectual capital, human resources management, change management, and strategic management.

As the most comprehensive reference work dealing with knowledge management (KM), this work is essential for the library of every KM practitioner, researcher, and educator. Written by an international array of KM luminaries, its approx. 60 chapters approach knowledge management from a wide variety of perspectives ranging from classic foundations to cutting-edge thought, informative to provocative, theoretical to practical, historical to futuristic, human to technological, and operational to strategic. The chapters are conveniently organized into 8 major sections. The second volume consists of the sections: technologies for knowledge management, outcomes of KM, knowledge management in action, and the KM horizon. Novices and experts alike will refer to the authoritative and stimulating content again and again for years to come.

With the advent and advancement of E-Collaboration tools, our way of social interaction and online social behavior has altered drastically. With new ways of communicating and working together, we must understand how this affects human behavior. Interdisciplinary Applications of Electronic Collaboration Approaches and Technologies addresses the design and implementation of e-collaboration technologies, assesses its behavioral impact on individuals and groups, and presents theoretical considerations on links between the use of e-collaboration technologies and behavioral patterns. An innovative collection of the latest research findings, this book covers significant topics such as Web-based chat tools, Web-based asynchronous conferencing tools, e-mail, listservs and many others, perfect for academics, researchers, and professionals alike.

Technology provides accessibility otherwise unavailable to the people who can benefit from it the most. As new digital tools become less expensive and more widely available, research and real-world cases that examine the union between emergent countries and information systems are essential in determining the next steps for these nations. The Handbook of Research on Managing Information Systems in Developing Economies is a pivotal reference source that explores the effects of technological data handling within developing economies. Covering a broad range of topics such as emerging digital technologies, socio-economic development, and technology startups, this book is ideally designed for software programmers, policymakers, practitioners, educators, academicians, students, and researchers.

Organisational complexity is an unavoidable aspect of all businesses, even larger ones, which can hinder their ability to react to sudden or disruptive change. However, with the implementation of enterprise architecture (EA), businesses are able to provide their leaders with the resources needed to address any arising challenges. A Systemic Perspective to Managing Complexity with Enterprise Architecture highlights the current advances in utilising enterprise architecture for managing organisational complexity. By demonstrating the value and usefulness of EA, this book serves as a reference for business leaders, managers, engineers, enterprise architects, and many others interested in new research and approaches to business complexity.

Maximizing reader insights into the challenges facing maritime supply chains and container port logistics service providers in Asia, this book highlights their innovative responses to these challenges through real-world case studies. With a focus on mathematical modeling, simulation and heuristics approaches, this book provides academics, engineers, container terminal operators, students in logistics and supply chain management with the latest approaches that can be used to address the planning and scheduling problem in large container terminal yards. This book can be used on a self-contained basis as teaching cases in an undergraduate or specialist class setting, or on techniques applied to maritime container operations for port operations.

Emphasize the importance of business ethics, sustainability and stakeholder management from a strong managerial perspective with Carroll/Brown's BUSINESS AND SOCIETY: ETHICS, SUSTAINABILITY, AND STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT, 11E.

Students learn how effective business decision makers balance and protect the interests of various stakeholders, including investors, employees and consumers as well as the community and environment. New content highlights the importance of strong business decision-making skills as today’s businesses navigate the challenges of a global pandemic and continue to deal with climate change and sustainability issues.

This comprehensive edition includes 34 timely cases as well as the latest research, laws and material on the social, legal, political and ethical responsibilities of today’s businesses to both external and internal stakeholder groups.

This book covers all sustainable fibres applicable in the fashion sector and discusses their importance in the context of sustainability. It is the first of its kind to address all the minute details pertaining to these fibres and to connect these fibres with the world of sustainable fashion. It stresses their importance in developing sustainable apparel, since fibres play a major role as the starting point in the life cycle of clothing.

This book investigates the key factors shaping corporate governance in China and presents a sophisticated study of corporate governance in China from a comparative and historical perspective. Drawing on extensive corporate governance literature, this book articulates why path dependence theory is the most effective framework for interpreting the development path of Chinese corporate governance. Chenxia Shi reviews the historical role of government in commercial development and regulation in dynastic China and in early corporate law-making, followed by an account of China 's legal and economic development over the last three decades. This historical inquiry identifies government control as the key feature of economic and market regulation in China. In particular, this book canvasses the evolution of governance of State-Owned Enterprises and listed companies, major corporate governance problems, regulatory challenges posed by China 's increasing participation in economic globalization, and enforcement difficulties particularly in relation to investor protection, directors duties and accountability. Ultimately, Political Determinants of Corporate Governance in China demonstrates that corporate governance in China is largely determined by political imperatives and those political imperatives have been shaped and re-shaped in a historical process.

Get your organization's expertise out of its silos and make it flow-with lessons from over a decade of experience

Looking at knowledge management in a holistic way, "Mastering Organizational Knowledge Flow: How to Make Knowledge Sharing Work" puts the proper emphasis on non-technical issues. As knowledge is deeply connected to humans, the author moves away from the often overused and therefore burned-out term "knowledge management" to the better-suited term "knowledge flow management."Provides lessons learned and case studies from real experienceDiscusses key knowledge flow components, success factors and traps, and where to start

Covering topics such as the power of scaling, internal marketing, measuring success, cultural aspects of sharing, and the role of Web2.0, "Mastering Organizational Knowledge Flow: How to Make Knowledge Sharing Work" allows you to stay up-to-date with today's knowledge flow management, and implement best practices to position your organization to take advantage of all of its assets.

The proceedings volume consists of academic papers on decision-making under uncertainty, smart decision, stochastic optimization, management simulation and its applications. It presents some compelling and valuable results on the cutting-edge modeling methods and the practical case studies in the operations management process for power, transportation, and logistics companies.

This volume collects research papers addressing topical issues in economics and management with a particular focus on dynamic models which allow to analyze and foster the decision making of firms in dynamic complex environments. The scope of the contributions ranges from daily operational challenges firms face to strategic choices in dynamic industry environments and the analysis of optimal growth paths. The volume also highlights recent methodological developments in the areas of dynamic optimization, dynamic games and meta-heuristics, which help to improve our understanding of (optimal) decision making in a fast evolving economy.

A successful construction business is a knowledge business. And knowledge must be managed effectively to be used efficiently, especially in a complex project-oriented business such as construction, where skills acquired and lessons learned on one project need to be applied to the next. A holistic approach to knowledge management (KM) is taken in this book to incorporate all of the relevant themes, tackling technological, socio-cultural and organisational issues, with the creation of value as a focus throughout. Information is drawn from a broad range of sources to explain core theories and provide guidance on practical application. Topics covered include: * changing business relationships in a knowledge economy; * knowledge creation processes and theories; * data, text and knowledge mining techniques; * the learning construction organisation; * future technology for knowledge management. Written by the authors of the first EU-funded KM research project in the field of construction, this textbook is uniquely well-researched, and is the perfect introduction to KM for students across the built environment. It is also a crucial guide to the topic for practitioners.

The more complex and ambiguous this world becomes, the greater the uncertainty leaders will face in their day to day professional and personal lives, and the greater the need to recognize and develop their leadership skills to help be the voice of reason when there's nothing around them but chaos. The book presents real case studies where the authors offer action learning methodologies grounded in various leadership theories. Whether you are a firm or skeptical believer in leadership development, the authors in this book, through their experiences and observations, illustrate how awareness, purpose, attitude, confidence, trust and mindset can play such a critical role in overcoming the toughest of circumstances.

Most of the research into what constitutes effective leadership emanates from the United States and is not very useful in an African context. Africa is a continent of extraordinary cultural, geographic, economic and political diversity, featuring largely emerging economies and rapid political, economic and social development.

Global Business Management in Emerging Markets – An African Imperative seeks to set leadership theory in the African context. It takes into account typical African circumstances, values and beliefs, designed for the development of leaders’ skills and provides practical, real-life examples, exercises and case studies.

This is one of the most important books ever published in the West on Japanese culture."" - Times Literary Supplement ""In both scope and sophistication of argument presented, Najita's Visions of Virtue ranks among the best books to appear in recent years in the field of Japanese intellectual history."" - Journal of Asian Studies

This book carries on the ideal of providing a systematic exposition of the logistics development in China to the English-reading community at large in the spirit of the four predecessor volumes, published in previous years. This book is the fifth volume in a series entitled "Contemporary Logistics in China", authored by the researchers in Logistics Center at Nankai University. Specially, the opening chapter of this book presents a synopsis of the intent, the history, the framework, the topical coverage and the train of thought of the sequel in the latest five years. As the previous four volumes, our ultimate aim and desire is to present a timely portrayal of the rapid pace of growth of China's logistics market and the status of its logistics industry's evolution.