* The first book to profile social enterprises in Asia specifically. * Provides the honest stories of the ups and downs of setting up and running ten social enterprises in Asia. * Edited by two leading experts in the field.

* The first book to profile social enterprises in Asia specifically. * Provides the honest stories of the ups and downs of setting up and running ten social enterprises in Asia. * Edited by two leading experts in the field.

This book develops an IT strategy for cloud computing that helps businesses evaluate their readiness for cloud services and calculate the ROI. The framework provided helps reduce risks involved in transitioning from traditional "on site" IT strategy to virtual "cloud computing." Since the advent of cloud computing, many organizations have made substantial gains implementing this innovation. Cloud computing allows companies to focus more on their core competencies, as IT enablement is taken care of through cloud services. Cloud Computing and ROI includes case studies covering retail, automobile and food processing industries. Each of these case studies have successfully implemented the cloud computing framework and their strategies are explained. As cloud computing may not be ideal for all businesses, criteria are also offered to help determine if this strategy should be adopted.

This volume presents work from the IFIP TC 8 WG 8.9 International Conference on the Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems (CONFENIS 2007). Enterprise information systems (EIS) have become increasingly popular. EIS integrate and support business processes across functional boundaries in a supply chain environment. In recent years, more and more enterprises world-wide have adopted EIS such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for running their businesses.

For all professionals and students who want to improve their prospects in business, this book prepares and positions them to build dream careers, giving them the education and guidance required to develop vital soft skills, and work remotely and independently. After establishing a foundation for solid professional communications on a personal level, it quickly opens doors to business insights and opportunities that are exciting, inspiring, and highly sustainable. Immersing readers into the key realms of business success and exploring the full spectrum of essential communications practices, they gain knowledge and trade skills of immense value, including: * The basics of positive, proactive, strategic communications for individuals and organizations * What it means to be a PR expert in the creative industry and to do great work * An introduction to essential business imperatives, with high-level instruction on creativity, strategy, leadership, management, marketing, and much more * Customer service and all it entails * Extensive exploration of the PR toolset and its application in real-world marketing scenarios This book brings home all instruction with sophisticated questions and challenges, ensuring readers have every opportunity to comprehend and grow, step by step.

The book is distinct as it critically revisits what is 'social' in an enterprise without being limited by theoretical definitions Each chapter includes several case examples from international and well-renowned organizations to depict the dimensions and dilemmas a social enterprise can assume in practice It adopts a pragmatic hands-on community-based approach to drive in the message of social entrepreneurship Online resources include chapter by chapter PowerPoints slides, a video overview and additional case studies.

The economic liberalization in India over the last three decades has provided a wealth of opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to start and expand their businesses. Since the economy opened up in the 1990s, entrepreneurial activity in the private sector has been largely responsible for the strong economic growth experienced in the country. India is presently the world's third largest source of start-ups, and was ranked the second most entrepreneurial country in the world in the recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, ahead of large economic powerhouses such as the United States, China and the UK. Entrepreneurship in India looks at the dynamic and changing nature of entrepreneurship in India. The book examines the history of entrepreneurship in India, different entrepreneurship models adopted, the entrepreneurial ecosystem and looks at the future of entrepreneurship in the country. This book will benefit businesspeople, policy makers and researchers looking to understand more about entrepreneurship in India, and offers guidance to foreign businesses looking to engage with entrepreneurs in India.

Trust is a pervasive catalyst of human and business relationships that has inspired interest in researchers and practitioners alike. It has been shown to enhance engagement, communication, organizational performance, and online activities. Despite its role to cultivate cooperation, knowledge-sharing, and innovation, trust through digital means or even trust in digital media has presented new opportunities and challenges in society. Examples include a wider and faster dissemination of trust-influencing messages, and richer options of digital cues that engage, disrupt, or even transform how trust is formulated. Despite that, trust helps people to live through risky and uncertain situations, and the many capabilities enabled on the digital platforms have made the formation and sustaining of trust very different compared to traditional means. Trust in today's digital environment plays an important role and is intertwined with concepts including reliability, quality, and privacy. This book aims to bring together the theory and practice of trust in the new digital era and will present theoretical and practical foundations. Trust is not given; we must work to build it, but it is a very fragile and intangible asset once built. It is easy to destroy and challenging to rebuild. Researchers, academics, and students in the fields of management, responsibility, and business ethics will gain knowledge on trust and related concepts, learn about the theoretical underpinnings of trust and how it sustains itself through digital dissemination, and explore empirically validated practice regarding trust and its related concepts.

Presents how to create an effective entrepreneurship business plan Provides an overview of various aspects of entrepreneurship, function and the contemporary forms Offers a real-world understand of the entrepreneurial world with new analytics thinking and what computational skills are needed for the newer generation in handling big data challenges Encompasses the concepts which an entrepreneur must know before embarking on an entrepreneurial journey Includes inspirational case studies from "Change Leaders".

This volume presents a comprehensive analysis of the business, financial and economic aspects of emerging markets. Using case studies from India, Turkey, Bangladesh and Africa, it discusses themes such as megaprojects, infrastructure and sustainability; cross-border mergers and acquisitions; a new paradigm for educational markets; exports competitiveness; work engagement in service sector; mobile banking and crowdfunding; and venture capital flow into emerging economies, to focus on the trade, foreign investment, financial, and social progress of these economies. The chapters review the current state, learnings, changing scenarios, business practices, and financial and economic perspectives across emerging markets while examining progression, challenges and the way forward. With its rigorous approach and topical content, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of management studies, business management, financial management, business economics, international business, finance and marketing, development studies and economics. It will also interest policymakers and practitioners in the field.

For all professionals and students who want to improve their prospects in business, this book prepares and positions them to build dream careers, giving them the education and guidance required to develop vital soft skills, and work remotely and independently. After establishing a foundation for solid professional communications on a personal level, it quickly opens doors to business insights and opportunities that are exciting, inspiring, and highly sustainable. Immersing readers into the key realms of business success and exploring the full spectrum of essential communications practices, they gain knowledge and trade skills of immense value, including: * The basics of positive, proactive, strategic communications for individuals and organizations * What it means to be a PR expert in the creative industry and to do great work * An introduction to essential business imperatives, with high-level instruction on creativity, strategy, leadership, management, marketing, and much more * Customer service and all it entails * Extensive exploration of the PR toolset and its application in real-world marketing scenarios This book brings home all instruction with sophisticated questions and challenges, ensuring readers have every opportunity to comprehend and grow, step by step.

Governments in developed and developing economies have increasingly turned to entrepreneurship and small businesses for economic growth, dynamism and economic and social inclusion. Policies seeking to encourage, support or otherwise influence these forms of economic activity are varied but virtually omnipresent, recommended by organisations such as the OECD and World Bank and implemented by governments of many political ideologies. With a range of activities across government labelled as enterprise policy, it is vital to unpick the different policies, initiatives and interventions and to understand their development in order to subject them to scrutiny and evaluate the actions taken in the name of enterprise. This book provides the first in-depth, historical analysis of enterprise policy in the United Kingdom. Successive UK governments have been particularly active, with the number of initiatives estimated recently at 3000 and expenditure reaching as high as GBP12bn, yet facing continuous criticisms for its use, value or relevance. This historical study of UK enterprise policy represents a case study of different forms of enterprise policy and how they have developed, or failed to develop, over time, contributing to understanding of government, small business and entrepreneurship. It will be of value to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students interested in the history of small business and entrepreneurship as well as standing as a history of a specific policy area and the ways in which policies involving many different areas of government develop over time.

The emergence of new platform business models, notably the sharing economy, is impacting the economy in various ways, altering the structure of many industries, and raising a number of economic and political issues. This book investigates the widespread influence of the sharing economy on businesses and society, as well as examining its underpinning economic principles and development. This volume presents an exhaustive review of the existing knowledge on the sharing economy and addresses several major areas of concern for incumbent businesses. It also explains the business models for those who are interested in embarking on their own ventures and provides an excellent source for further research. It takes an in-depth look at controversial labour policies, such as using labour as self-employed contractors or using regulatory grey areas to expand in markets. It is highly multidisciplinary, establishing links between economics, finance, marketing and consumer behaviour. This contribution on the sharing economy will enable researchers and graduate and doctoral students to expand and improve their understanding of this topic and identify new research problems in all of these areas. The book will also appeal to policy makers, regional and local government decision makers, and those interested in labour markets transformation.

For consultants, facilitators or OD specialists, a house's familiar image will help their clients see, think and feel their ways solving their business issues. No need for dry and hard-to-remember management schemas. The striking visual and active methods shown here deeply engage clients - they get it right away. The House and its 'Rooms' make sense to them, and they willingly start working with you. The Our House model has many of these 'Rooms' where complex business issues are sorted into one area at a time. The focus, the mood and the process vary with each Room, and the author reveals an entirely original consulting process each time. Disciplined creativity begins: loosening the grip of the past in the Attic; testing business foundations in the Cellar; preparing a meal the customer would love in the Kitchen; suppliers, maintenance and low-hanging fruit in the Garden; the team's dirty washing in the Laundry; elimination and waste goes into the Toilet; frank talk and vision alignment take place at the Dining Table; big systems perspectives can be seen from the Balcony; analysis in the Study; conversation and connection in the Living Room. The simplicity of the images of a House and its Rooms belies their frugality and their strength. In each Room, your clients are put through something demanding yet liberating. They see things differently and they see different things. Our House shows you how to succeed with simple action methods that are enlightening and strong.

Plastics have occupied an important place in the modern medical industry. It has substituted traditional devices and products made of metal, other materials, and ceramics. Over recent years, increased reliance on transparent plastic pharmaceutical and medical products has produced remarkable breakthroughs that improve medical attention delivery and allow it to be more comfortable for the masses to live better and longer lives. The purpose of this handbook is to provide a strategic perspective on the market to identify opportunities for growth and promising niches in the medical plastics market. It also helps in analyzing emerging trends in medical plastics to facilitate new product development. The medical plastics market is a new field with a broad scope and unending opportunities for manufacturers and suppliers and medical practitioners from healthcare. With a combination of the right material and technology, it has a lot to offer to the patients with affordable pricing. By keeping the worth of the medical plastics market in mind, we have set some objectives. This book identifies growth factors in the medical plastics market and analyzes critical factors of success to compete. The author presents background on the medical plastics market by its usage, products, processes, and innovation. He also reviews existing studies on the medical plastics market for topics like market size, market growth, segment growth, and geographic markets.

The highly competitive and globalized software market is creating pressure on software companies. Given the current boundary conditions, it is critical to continuously increase time-to-market and reduce development costs. In parallel, driven by private life experiences with mobile computing devices, the World Wide Web and software-based services, peoples general expectations with regards to software are growing. They expect software that is simple and joyful to use. In the light of the changes that have taken place in recent years, software companies need to fundamentally reconsider the way they develop and deliver software to their customers.

This book introduces fundamentals, trends and best practices in the software industry from a threefold perspective which equally takes into account design, management, and development of software. It demonstrates how cross-functional integration can be leveraged by software companies to successfully build software for people. Professionals from business and academia give an overview on state-of-the-art knowledge and report on key insights from their real-life experience. They provide guidance and hands-on recommendation on how to create winning products. This combined perspective fosters the transfer of knowledge between research and practice and offers a high practical value for both sides.

The book targets both, practitioners and academics looking for successfully building software in the future. It is directed at Managing Directors of software companies, Software Project Managers, Product Managers and Designers, Software Developers as well as academics and students in the area of Software and Information Systems Engineering, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and Innovation Management. "

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 identifies factors of information system (IS) integration that influence supply chain agility and illustrates how IS integration can achieve greater supply chain agility. Also considering the consequent operational impacts that arise from IS-enabled supply chain agility, the author presents real-life examples through interviews and surveys to explore how IS integrations affect supply chain agility in the context of the Chinese automotive industry. The ability to swiftly respond to competitive challenges is a key element in industry 4.0 and organisations with agile supply chains are better prepared to respond to uncertainties and changes. This book develops and presents guidelines on the deployment of information system integration in order to achieve efficient agile supply chains.

This book brings together multi-disciplinary research and practical evidence about the role and exploitation of big data in driving and supporting innovation in tourism. It also provides a consolidated framework and roadmap summarising the major issues that both researchers and practitioners have to address for effective big data innovation. The book proposes a process-based model to identify and implement big data innovation strategies in tourism. This process framework consists of four major parts: 1) inputs required for big data innovation; 2) processes required to implement big data innovation; 3) outcomes of big data innovation; and 4) contextual factors influencing big data exploitation and advances in big data exploitation for business innovation.

Written for first-time buyers who have never owned a property or had a mortgage, rather than buy-to-let investors. Provides a holistic view of the property purchase process, and examines several key aspects: property, mortgages, and legal considerations. Written by academics who have extensive practical experience in property and mortgages.

Lombardy, with about 10 million inhabitants, is today the most populated and prosperous region of Italy, and Milan is a renowned capital of art, fashion and design. During the 19th century until WWI, the region gradually became the leader in Italy's economic development and distinguished itself in the European economic landscape for its long-standing industrial strength and diversified economy, which included one of the Europe's most productive agricultural systems. It was the economic locomotive of contemporary Italy, contributing to the economic Risorgimento that complemented the country's political resurgence. The present volume gathers the contributions of some major experts on the subject, providing an in-depth analysis of Lombardy's pattern of development, consisting of an exceptionally symbiotic and balanced interplay of sectors (agriculture, industry, trade, and banking) in a gradual yet steady growth process, also supported by progress in the education system. During the century, there was a shift away from an economy based on agriculture and commerce to a progressively more industrial economy and this process accelerated from the 1880s. The secret of this dynamic balance was Lombardy's active relationship with the rest of Europe and with the international markets. Aimed at scholars, researchers and students in the fields of early modern and modern history, economic and social history, the book provides a clear explanation of Lombardy's economic development during the long 19th Century.

Novel effectuation-based approach; bridging this new approach with traditional core marketing concepts, such as targeting/positioning and marketing mix; Clear structure of chapters with key points, advice, features and summaries; Third edition fully updated to include coverage of leveraging big data analysis, further practical tools, updated references, cases and examples throughout, and updated online resources

State-owned enterprises make up roughly 10 percent of the world economy, yet they are woefully understudied. This handbook offers the first synthesis of the topic since the 1980s and offers a comprehensive reference for a generation. The authors provide a detailed explanation of the theory that underpins the expansion of state-owned enterprises in the 21st century. Each chapter delivers an overview of current knowledge, as well as identifying issues and relevant debates for future research. The authors explain how state-owned enterprises are used in both developed and developing countries and offer an insight into complex and fascinating organizations such as the German municipal conglomerates or the multinational companies owned by states. New modes of governance and regulation have been invented to make sure they act in the public interest. This handbook brings together a wealth of international scholars, offering multiple theoretical perspectives to help shape a brave new world. It will be of interest to teachers and students of Economics, Public Administration and Business, academics, established researchers and PhD students seeking rigorous literature reviews on specific aspects of SOEs, as well as practitioners and decision makers in international organizations.

This book presents the foundations for the future of tourism in a structured and detailed format. The who-is-who of tourism intelligence has collaborated to present a definitive blueprint for tourism reflecting the role of science, market institutions, and governance in its innovation and sustainability. The book adopts a comprehensive approach, exploring recent research and the latest developments in practice to inform the reader about instruments and actions that can shape a successful future for tourism. Broad in scope, the book incorporates the perspectives of leading tourism academics, as well as the views of tourism entrepreneurs, destination managers, government officials, and civil leaders. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which addresses the scientific facets of innovation, analyzing the challenges and opportunities that technology provides for organic and disruptive developments in tourism, which will shape its future. In turn, the second part examines socio-cultural paradigms - with a view to dismantling traditional barriers to innovation. It also explores the role of heritage and the ethics of inclusiveness as drivers for sustainable tourism. The third part investigates new ways and means in governance and policy making for tourism. It introduces advances such as strategic positioning, symbiotic partnerships, and innovative management, and closes by presenting governance frameworks for an inclusive and sustainable future of tourism.

First published in 1991, Lion's Share traces the journey made by Ralph Ketner, his brother Brown, and their friend Wilson Smith as they progressed from opening their first supermarket, Food Town, to running more than 800 stores as part of the Food Lion supermarket chain. The book explores the growth of Food Lion and the reasons for its success, using interviews with the company's founders and top executives, both those present at the time of publication and previous position holders, to provide a detailed account of its history and development.