In a business world of uncertain budgets, relentless technology changes, scarce management talent, and intense production demands, theory is good, but practice sells. The Effective CIO: How to Achieve Outstanding Success through Strategic Alignment, Financial Management, and IT Governance is all about practice, successfully delivering the nuts-and-bolts for effective governance execution. It helps to dissolve the negative image many CIOs have as remote, purely rational decision machines, while demonstrating how to improve quality and throughput in your business.

This authoritative text includes governance checklists, sample IT controls, merger and acquisition recommendations, and a detailed framework for IT policies. Authored by two highly regarded IT management experts, the book provides not only a survey of existing strategies, but also includes detailed problem-solving ideas, such as how to structure optimal IT and telecom contracts with suppliers, the implications of SOP-98, and accounting for software costs.

The book seamlessly brings together two perspectives - that of a working CIO who must cope with day-to-day pressures for results, and that of an IT audit consultant with a special focus on governance and internal control. Unlike many other CIO-related books that merely discuss strategies, The Effective CIO includes easy-to-follow guidelines and governance principles that can be implemented immediately.

A thought-provoking and invaluable book for anyone who cares about risk communication and management in the 21st century Anna Jung, Director General, European Food Information Council Professor Ragnar L fstedt has once again produced a most interesting book on risk management and trust, well-based on theory and built on empirical findings Mikael Karlsson, President, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation Highlights the difficult balancing task facing risk regulators. Regulatory inaction against real risks can undermine public trust. However, exaggerated responses to risks can also jeopardize regulators credibility. The diverse international case studies developed by Ragnar L fstedt provide guidance for how regulators can navigate these and other frequently competing concerns W. Kip Viscusi, Cogan Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard University, USA In democracies, government policies cannot succeed without public acceptance. Yet complex risk management requires technical expertise. How to reconcile these competing needs? Ragnar L fstedt provocatively challenges recent research claiming that risk managers must engender public trust via deliberative dialogue. He uses four cases studies to argue that the reasons for distrust vary and demand different responses; that in some cases trust can flow from technical competence without public deliberation; and that in others public deliberation can actually aggravate distrust. Trust me: L fstedt s book will add spice to the debate over risk, experts, the public and trust Jonathan B. Wiener, Perkins Professor of Law and Environmental Policy, Duke University, USA We live in post-trust societies, in which public confidence in governments and corporations over health, food and environmental risk is eroding rapidly. Good risk communication can help companies, governments and institutions minimize disputes, resolve issues and anticipate problems. Without such communication, the best policies can become derailed and trust can be lost. Most policy-makers still use outdated methods to communicate policies and achieve their objectives - methods developed before public trust in industry and government was affected by health scares such as BSE, genetically modified organisms and dioxins in Belgian chicken. This book provides effective methods for managing and communicating risk effectively in contemporary societies.

Social Networks: An Introduction is the first textbook that combines new with still-valuable older methods and theories.

Designed to be a core text for graduate (and some undergraduate) courses in a variety of disciplines it is well-suited for everybody who makes a first encounter with the field of social networks, both academics and practitioners.

This book includes reviews, study questions and text boxes as well as using innovative pedagogy to explain mathematical models and concepts. Examples ranging from anthropology to organizational sociology and business studies ensure wide applicability. An easy to use software tool, free of charge and open source, is appended on the supporting website that enables readers to depict and analyze networks of their interest.

It is essential reading for students in sociology, anthropology, and business studies and can be used as secondary material for courses in economics and political science.

As soon as a firm starts operating, and especially once it starts to grow, it needs to come to a decision about how to invest funds, how much cash and inventory to maintain, how much financing to provide to customers, how to obtain the necessary funds, and how much debt to take on and in which terms--all the answers to these questions have serious consequences for a firm's cash flow and profitability.
Working Capital Management is a hands-on look at the crucial decision of how to define and finance the operating investments of a business. Starting with an overview of the fundamental framework of corporate finance, the authors set out to define the central, and usually underestimated, role that working capital plays within this structure. They show not only how to prevent the losses that result from mishandling working capital, but also how to fully exploit the strategic potential that intelligent, expert management of working capital allows. The book is the first to emphasize the relevance of the interplay between the investment and finance aspects of working capital, by discussing all of the main components of a firm's operating expenses from both an investment and finance perspective. After focusing on the varying aspects and themes of working capital, such as inventory management, strategic accounting, trade credit, and short-term debt, the authors move on to identify the long-term implications and opportunities raised by this often overlooked aspect of corporate finance.
Lorenzo Preve and Virginia Sarria-Allende have at last provided a resource that identifies the impact of day-to-day business decisions, uncovering an essential yet often overlooked aspect of all firms' financial situations.

It is widely held that the successful management of knowledge resources within industry creates value. However, how this value is created is less clear. This book explores the management of knowledge resources in organisations. Several of the frameworks which have been created around the world to manage knowledge resources are examined and the book contains several examples of these frameworks in action in order to assess their relevance.

The author revolutionizes the measurement and management of intellectual capital and knowledge resources by establishing the important link between organisational strategy and the intellectual capital of an organisation. Drawing on previously established frameworks, Ricceri creates a framework for the Strategic Management of Knowledge Resources. Ricceria (TM)s thorough analysis of the subject includes analysis and discussion of issues such as resources dynamics and stakeholder engagement.

Last-mile delivery in cities, where the main problems are the traffic situation and ensuring access to customers' homes while maintaining their privacy, poses a substantial logistical challenge. This book explores how the service area of mobility, especially last-mile delivery, can be improved and smartified. It demonstrates how a design science method and a transdisciplinary approach have been used to create a traffic area analysis tool that can accommodate the uncertainty and incompleteness of geospatial data; a linguistic traffic merging tool; and a customer classifier. In terms of developing the optimization artifacts, the socio-economic and logistical aspects of cities were considered and fuzzy logic and nature-inspired swarm intelligence (fuzzy ant colony optimization) were applied as basic principles. Pursuing a transdisciplinary approach, the book offers both practical know-how from the industry and theoretical findings, making it a valuable asset for researchers and practitioners in the fields of mobility and logistics.

Drawing together the experiences of individuals, households and businesses, this book offers an international perspective on the on how and the extent to which the experiential nature of being rural, whether as an business manager in an SME (or micro-enterprise), a non-business person, a retired inhabitant or a housewife is changing as Information and Communication Technologies become applied more widely and allow people to be connected across geographies.

The contributors investigate ways in which these ICTs are being variously experienced in rural areas of Europe, providing a commentary on changing ruralities and their implications for European, national and regional Information Society policies. These changing ruralities are presented here as the lived experiences of individuals, businesses and communities, and the ways in which their experiences are being enhanced, undermined and variously modified through application of ICTs within business, home, leisure and social relations. The book examines the space and place implications of these changes, as reported in a range of rural settings within Scandinavia and Western Europe.

An essential read for economists interested in the area, Information and Communication Technologies in Rural Society will benefit postgraduate students in areas of research such as rural development, regional development and new technology management among others.

Drawing on empirical case-study research carried out in the Bangalore software industry, this book explores the role of network relationships in the internationalization of small knowledge-intensive firms.

Using a conceptual framework, it looks at a range of key themes and their relationship to the internationalization of small firms. These include:

• networks
• knowledge
• technology.

Highlighting the propensity of small knowledge-intensive firms to develop and leverage network relationships and thereby, the resourcefulness with which entrepreneurial firms can (and do) internationalize, this book is essential reading for academics and students with an interest in the intersection between international business and entrepreneurship.

Resources, Technology and Strategy brings together contributors from Europe, North America and Asia to consider the strategic relationship between technology and other resources, such as production capabilities, marketing prowess, finance and organisational culture. Throughout the book, these experts take a critical approach to RBP (Resource-Based Perspective) in order to assess both its strengths and weaknesses. Case studies also highlight the importance of both having and not having strong technological capabilities in settings as diverse as the US semiconductor industry, small family manufacturing firms in Hong Kong and state-owned enterprises in China.

In dieser voellig uberarbeiteten 2. Auflage wurden die neuesten Softwarefunktionalitaten berucksichtigt sowie wichtige Themen, wie Shop Floor Management, Energiemanagement, Projektmanagement, Change Management und Industrie 4.0 erganzt. Die Autoren zeigen anhand von Praxisbeispielen auf, wie sich durch die sogenannte Short Interval Technology (SIT) systematisch schnelle Regelkreise im Unternehmen aufbauen lassen. Das Ziel ist die Perfekte Produktion mit transparenten, reaktionsschnellen und wirtschaftlichen Prozessen. Mit den klassischen Methoden der Produktionsplanung und -steuerung sowie den haufig anzutreffenden Produktionsprozesse gelingt es vielen Unternehmen nur noch mit grossem Aufwand, in den immer besser vernetzten und schneller getakteten Lieferketten mitzuspielen und kurze Lieferzeiten, hohe Termintreuen, kleine Losgroessen, kurzfristige Abrufe und just-in-time Anlieferungen bei wettbewerbsfahigen Kosten sicherzustellen.

This important book examines issues affecting the sustainability and spread of new working practices. The question of why good ideas do not spread, 'the best practices puzzle', has been widely recognized. But the 'improvement evaporation effect', where successful changes are discontinued, has attracted less attention. Keeping things the way they are has been seen as an organizational problem to be resolved, not a condition to be achieved. This is one of the first major studies of the sustainability of change focusing on the example of the NHS, by a unique team of health service and academic researchers. The findings may apply to a variety of other settings. The agenda set out in 2000 in The NHS Plan is perhaps the largest organization development programme ever undertaken, in any sector, anywhere. The NHS thus offers a valuable 'living laboratory' for the study of change. This text shows that sustainability and spread are influenced by a range of issues - contextual, managerial, political, individual, and temporal. Developing a processual perspective, this fresh analysis considers policy implications, and strategies for managing sustainability and spread. This book will be essential reading for students, managers, and researchers concerned with the effective implementation of organizational change.

This important book examines issues affecting the sustainability and spread of new working practices. The question of why good ideas do not spread, 'the best practices puzzle', has been widely recognized. But the 'improvement evaporation effect', where successful changes are discontinued, has attracted less attention. Keeping things the way they are has been seen as an organizational problem to be resolved, not a condition to be achieved. This is one of the first major studies of the sustainability of change focusing on the example of the NHS, by a unique team of health service and academic researchers. The findings may apply to a variety of other settings. The agenda set out in 2000 in The NHS Plan is perhaps the largest organization development programme ever undertaken, in any sector, anywhere. The NHS thus offers a valuable 'living laboratory' for the study of change. This text shows that sustainability and spread are influenced by a range of issues - contextual, managerial, political, individual, and temporal. Developing a processual perspective, this fresh analysis considers policy implications, and strategies for managing sustainability and spread. This book will be essential reading for students, managers, and researchers concerned with the effective implementation of organizational change.

Professions are increasingly linked with enterprise at a number of interrelated levels. By considering the relationship of professions to the enterprise contexts in which they work, this book reveals the dilemmas posed to professional groups, and the opportunities and constraints that can arise in their organisational frameworks. Addressing both private and public sectors, this collection explores questions including: what are the implications for the culture, practices and identities of professions of working in enterprise contexts, including with increased globalisation? Are professions becoming more entrepreneurial in a knowledge economy? What are the tensions between professionalism and enterprise and how are these resolved? These are themes that are extremely important to professionals and their managers, especially with the rise of large-scale professional service firms serving corporate clients with truly global reach. This cutting-edge collection will be of interest to researchers, educators and advanced students studying professional behaviour in fields such as business studies, management, organisational analysis, public administration, political science, social policy and sociology, as well as students on focused programmes of professional study in fields such as health, law and social care.

Given the significant changes in the banking environment and the resultant pressures on banks to change their systems and procedures, this book is a timely reference that provides a comprehensive analytical overview of changes in the performance measurement system (PMS) of banks in the post-financial crisis era. It explores the factors that influence such changes and examines banks' consequential responses to institutional pressures. It is an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners to gain insights into the concept of PMS change in both developed and developing economies.

Does guanxi still matter in 21st century Chinese business and management? Is it really still a culturally distinct form of social interaction, impenetrable by outsiders? Or does it simply resemble the countless other elite networks embedded in business and political spheres across the globe? This book answers these questions through a combination of new empirical insight and nuanced conceptual development. Research examples include investigations of multinational enterprise corporate performance, governance structures in Chinese private firms, organisational justice in Chinese banks, entrepreneurial learning and knowledge acquisition, and the gendered and sexualized nature of guanxi in the workplace. In terms of firm performance, there is still much to be gained by MNE and Chinese firms through cultivating guanxi in different domains, including the political sphere at both the local and national level. However, in terms of employee performance, there is evidence that some younger employees have a strong desire to move towards more merit-based systems and resent being judged on guanxi connections. Similarly, some women may find themselves shut out when attempting to navigate conventional guanxi relationships based on Confucian paternalism. In brief, these practices may also exclude a large pool of emerging talent. This book clearly shows that guanxi is a complex concept that holds a persistent power in Chinese societies. To understand it fully we must acknowledge the dynamic nature of both its dark and light sides. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the Asia Pacific Business Review.

In Principles of Marketology, Volume 1: Theory , Aghazadeh explores the definition, origins and framework of a new methodology for helping organizations better understand their market and competition.

Change is a crucial and inescapable process for many organisations. It remains a constant challenge for managers and many change management initiatives fail. Burns and Stalker's seminal text on managing change, The Management of Innovation, has often been used as a basis for research in mainstream management journals and has been represented as an important theory in popular and long-established management textbooks. The issues raised in that book are still being grappled with by academics and practitioners today. Miriam Green provides a critical analysis of the mainstream construction of knowledge on change management through an examination of representations of that text. The main thesis of her book is that this literature, though valuable, does not provide a full picture. Its objectivist approach ignores the role of other factors raised in the original study. These factors include the effects of power, politics, resistance and employee influence on the outcomes of managerial change strategies and on other organisational processes, with important consequences for the understanding of change initiatives by both academics and practitioners. This is part of an ongoing debate in management studies and more widely in the social sciences about theoretical approaches and research methods. The originality of this book lies in its in-depth comparison of an entire monograph on organisations facing technological and commercial change, with an equally in-depth analysis of the ways this work has been represented and used as a basis for teaching and research. It highlights the limitations of the exclusive use of one approach to explain the complications arising from organisational change. It challenges the scientific justification offered for that approach and supports arguments for more inclusive and sustainable scholarship, of greater relevance to academics, managers and other organisational stakeholders.

This book examines China, the world's largest auto market since 2008 and the story of how Chinese auto-makers developed is the story of the Chinese economy in microcosm. It focuses on China's systemically important automobile sector, this book reveals how local institutions have moderated structural changes at national and global levels, and consequently generated significant organizational diversity in the production sphere.This book begins with the intriguing observation that individual Chinese car makers have been evolving in different directions despite a shared context; what factors led to these diverse choices and positioning? It is the central aim of this book to explain the variety of institutional forms used by Chinese car manufacturers in navigating the market transition and answering the challenges posed by globalization.

Family businesses constitute some of the most unique, complex, and dynamic systems in modern society. The blending of the performance-based world of business and the emotion-based domain of the family creates a system potentially fraught with confusion and conflict. The significant rise in immigrant family businesses adds a further level of complexity to this mix. Research into immigrant family businesses has been based on traditional, limited views of entrepreneurship largely ignoring the ethnic and family contexts that create the culture from which entrepreneurship emerges, making it impossible to understand the complex and interdependent relationships between an owning family, its firm, its governance and the community context in which the firm operates. These firms possess features that make their governance a challenging task. They depict a complex stakeholder structure, whereby the ownership stakes are passed from one generation to the next. The owning family's members usually play multiple roles, thereby blurring governance relationships. Governance in Immigrant Family Businesses explores the relationship between ethnic cultural influence in family businesses and its impact on corporate governance, addressing the intertwined influences of contractual, relational and cultural governance mechanisms and sets out a comprehensive theoretical model which clarifies the complexities involved in business planning, family harmony, and ethnic cultural variables. The authors specifically identify the implications for research, education, and practice. Application of their model will be of value to policy makers, consultants, business researchers and educators.

Published in 1999, Creative Governance sets out to develop new ideas on the development of Fisheries in Europe. The scholarly and political attention for fisheries in general within Europe is predominantly focused on problems of controlling catch. In this book it is not the problems of harvesting which are taken as the starting point, but opportunities in fisheries as a whole: catch, processing, market and consumption of fish and fish products. The discussion is broadened to include the management of fisheries from the perspective of governance rather than management or policy. Governance is a new and important concept currently being developed in several areas of social science, in this book the governance concept is related to the creation of new opportunities of fisheries in Europe. The combination of these two approaches is not only important for fisheries (in Europe) but also to the governance of natural resources more generally where the shift from a problem to an opportunity and from a management or a governance approach might shed new light and stimulate new actions. The book is the product of close cooperation between scholars from biological, geographical, political science, management studies and anthropological backgrounds.

First published in 1992, this guide examines GEAC's place in the automated libraries' market and describes the hardware and software products available. It serves as both an introduction to, and a description of, the products GEAC sell to libraries, which would be of interest to current users as well as prospective purchasers and students. An account of how the system is initially set up and run is followed by descriptions of the circulation, cataloguing, acquisitions and local information packages. Other chapters cover management information and communication with external networks. This guide represents the experiences of users of the systems.

First published in 1998, this volume explored the recent growth in university-based commercial start-up companies as a means of applying research in industry and as an alternative method of funding. Blair and Hitchens melded the practical experiences of universities with more theoretical understandings of technology transfer to assess whether it is more effective for universities to make commercial use of their research themselves as opposed to licensing, whether this is an effective way to get research applied by industry and the economic implications of these decisions. Drawing on the experiences of 25 universities, of which 18 are in the UK and Ireland, and including a detailed study of the QUBIS Group from Queen's University of Belfast, the authors explore universities' deliberate commercial exploitation of their research through university spin-off companies, the potential stresses on staff who are simultaneously academics and entrepreneurs along with universities' attitudes to the practice and possible managerial strategies.

First published in 1999, this book explores the question of is the business organisation a result of efficiency or is it a result of a state-business organisation a result of a state-business interaction? This question being in the context of the Korean chaebol system and the Japanese Keiretsu system; this book explores the political and economic growth and then the following down fall of these systems occurred without rupturing either country's state policy regarding the chaebol or the keiretsu.

Situations and systems are easier to change than the human condition - particularly when people are well-trained and well-motivated, as they usually are in maintenance organisations. This is a down-to-earth practitioner's guide to managing maintenance error, written in Dr. Reason's highly readable style. It deals with human risks generally and the special human performance problems arising in maintenance, as well as providing an engineer's guide for their understanding and the solution. After reviewing the types of error and violation and the conditions that provoke them, the author sets out the broader picture, illustrated by examples of three system failures. Central to the book is a comprehensive review of error management, followed by chapters on:- managing person, the task and the team; - the workplace and the organization; - creating a safe culture; It is then rounded off and brought together, in such a way as to be readily applicable for those who can make it work, to achieve a greater and more consistent level of safety in maintenance activities. The readership will include maintenance engineering staff and safety officers and all those in responsible roles in critical and systems-reliant environments, including transportation, nuclear and conventional power, extractive and other chemical processing and manufacturing industries and medicine.