Life-Cycle Assessment presents a brief overview of the development of the life-cycle assessment process and develops guidelines and principles for implementation of a product life-cycle inventory analysis. The book describes inventory analysis, impact analysis, and improvement analysis-the three components of a product life-cycle assessment. It discusses the major stages in a life cycle, including raw materials acquisition, materials manufacture, final product fabrication, filling/packaging/distribution, and consumer use and disposal.

This book explores the rationalities and functions of securities markets and takeover activities. Focusing on the Chinese experience of utilizing the securities market as an effective mechanism of corporate control, this volume analyses the future development of China's financial market in the era of economic globalization. Providing an overview of the historical development of the securities market and a literature review of the economic functions of stock markets, Securities Markets and Corporate Governance also examines the legal regimes governing securities markets and takeovers in some leading corporate economies including the US, Germany, Japan and the UK. This volume then focuses on the Chinese experience, proposing a model which balances internal corporate governance and external market control for China.

The pharmaceutical industry, long thought of as a recession-proof investment, now faces a day of reckoning. The reasons for this impending downfall are not hard to discern. The prices the industry charges for its prescription drugs have escalated at four to five times the cost-of-living increases during the past two decades and have reached a point where 30% of Americans must choose between filling a prescription, paying for housing, and buying food. This has brought about public pressure on governments around the world to control drug prices, yet the world's twenty largest pharma companies realized 80% of their growth as a result of exorbitant price hikes. Pharma currently enjoys its extraordinary profitability by exploiting the world's most vulnerable populations. Yet even their ability to increase prices in the face of falling demand does not satisfy their profit demands. The breadth and depth of pharma's marketing transgressions exceed those of any other industry and have now reached a point where authorities around the world have found it necessary to take legal action against its violations. Drastic change is needed if the pharmaceutical industry can equitably advance the health of the world's population and regain public esteem. This book illustrates the range and extent of pharma's violations and addresses the actions that should be implemented in order to make the drug industry a more constructive, less venal part of contemporary society. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students with an interest in the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare management, regulation, and bioethics.

Spending on M&A has, in aggregate, grown so fast that it has even overtaken capital expenditure on increasing and maintaining physical assets. Yet McKinsey, the leading management consultancy, reports that "Anyone who has researched merger success rates knows that roughly 70% fail". The idea that businesses might be using huge and increasing sums of shareholders' money for an activity that more often than not leads to failure calls into question the information on which M&A decisions are based. This book presents statistical studies, case material, and standard-setters' opinions on company accounting before, during, and after M&A. It documents the manipulation of annual accounts by acquirers ahead of share for share bids, biased forecasts of post-merger earnings by bidders, and devices to flatter earnings when recording the deal. It explores the challenges for standard-setters in regulating information flows during and after M&A, and for account-users wishing to learn from financial statements how a deal has affected performance. Drawing on a wide range of international examples, this readable book is targeted not just at accounting specialists but at anyone who is comfortable reading the serious financial press, is intrigued by what is going on in the massive M&A market, and is concerned with achieving better-informed M&A. As such it might be of particular interest to business executives, lawyers, bankers, and investors involved in M&A as well as graduate students interested in researching or learning about the role of accounting in M&A.

This international Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of key topics, debates and issues within the now well-established field of Knowledge Management (KM). With contributions from a range of highly-skilled authors, diverse and multi-disciplinary approaches towards KM are explored in this fantastic new reference work. Topics covered include performance, ethics, sustainability and cross-cultural management, making this an equally important read to academics and practitioners working in areas such as technology, education and engineering. By analysing how the field of KM has developed over the years, as well as presenting new methods to be implemented in the workplace, this Handbook outlines a research agenda for the future of organisational learning and innovation.

Computational intelligence (CI) lies at the interface between engineering and computer science; control engineering, where problems are solved using computer-assisted methods. Thus, it can be regarded as an indispensable basis for all artificial intelligence (AI) activities. This book collects surveys of most recent theoretical approaches focusing on fuzzy systems, neurocomputing, and nature inspired algorithms. It also presents surveys of up-to-date research and application with special focus on fuzzy systems as well as on applications in life sciences and neuronal computing.

In an era of an economy based on knowledge and Web 2.0 technology, knowledge is the foundation for improving the decision-making processes and relations between people both in and outside of an organization. Providing new and unique sources of knowledge outside organizations enables innovation and shapes competitive advantage. Crowdsourcing and Knowledge Management in Contemporary Business Environments is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of crowdsourcing in collaboration, idea implementation, and organizational development. Highlighting a range of topics including data analytics, crowd computing, and open innovation, this book is ideally designed for business managers, business professionals, business and social researchers, graduate-level students, and academicians seeking current research on the mechanisms of knowledge management in crowdsourcing.

This book is focused on AI-empowered knowledge management to improve processes, implementation of technology for providing easy access to knowledge and the impact of knowledge management to promote the platform for generation of new knowledge through continuous learning. The book discusses process of knowledge management which includes entirety of the creation, distribution, and maintenance of knowledge to achieve organizational objectives. It also covers knowledge management tools which enable and enhance knowledge creation, codification, and transfer within business firms thereby reducing the burden of work and allowing application of resources and effective usage towards practical tasks. An immense growth of artificial intelligence in business organizations has occurred and AI-empowered knowledge management practice is leading towards growth and development of the organization.

This book discusses the successes and challenges of leveraging organizational learning in effective strategy development and execution. The authors introduce a framework that helps organizations develop core capabilities to enable them to shift direction rapidly and proactively shape future environments. They also offer a wide selection of cases to illustrate this framework. While some cases highlight fundamental strategic change over time, others are snapshots of mechanisms gradually put in place to jointly optimize learning and performance. There is no one best or right way to leverage strategic organizational learning; different practices may lead to the same outcome and similar practices may lead to different outcomes. The system dynamics underlying such learning - not the simple adoption of one or other practice - are key to success in institutionalizing a performance-based learning approach.

This book offers a new look at international security management combining practical applications and theoretical foundations for new solutions to today's complex security and safety challenges. The book's focus on safety as a positive experience complements the traditional approach to safety as risks and threats. In addition, its multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary, international and evidence-based approach provides holistic and timely insights for the field. Topics raised in this book focus on the crucial questions of: Who is safety actually for? (and) How can sustainable safety solutions be jointly created? This book provides comprehensive insights into the latest research findings, practical applications and suggestions for dealing with challenges in international security management in integrated and sustainable ways, making it relevant reading for practitioners, as well as academics and students - with a view to obtaining thorough, first-hand knowledge from serving experts in the field. We explore new ways of working with citizens, police and policymakers in order to co-create safety. This book emphasises the importance of safety as a topic that matters for all. "Safety and security are basic pillars for the development of our society. However, the number of areas, actors and procedures involved in the management of the different elements composing the international security eco-system, its coordination and alignment, make it a challenging issue to resolve. This book provides a fresh new approach to this complex issue, in which we all have a role to play." Fernando Ruiz, Acting Head of European Cyber-Crime Centre - Europol "A very timely analysis that brings a much-needed international perspective to the field of security management. The authors explore the challenges confronting security management in a complex and connected world and generate new ideas to support practice and inspire research." Professor Mark Griffin; John Curtin Distinguished Professor, Curtin University; Director, Future of Work Institute "This book presents the role of International Security Management in the 21st century in an innovative way." Dr. Christian Endress, Managing Director, ASW Bundesverband - German Association for Security in Industry and Commerce

The current degradation of sovereign balance sheets raises very real concerns about how sovereign creditworthiness is measured by credit rating agencies. Given the disastrous economic and social effects of any downgrade, the book offers an alternative and calls for more transparency about the quantitative measures used in calibrating the rating process and how sovereign ratings are validated. It argues that oversight is required and procedures improved, including subjecting methodologies of assessing default to more standardization and monitoring. Sovereign Credit Rating explains the process of sovereign creditworthiness assessment and explores the consequences of possible inaccuracies in the process. Developing an innovative new methodology to assess ratings accuracy, it shows that the announcement of each rating action by the major credit rating agencies show alarming inconsistencies. Written by an internationally recognized author and professor, this unique book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in corporate governance, accounting, public finance and regulation.

In recent decades, the world has witnessed, unprecedented in terms of speed and geographic coverage, diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICT). The on-going digital revolution pervasively impacts and reshapes societies and economies and therefore deserves special attention and interest. This book provides extensive evidence on information and communication technologies development patterns and dynamics of this process across developed economies over the period 1980 to the present day. It adopts newly developed methodology to identification of the 'critical mass' and isolation of technological takeoff intervals, which are intimately related to the process of technology diffusion. The statistically robust analysis of country-specific data demonstrates the key economic, social and institutional prerequisites of ICT diffusion across examined countries, indicating what factors significantly foster or - reversely - hinder the process.

Humans at Work in the Digital Age explores the roots of twenty-first-century cultures of digital textual labor, mapping the diverse physical and cognitive acts involved, and recovering the invisible workers and work that support digital technologies. Drawing on 14 case studies organized around four sites of work, this book shows how definitions of labor have been influenced by the digital technologies that employees use to produce, interpret, or process text. Incorporating methodology and theory from a range of disciplines and highlighting labor issues related to topics as diverse as census tabulation, market research, electronic games, digital archives, and 3D modeling, contributors uncover the roles played by race, class, gender, sexuality, and national politics in determining how narratives of digital labor are constructed and erased. Because each chapter is centered on the human cost of digital technologies, however, it is individual people immersed in cultures of technology who are the focus of the volume, rather than the technologies themselves. Humans at Work in the Digital Age shows how humanistic inquiry can be a valuable tool in the emerging conversation surrounding digital textual labor. As such, this book will be essential reading for academics and postgraduate students engaged in the study of digital humanities; human-computer interaction; digital culture and social justice; race, class, gender, and sexuality in digital realms; the economics of the internet; and technology in higher education.

China's phenomenal economic growth in the past 30 years has witnessed the rise of its global natural resources companies. At the same time, the emerging of a middle class in China and their desire to improve living standards including better dwelling conditions, better health and nutrition, has driven strong demand in mineral resources, energy and quality food. The so called 'socialist market economy' in China has seen this growing demand being met partially by companies with 'national significance'. In the resources sector, these companies are represented by companies listed in stock exchanges in China as well as globally such as in New York and London; at the same time, most of these companies are also controlled by the Chinese government. China's resources companies have expanded overseas in search of new acquisition targets whilst seeking to extend their global reach with a focus on resource rich countries. The expansion of these companies internationally, and the unique ownership structure of these companies, has posed challenges for regulators, trading partners of these companies, investors and other interested parties seeking to understand how these companies are governed and the implications of government ownership for resource security globally. Resource Security and Governance: The Globalisation of China's Natural Resources Companies contains case studies of the global expansion efforts of Chinese global natural resources companies; it reviews the governance structures of these companies and analyses how these have affected the inter-relationship between these companies and their trading partners, governments, regulators in targeted countries and investors globally. In addition, this book examines how the unique structure of these companies may affect resource security globally and touches on other related matters such as climate change, and air and water security in China.

This book examines the role and potential of derivative actions in shareholder protection in public limited companies. Derivative actions have been a focal point of legislators' agendas on shareholder protection, in the past few decades, throughout Europe and beyond. Nevertheless, there remain jurisdictions, such as Greece, which are still devoid of this remedy. Against this backdrop, this book examines whether and how the derivative action may improve shareholder protection, constituting thus a mechanism that justifies legislative attention. It does so in three parts. First, it analyses the desirable role derivative actions assume in protecting shareholder property, monitoring corporate management and mitigating agency costs, alongside their economic implications, introducing the reader to the contemporary international debate on the topic. Having set the desiderata, the second part proceeds with the comparative analysis of Greek, German and UK law - jurisdictions that have recently reformed their provisions on shareholder protection - examining not only the law on derivative actions and their Greek counterpart remedy but also mechanisms of shareholder protection that do, or could, assume functions similar to those of the derivative action. By critically assessing the merits and failures of the respective UK, German and Greek shareholder protection laws, the book then proceeds to offer (in Part III) a model framework of shareholders' derivative litigation for jurisdictions considering reform. Written in an accessible format, it will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in this important aspect of company law and corporate governance.

The recent surge of technology outsourcing has intensified the cross-cultural effects of information systems designs and constructions, as well as the potential shortage of suitable information specialists at strategic locations. Millions of dollars of investments in information systems are at risk of being underutilized or rejected by users for cultural reasons. ""Information Resources Management: Global Challenges"" addresses challenges in managing information resources in dynamic social environments across cultures, including research on key factors for social acceptance of information technology, and user adoption of information management methods. ""Information Resources Management: Global Challenges"" explores new paradigms under which information resources will generate original meanings for a contemporary generator of users, with increasing interest toward user-centered and culturecentric information systems.

This book presents open optimization problems in graph theory and networks. Each chapter reflects developments in theory and applications based on Gregory Gutin's fundamental contributions to advanced methods and techniques in combinatorial optimization. Researchers, students, and engineers in computer science, big data, applied mathematics, operations research, algorithm design, artificial intelligence, software engineering, data analysis, industrial and systems engineering will benefit from the state-of-the-art results presented in modern graph theory and its applications to the design of efficient algorithms for optimization problems. Topics covered in this work include: * Algorithmic aspects of problems with disjoint cycles in graphs * Graphs where maximal cliques and stable sets intersect * The maximum independent set problem with special classes * A general technique for heuristic algorithms for optimization problems * The network design problem with cut constraints * Algorithms for computing the frustration index of a signed graph * A heuristic approach for studying the patrol problem on a graph * Minimum possible sum and product of the proper connection number * Structural and algorithmic results on branchings in digraphs * Improved upper bounds for Korkel--Ghosh benchmark SPLP instances

Digital Governance provides managers with a simple and jargon-free introduction to the impact that digital technology can have on the governance of their organisations. Digital technology is at the heart of any enterprise today, changing business processes and the way we work. But this technology is often used inefficiently, riskily or inappropriately. Worse perhaps, many organisational leaders fail to grasp the opportunities it offers and thus fail to "transform" their organisations through the use of technology. This book provides an explanation of the basic issues around the opportunities and risks associated with digital technology. It describes the role that digital technology can play across organisations (and not just behind the locked doors of the IT department), giving boards and top management the insight to develop strategies for investing in and exploiting digital technology as well as arming them with the knowledge required to ask the right questions of specialists and to detect when the answers given are evasive or irrelevant. International in its scope, this essential book covers the fundamental principles of digital governance such as leadership, capability, accountability for value creation and transparency of reporting, integrity and ethical behaviour.

If you had to evacuate from your building right now and were told you couldn't get back in for two weeks, would you know what to do to ensure your business continues to operate? Would your staff? Would every person who works for your organization? Increasing threats to business operations, both natural and man-made, mean a disaster could occur at any time. It is essential that corporations and institutions develop plans to ensure the preservation of business operations and the technology that supports them should risks become reality. Building an Enterprise-Wide Business Continuity Program goes beyond theory to provide planners with actual tools needed to build a continuity program in any enterprise. Drawing on over two decades of experience creating continuity plans and exercising them in real recoveries, including 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, Master Business Continuity Planner, Kelley Okolita, provides guidance on each step of the process. She details how to validate the plan and supplies time-tested tips for keeping the plan action-ready over the course of time. Disasters can happen anywhere, anytime, and for any number of reasons. However, by proactively planning for such events, smart leaders can prepare their organizations to minimize tragic consequences and readily restore order with confidence in the face of such adversity.

This book contributes to an improved understanding of knowledge-intensive business services and knowledge management issues. It offers a complex overview of literature devoted to these topics and introduces the concept of 'knowledge flows', which constitutes a missing link in the previous knowledge management theories. The book provides a detailed analysis of knowledge flows, with their types, relations and factors influencing them. It offers a novel approach to understand the aspects of knowledge and its management not only inside the organization, but also outside, in its environment.

This book questions our beliefs in the role of the information profession and tells us how to become information workers of the future by providing advice on overcoming the challenges facing the library profession. It develops the idea of the knowledge culture and knowledge work and goes on to expand how information needs to be shared and not hoarded as in the traditional role of libraries as keepers of knowledge. This second edition provides a clear and very accessible practical framework for knowledge work.

The insolvency of multinational corporate groups creates a compelling challenge to the commercial world. As many medium and large-sized companies are multinational companies with operations in different countries, it is important to provide appropriate solutions for the insolvency of these key market players. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the cross-border insolvency theories, practical solutions and regulatory solutions for the insolvency of multinational corporate groups. Whilst the book recognises certain merits of these solutions, it also reveals the limitations and uncertainty caused by them. An analysis of the provisions and tools relating to cross-border insolvency of multinational corporate groups in the new EU Regulation on insolvency proceedings 2015, the UNCITRAL Model Law on cross-border insolvency, the Directive on preventive restructuring frameworks and the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive 2014, along with a study of directors' duties, are included in this book. This book focuses on the insolvency and rescue of non-financial corporate groups. However, it is also important to recognise the similarities and differences between corporate insolvency regimes and bank resolution regimes. In particular, lessons learnt from bank resolution practices may be useful for non-financial corporate groups. This book aims to provide an in-depth examination of the existing solutions for the insolvency of multinational corporate groups. It also aims to view cross-border insolvency of corporate groups within a broad context where all relevant regimes and theories interact with each other. Therefore, directors' duties in the vicinity of insolvency, preventive insolvency proceedings, procedural consolidation, international cooperative frameworks and bank resolution regimes are considered together. This book may appeal to academics, students and practitioners within the areas of corporate law, cross-border insolvency law and financial law.

This book explores the methodological and application developments of network design in transportation and logistics. It identifies trends, challenges and research perspectives in network design for these areas. Network design is a major class of problems in operations research where network flow, combinatorial and mixed integer optimization meet. The analysis and planning of transportation and logistics systems continues to be one of the most important application areas of operations research. Networks provide the natural way of depicting such systems, so the optimal design and operation of networks is the main methodological area of operations research that is used for the analysis and planning of these systems. This book defines the current state of the art in the general area of network design, and then turns to its applications to transportation and logistics. New research challenges are addressed. Network Design with Applications to Transportation and Logistics is divided into three parts. Part I examines basic design problems including fixed-cost network design and parallel algorithms. After addressing the basics, Part II focuses on more advanced models. Chapters cover topics such as multi-facility network design, flow-constrained network design, and robust network design. Finally Part III is dedicated entirely to the potential application areas for network design. These areas range from rail networks, to city logistics, to energy transport. All of the chapters are written by leading researchers in the field, which should appeal to analysts and planners.

This volume gathers selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the XXVI International Joint Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IJCIEOM), held on July 8-11, 2020 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The respective chapters address a range of timely topics in industrial engineering, including operations and process management, global operations, managerial economics, data science and stochastic optimization, logistics and supply chain management, quality management, product development, strategy and organizational engineering, knowledge and information management, work and human factors, sustainability, production engineering education, healthcare operations management, disaster management, and more. These topics broadly involve fields like operations, manufacturing, industrial and production engineering, and management. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for those engaged in optimization research, operations research, and practitioners alike.