The world changes like the patterns in a kaleidoscope: trends expand, contract, break up, melt, disintegrate and disappear, while others are formed. Change - as opposed to stasis - is our normal condition, the only certainty in our lives, hence the need to create tools that provide organizations with the means to tackle change and navigate complexity. We must accept the reality of constant change and be prepared for a heavy shift in perspective: interconnection versus separation, acceleration versus linearity and discontinuity versus continuity. Anticipating the future requires more than the traditional predictive models (forecasting) based on the forward projection of past experiences. Advanced methods use anticipation logic (foresight) and build probable scenarios taking into account weak signals, emerging trends, coexisting presents and potential paths of evolution. Corporate foresight is fundamental to interpret and lead change. The two cornerstones of foresight are organization and management. As concerns organization, the authors advocate the separation of research (oriented to the market of tomorrow) from development (oriented to the market of today), the establishment of a foresight unit and the concentration of research activities mainly on the acquisition and recombination of external know-how. As regards management, after an overview of state-of-the-art literature on forecasting methods, the authors propose the implementation of a "future coverage" methodology, which enables companies to measure and verify the consistency between trends, strategic vision and offered products. These organizational and managing tools are then tested in a case study: the Italian company Eurotech SpA, a leader in the ICT sector.

Amidst the exponentially growing interest in "work as a calling," contemporary discussions have taken an individualistic turn away from the earlier prosocial character that once marked this orientation to work. Now, discussions about "work as a calling" mostly prioritize personal fulfilment via the pursuit of deeply "meaningful work." Excessive focus has been placed on the experience of meaningful work in ways that are detached from the genuinely good workplace ends that allow for such a meaningful experience to ensue. This book provides a novel paradigm for reimagining the idea of "work as a calling," which serves as a corrective that better supports the individuals' search for meaning and their contribution to the common good, arguing that the two go hand in hand, and so they cannot be separated. Thus, the key idea captured herein is not simply that scholars have misunderstood the very notion of "work as a calling" by implying that it is essentially just synonymous with meaningful work, but, even more importantly, the point is that scholars and laypersons alike often fail to realize how true meaning ensues as a result of a genuine concern for contributing to human flourishing and the common good through one's work. Providing a new perspective on "work as a calling" by examining the issue from the perspective of morality rather than self-actualization, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of business ethics, management, leadership, and organizational studies.

The key competing texts are practitioner-focused 'how to' guides, whilst our book combines rigorous theory with practical insight and examples, with authors from both the academic and business world, making it more adoptable as a student text; Unlike other books on the subject, this has a customer focus and an exploration of how big data can add value to customers as well as organisations; Enables readers to move from "big data" to "big solutions" by demonstrating how to integrate data analytics into specific goals and processes for implementation; Highly successful and well regarded both for students and practitioners

This timely Handbook on Digital Business Ecosystems provides a comprehensive overview of current research and industrial applications as well as suggestions for future developments. Multi-disciplinary in scope, the Handbook includes rigorously researched contributions from over 80 global expert authors from a variety of areas including administration and management, economics, computer science, industrial engineering, and media and communication. Chapters analyze the core areas of digital business ecosystems: strategies, platforms, entrepreneurship, business models, governance, data and technologies as well as sustainability and societal issues. The Handbook also explores a wealth of industry applications. It is the most comprehensive compendium on digital business ecosystems and a fascinating resource. Scholars, students and practitioners from all areas of business administration and management, economics, computer science, industrial engineering, and media and communication interested in digital transformation and digital business ecosystems will find this Handbook invaluable. It is also exemplary for practitioners in manufacturing and logistics, media industries, the health sector, and other service sectors who are seeking solutions to practical issues regarding digital business ecosystems.

Current models of corporate citizenship largely consider business as one coherent entity. This view of business as a corporate force overlooks the growing evidence that most businesses are run by families. Family businesses are the most common form of business in existence - across countries, continents and geopolitical divides - and yet we know remarkably little about their approach to corporate citizenship. Where families run businesses, they create a concentration of family values that - for good or ill - influence the way business practices and behaviours develop. The role of the family in business has, therefore, an influence on the development of society that is partially mediated through corporate citizenship. This book pulls together current thinking from several diverse research fields that intersect with family business research to offer insight into current research and examples of practice for those studying and researching in the fields of family business, business values and corporate practice. The book will also explore the fact that family businesses tend to take a longer-term approach to business and that this is reflected in their behaviour towards the environment, community engagement, employee development and innovation. Bringing together contributions from researchers in the diverse fields of family business, philanthropy, community engagement, corporate social responsibility, innovation and policy, this book explores the many ways in which family businesses contribute to the corporate citizenship agenda.

This book follows on the authors' successful development of the Three-Pillar Model (3-P Model) for organizing and leading in disruptive times. Its focus is on helping the reader to implement the model and providing a wide variety of application cases for these VUCA times (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity), including global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. The book covers a broad range of organizations: private and public sector, NGOs, local and global governmental institutions, global organizations such as UN, etc. In addition, it shows how the 3-P Model can be applied to challenges in organization design, management and leadership.

This book illustrates the Chinese wisdom hidden behind the project governance which is called "Taiji logic". "Taiji logic" is a set of dialectical ideals and approaches that are unique in the Chinese culture. The three pillars of "Taiji logic" are: identifying the conflicts based on the principle that Yin - Yang are not only opposite but also unitary, capturing the best time to reconcile conflicts with the laws of transformations of Yin - Yang, and finally, symphonizing conflicts with "Zhong-Yong" ideas to balance the needs of various stakeholders. This book aims to solve key issues in project governance from a special Chinese perspective: What is the essence of "Taiji logic"? How should one identify the major conflicts across various phases of project governance and the best time to reconcile them? What are the essential forces that help one to reconcile major conflicts? The fusion and collision of various cultures has made our world full of variety and conflicts. "Taiji logic" offers philosophical ideas and practical approaches to reconcile conflicts in project management.

Crossover of Audit and Evaluation Practices brings together academic analysis with insights from practitioners to discuss the potential for collaboration in audit and evaluation practices between three professional disciplines. Clearly written and thoughtfully organized, this volume is structured in three parts to deal with theory, practice issues and how the practices have worked together. * Part One provides definitions of performance audit, internal audit and program evaluation. * Part Two addresses several challenges that professionals face in applying these standards and principles. * Part Three contains examples of organizational collaboration between the practices, how they have worked together and the lessons that were learned from that experience. Specific cases from the Government Accountability Office, and UNESCO, UNDP and Inter-Americas Development Bank illustrate what has worked or not and suggest reasons why. Crossover of Audit and Evaluation Practices offers even the most skilled and experienced professional insight on how to bridge some of the divides. It will help generate a better understanding of the activities and services that are either imposed on them or are freely available and help to stimulate their optimal use.

This book examines tax transparency as part of multinational enterprises' corporate social responsibility (CSR). It considers revelations like the Panama and Paradise Papers that shed light on corporations' tax practices and the growing public dissatisfaction, resulting in legislative projects, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) base erosion and profit shifting. Tax transparency is defined as companies' voluntary disclosure of numerical tax data (e.g. taxes paid by country) and other tax-related information (e.g. tax policies). It is set apart from tax avoidance and tax evasion to clarify the often-blurred concepts. In this book, tax transparency is placed in a historical context and possible drivers and hindering factors to tax transparency are investigated. Tax transparency is discussed in the light of socio-economic theories (stakeholder, legitimacy, institutional theory and reputation risk management), as well as economic theories (agency theory, signalling, proprietary costs) and information overload theory. The book provides examples of tax transparency development of the largest multinational enterprises in five countries (France, Germany, UK, Finland and USA) in six years, 2012-2017, a period featuring increased media coverage of tax matters and legislative movement in the OECD and the European Union. The future of tax transparency is discussed in light of quality characteristics, assurance of information and potential use of artificial intelligence. Companies' managers and tax and CSR specialists benefit from the book by gaining insight into how to design transparent, high-quality tax reporting. Assurance professionals can use information about the quality criteria of tax transparency. Regulators can track historical development and see examples of voluntary tax transparency in companies' reporting. Scholars and students obtain theoretical framework for analysing the tax transparency phenomenon and the ability to distinguish between the concepts of tax transparency, planning, avoidance and evasion.

It will be the first comprehensive book on critical reflections on good governance on the market. It will respond to a highly topical and global debate, both in practice and in academia. It will be the most theoretically rigorous book on good governance in sport, which provides various theoretical perspectives and practical implications. It has some of the leading, most respected academics on good governance in general and good governance in sport as contributing specialist authors. It will be accessible to a wide range of students from different countries, programmes and at different levels. It will be relevant to politicians, administrators and policy makers in the sport industry and governments at international, national and local level.

In an era of systemic crisis and of global critiques of the unsustainable perpetuation of capitalism, Pervasive Powers: The Politics of Corporate Authority critically questions the conditions for the maintenance and expansion of corporate power. The book explores empirical case studies in the realms of finance, urban policies, automobile safety, environmental risk, agriculture, and food in western democracies. It renews understanding of the power of big business, focusing on how the study of temporalities, of multi-sited influence and of sociotechnical tools is crucial to an analysis of the evolution of corporate authority. Drawing on different literatures, ranging from research on business associations and global governance to that on the social production of ignorance or on corporate crime, this book aims at contributing to existing works on the capacity of corporations to rule the world. Unlike approaches focused on economic elites and on the political activities of firms, it goes beyond analysis of the power of corporations to influence policy-making to depict their unprecedented capacity to transform and shape the social world. Operating in numerous social spaces and mobilizing a wide range of strategies, corporate organizations have acquired the pervasive power to act far beyond mere spaces of regulation and government. Based on contributions from historians, science and technology studies scholars, sociologists and political scientists, this book will be of great interest to researchers, academics and students who wish to understand how corporations exert a pervasive influence on public policies, and to NGOs and regulatory agencies.

The Indian Constitution is the largest written constitution that guarantees equality to women and empowers the State to take affirmative actions in favour of women. India has adopted International conventions for protection of rights of women and granting them equality and ratified the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in the year 1993. The National Policy for Women Empowerment was presented in 2001, the goal of that policy to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of women and enable women to become financially independent. Currently, India is the only country where the economic gender gap is larger than the political gender gap. Women are required to understand their own potential and overcome social barriers. With constant support of the government, change in stereotype mindset and skill development in women, India will continue witnessing gradual increase in women entrepreneurship in future. The aim of this book is to show the latest state of knowledge on the topic of women entrepreneurship, the role of women in business and women empowerment in India. Many aspects relating to role of women in business, sustainable business development and aspects going beyond economic empowerment of women are discussed in addition to presenting legal and regulatory frameworks. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students in the fields of entrepreneurship, empowerment, gender studies, and law.

This book discusses the role of business models in corporate reporting. It illustrates the evolution of non-financial reporting, the importance of business model reporting, and the main conceptualisations of business models. It also offers a methodological contribution to the assessment of business model reporting. Finally, it discusses the main implication of business model reporting for different categories of subjects and some challenges related to this kind of disclosure. Readers will understand the role of business models in the non-financial reporting landscape. They will also gain an understanding of how business models can help users of the annual report contextualise other non-financial items disclosed. However, effective business model reporting implies paying attention to certain features that define its quality. This theme is discussed in the empirical part of the book and in the section devoted to implications for preparers, users, and regulators. As large companies in the EU and the UK have to disclose the business model in the annual report, this book will be of interest to preparers and users of financial statements, regulators involved in the ongoing non-financial regulatory process, and professional bodies. It will also be of interest to academics interested in the investigation of non-financial reporting.

This book presents a comprehensive and systematic introduction to transforming process-oriented data into information about the underlying business process, which is essential for all kinds of decision-making. To that end, the authors develop step-by-step models and analytical tools for obtaining high-quality data structured in such a way that complex analytical tools can be applied. The main emphasis is on process mining and data mining techniques and the combination of these methods for process-oriented data. After a general introduction to the business intelligence (BI) process and its constituent tasks in chapter 1, chapter 2 discusses different approaches to modeling in BI applications. Chapter 3 is an overview and provides details of data provisioning, including a section on big data. Chapter 4 tackles data description, visualization, and reporting. Chapter 5 introduces data mining techniques for cross-sectional data. Different techniques for the analysis of temporal data are then detailed in Chapter 6. Subsequently, chapter 7 explains techniques for the analysis of process data, followed by the introduction of analysis techniques for multiple BI perspectives in chapter 8. The book closes with a summary and discussion in chapter 9. Throughout the book, (mostly open source) tools are recommended, described and applied; a more detailed survey on tools can be found in the appendix, and a detailed code for the solutions together with instructions on how to install the software used can be found on the accompanying website. Also, all concepts presented are illustrated and selected examples and exercises are provided. The book is suitable for graduate students in computer science, and the dedicated website with examples and solutions makes the book ideal as a textbook for a first course in business intelligence in computer science or business information systems. Additionally, practitioners and industrial developers who are interested in the concepts behind business intelligence will benefit from the clear explanations and many examples.

1) This book maps the transformation in corporate communication in India. 2) It is rich with recent case studies from India 3) India being a global player in service economy, this volume will be of interest to departments of communication studies and business management across UK and USA.

Moral Hazard is a core concept in economics. In a nutshell, moral hazard reflects the reduced incentive to protect against risk where an entity is (or believes it will be) protected from its consequences, whether through an insurance arrangement or an implicit or explicit guarantee system. It is fundamentally driven by information asymmetry, arises in all sectors of the economy, including banking, medical insurance, financial insurance, and governmental support, undermines the stability of our economic systems and has burdened taxpayers in all developed countries, resulting in significant costs to the community. Despite the seriousness and pervasiveness of moral hazard, policymakers and scholars have failed to address this issue. This book fills this gap. It covers 200 years of moral hazard: from its origins in the 19th century to the bailouts announced in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak. The book is divided into three parts. Part I deals with the ethics and other fundamental issues connected to moral hazard. Part II provides historical and empirical evidence on moral hazard in international finance. It examines in turn the role of the export credit industry, the international lender of last resort, and the IMF. Finally, Part III examines specific sectors such as automobile, banking, and the US industry at large. This is the first book to provide an interdisciplinary analysis of moral hazard and explain why addressing this issue has become crucial today. As such, it will attract interest from scholars across different fields, including economists, political scientists and lawyers.

Fierce competition in many industries, megatrends, the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing globalisation and the permanent liberalisation of markets have changed the face of economies and businesses drastically. Companies must establish suitable and long-term strategies and performance criteria in order to survive in this dynamic and hostile environment. This book provides a holistic and practical approach to strategic performance management. It combines all functions of the value chain and contains best practices in performance. The author demonstrates how new paradigms enable companies to concentrate on value-adding activities and processes to achieve a long-term sustainable and competitive advantage. The book contains a variety of best practices, industry examples and case studies. Focusing on best-in-class examples, the book offers the ideal guide for any enterprise to achieve a competitive advantage across all business functions focusing on value-adding activities.

There have been a number of sporadic and disconnected initiatives to improve knowledge transfer between the tourism academia, government and industry. This volume presents and analyses 17 examples of knowledge transfer from countries around the world to identify future directions for business and government managers and academic researchers. Many of the chapters were presented at the first t-Forum global conference. The chapters emphasise the value from academic leadership in developing cohesion and links amongst small business and government, and the importance of a shared innovative vision beyond individual private and public organization objectives. Successful initiatives rely on the personal characteristics of key stakeholders as well as institutional arrangements, emphasising action learning and challenging traditional academic research processes. Best practice knowledge transfer requires government, industry and academia in partnership engaged in open dialogue and debate for project success. Knowledge transfer provides an opportunity to address unprecedented societal, environmental and technological change and disruption.

* Removes the lid from the 'black box' of the board of directors to reveal its inner workings and suggest improvements * Takes a behavioral approach, highlighting such issues as individual and group biases * Based on an extensive study of over 100 Brazilian directors, as well as corporate governance experts in nine countries outside Brazil * Provides actionable guidance for directors, executives, and managers

The rapid speed and size of China's economic expansion growth is well known. Several causes and reasons are commonly given for this performance, now joined by some commentary questioning how sustainable this is in the light of slowing growth rates and the need for different types and forms of growth - knowledge/innovative, services, etc - as well as demographic trends within the global context of trade frictions and finally the '3Cs' of 2020 - coronavirus contagion and containment. This collection of research provides further evidence about China's performance in terms of the role of business and management and also points to future issues. This is detailed in terms of the key areas relevant to performance, such as culture, change, leadership, innovation and knowledge. The theoretical and practical implications of the work contained herein is also noted as well as some calls for future work in key areas. Inside the Changing Business of China is a significant new contribution to the study of China's economic growth for researchers, academics and advanced students of international business, management, leadership and innovation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

Very topical. The first book to analyse these conflicts in detail, from a multi-disciplinary perspective

In the context of growing public interest in sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has not brought about the expected improvement in terms of sustainable business. Self-regulation has been unable to provide appropriate answers for unsustainable business frameworks, despite empirical proof that sustainable behaviour is entirely in corporate enlightened self-interest. The lack of success of the soft law approach suggests that hard law regulation may be needed after all. This book discusses these options, alongside the issue of shareholder primacy and its externalities in corporate, social, and natural environment. To escape the "prisoner's dilemma" European corporations and their global counterparts have found themselves in, help is needed in the form of EU hard law to advocate sustainability through mandatory rules. This book argues that the necessity of these laws is based on the first-mover's advantage of such corporate law approach towards sustainable development. In the current EU law environment, where codification of corporate law is sought for, forming and defining a general EU policy could not only help corporations embrace this self-enlightened behaviour but could also build the necessary "EU corporate citizenship" atmosphere. Considering the developments in the field of CSR as attempts to mitigate negative externalities resulting from inappropriate shareholder primacy use, the book is centred around a discussion of the shareholder primacy paradigm, its legal position and its (un)suitability for modern global business. Going beyond solely legal analysis, juxtaposing legal principles and argumentation with economic theoretic approaches and, more importantly, real-life examples, this book is accessible to both professionals and academics working within the fields of business, economics, corporate governance and corporate law.

This is a much-needed work in the financial literature, and it is the first book ever to analyse the use of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) from a theoretical and practical perspective. By the end of 2020, more than 240 SPACs were listed in the US (on NASDAQ or the NYSE), raising a record $83 billion. The SPAC craze has been shaking the US for months, mainly because of its simplicity: a bunch of investors decides to buy shares at a fixed price in a company that initially has no assets. In this way, a SPAC, also known as a "blank check company", is created as an empty shell with lots of money to spend on a corporate shopping spree. Could the trend be here to stay? Are SPACs the new legitimate path to traditional IPO? This book tackles those questions and more. The author provides a thorough analysis of SPACs including their legal framework and how they are used as a risk mitigation tool to structure transactions. The main objectives of the book are focused on finding a working definition for SPACs and theorising on their origins, definition, and evolution; identifying the objectives of financial regulation within the context of the recent financial crisis (2007-2010) and the one that is currently unfolding (Covid-19); and also describing practical examples of SPACs through a comparative study that, for the first time, outlines every major capital market on which SPACs are listed, in order to identify a possible international standard of regulation. The book is relevant to academics as well as policymakers, international financial regulators, corporate finance lawyers as well as to the financial industry tout court.

This book investigates the history, development, and current state of anti-corruption agencies in Latin America. In recent decades, specialized anti-corruption agencies have sprung up as countries seek to respond to corruption and to counter administrative and political challenges. However, the characteristics, resources, power, and performance of these agencies reflect the political and economic environment in which they operate. This book draws on a range of case studies from across Latin America, considering both national anti-corruption bodies and agencies created and administered by, or in close coordination with, international organizations. Together, these stories demonstrate the importance of the political will of reformers, the private interests of key actors, the organizational space of other agencies, the position of advocacy groups, and the level of support from the public at large. This book will be a key resource for researchers across political science, corruption studies, development, and Latin American Studies. It will also be a valuable guide for policy makers and professionals in NGOs and international organizations working on anti-corruption advocacy and policy advice.