The figure of the entrepreneur has become a relevant factor that explains the process of growth and economic development. Rising unemployment rates have generated among institutional and private agents, a significant interest in promoting entrepreneurship as a formula to eradicate this social scourge of unemployment. Active policies that favor business culture and initiative are being promoted in all areas. In the university world, academic research has multiplied the work on entrepreneurship, a term that includes a triple meaning: the figure of the entrepreneur, the business function and the creation of companies. This versatile meaning must be based on a consistent theory about the company and the entrepreneur. This book presents specific cases of companies and entrepreneurs that have had their role throughout the history of Spain. The intention is to show the techniques and learning acquired by those agents, which have allowed a considerable advance in the knowledge of the structure and business development. This book brings together the research carried out by its authors with primary sources and makes it accessible to a wide audience-Spanish and Latin American-and will be of value to researchers, academics, and students with an interest in Spanish entrepreneurship, business, and management history.

The Psychology of Entrepreneurship: New Perspectives is an update of the earlier landmark volume in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Organizational Frontiers Series. This new book takes stock of the advances in the field of the psychology of entrepreneurship with all new chapters and presents the latest findings on traditional topics, such as cognition, motivation, affect, personality, and action. The Psychology of Entrepreneurship: New Perspectives compiles research of the most prolific scholars in the field to produce an overview of the most important psychological topics relevant to entrepreneurship. It includes novel insights into topics such as entrepreneurial cognition, intrapreneurship and innovation, leadership, entrepreneurial competencies, action theory, entrepreneurship training, and the process of entrepreneurship. Additionally, the updated volume presents new topics that have become more and more important in entrepreneurship research. These topics include affect, clinical psychology and disorders, biological correlates of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial teams, culture, identity, starting capital, failure and exit, contextual factors, age and demographic change, evidence-based entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs' well-being. With a collection of authors comprising experts who have developed the field over the last decade, The Psychology of Entrepreneurship: New Perspectives is vital to all students, scholars, and instructors interested in staying abreast of the most current, novel research and insights into the psychology of entrepreneurship.

This book illustrates the role of software architecture and its application in business. The author describes enterprise architecture along with business architecture to show the role of software architecture in both areas. The place of software architecture in business is outlined from many perspectives in this context. The book outlines quality attributes and how managers can use software architecture to build high quality products. Topics include business software architecture, dealing with qualities, achieving quality attributes, managing business qualities, software product line, Internet of Things (IOT), and Service Oriented Business Architecture. The book is intended to benefit students, researchers, software architects, and business architects. Provides quick and easy access to all the important aspects of software architecture in business; Highlights a wide variety of concepts of software architecture in a straightforward manner, for students, practitioners, or architects; Presents different applications of software architecture in business.

"Performance begins with focusing on outcomes instead of activities. In my experience, most people in most organizations most of the time do the reverse. They concentrate their efforts on the pursuit of activities instead of outcomes. As a result, they rarely set or achieve performance results that matter."

Today's performance challenges demand outcomes—both financial and nonfinancial—that must simultaneously benefit customers, shareholders, employees, and management. Therein lies a cycle of sustainable performance that functions as a framework to ensure your organization's goals are set, met, and balanced for today's business world.

Make Success Measurable! enables you to avoid activity-based goals that can go on indefinitely, and articulate aggressive outcome-based goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

This is a how-to book, emphasizing outcomes as opposed to actions in setting goals. You'll learn how to: Set goals that matter to customers, shareholders, and funders. Set nonfinancial as well as financial goals and link them together. Understand and use outcome-based goals that support success while avoiding activity-based goals that produce failure. Select and use management disciplines needed to achieve your goals. Smith provides the what's and why's behind today's performance challenges and shows how to convert them into measurable concrete achievements.

Using an innovative approach, Smith divides each chapter into an explanatory Mindbook section and a practice Workbook section. The Mindbook sections provide descriptions and explain key concepts, frameworks, tools, and techniques. They seek to build your intellectual understanding of how to set and achieve the performance goals that matter.

The Workbook sections include detailed examples and exercises that you and your colleagues can use to practice the concepts, tools, and techniques put forth in the Mindbook section. Workbook exercises allow you to convert understanding into action—and action into results! "Doug Smith's work on performance and measurement has been an invaluable management resource for us. We believe that if you can't measure it, you can't improve it. Thanks to Doug, we can focus on the right measures to drive performance against today's many new and different challenges throughout our enterprise."—Leon Gorman, President, L.L. Bean, Inc.

"Make Success Measurable! is a practical and powerful step-by-step guide to setting and achieving the goals we all need to accomplish in a constantly changing and challenging world."—Charles Dolan, Chairman, Cablevision Systems Corporation.

"No one writes as clearly about today's key management issues as Doug Smith. Whether you're in a small eCommerce startup or a large, already established organization, the frameworks, tools, techniques, and exercises contained in this book are the only things you'll need to manage the performance that matters to your customers, your people, and your shareholders."—Steve Goldstein, CEO, eChores and former CEO, American Express Bank.

"Achieving results that matter—to donors and clients—is the true measure of success for any nonprofit organization. This book provides a thoughtful and extremely practical guide for setting goals and effectively meeting them. It is an absolutely indispensable tool for leaders and a model for good management."—Jenna Dorn, President, National Museum of Health.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of industrial consultancy on a variety of issues and aspects including operations and services. This book: Looks at both individual-level consultancy and consultancy for firms, companies, or institutions. Uses observations, examples, and case studies to bring together key themes: consulting approach; production operations vs. services consulting; location and facilities criteria; human-machine interaction; lead time objective; outsourcing decisions and management; and infrastructure influence along with consultancy objectives, strategic considerations, and conflict resolution. Presents a comprehensive understanding of industrial consultancy and services offered to a wide range of industries, across type, size, and scale, including manufacturing, pharmaceutical, fabrication, and transformer industries. The first of its kind, this book will be a useful resource for industry and management professionals as well as scholars and researchers of business management, business economics, operations, entrepreneurship and organizational behaviour, and engineering.

Mapping Motivation for Leadership, co-written with Jane Thomas, is the fourth of a series of seven books that are all linked to the author's Motivational Map toolkit. Each book builds on a different aspect of personal, team and organisational development. This is a practical guide to leadership in the 21st century and builds on the '4+1' model outlined in the author's original book Mapping Motivation: Unlocking the Key to Employee Energy and Engagement. There is an increasing body of evidence, that the single most important aspect of being a leader relates to managing emotions effectively, and this management goes way beyond simply 'understanding' emotional intelligence; it is in fact a practice and one that is intimately connected with personal development and growth, and with energy. Energy, as Mapping Motivation made clear, is synonymous with motivation. The effective leaders of tomorrow will be those who understand their motivators, who regularly measure their motivators, sustain and replenish and maximise their motivators, and who do the same for their employees. Clearly, there is a link here with the book on engagement, for leaders who do so will engage their employees. However, this book not only covers the motivational side of leadership, but also explores in detail the skill sets necessary in the '4+1' model: thinking skills, action skills, team skills and motivational skills plus that indefinable 'something' that is a commitment to personal development, so that we as leaders are not trying to solve today's problems with yesterday's training as our only internal resource.

Structuring, or, as it is referred to in the title of this book, the art of structuring, is one of the core elements in the discipline of Information Systems. While the world is becoming increasingly complex, and a growing number of disciplines are evolving to help make it a better place, structure is what is needed in order to understand and combine the various perspectives and approaches involved. Structure is the essential component that allows us to bridge the gaps between these different worlds, and offers a medium for communication and exchange. The contributions in this book build these bridges, which are vital in order to communicate between different worlds of thought and methodology - be it between Information Systems (IS) research and practice, or between IS research and other research disciplines. They describe how structuring can be and should be done so as to foster communication and collaboration. The topics covered reflect various layers of structure that can serve as bridges: models, processes, data, organizations, and technologies. In turn, these aspects are complemented by visionary outlooks on how structure influences the field.

This book systematically introduces the data governance and digital transformation at Huawei, from the perspectives of technology, process, management, and so on. Huawei is a large global enterprise engaging in multiple types of business in over 170 countries and regions. Its differentiated operation is supported by an enterprise data foundation and corresponding data governance methods. With valuable experience, methodology, standards, solutions, and case studies on data governance and digital transformation, enterprise data at Huawei is ideal for readers to learn and apply, as well as to get an idea of the digital transformation journey at Huawei. This book is organized into four parts and ten chapters. Based on the understanding of "the cognitive world of machines," the book proposes the prospects for the future of data governance, as well as the imaginations about AI-based governance, data sovereignty, and building a data ecosystem.

Never has the need for church planting been more acute or more necessary. The world around us is beset with problems of every kind-political, social, economic, racial, and moral. The list is endless, and the difficulties are systemic and entrenched. The best minds, institutions, and efforts are being marshaled to address these problems, but are we getting to the root issues? Could it be that the solutions lie elsewhere? Indeed, the greatest reformer to ever live told us the hope we need comes from the church. Yes, the church, as anemic and as irrelevant as it may seem to some (or many). Jesus said of the community He would birth, "You are the light of the world and the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13-14). The church, in all its forms, from small to big, whether found in the countryside or in megacities is God's redeeming force for society, for culture, and for the nations. The church is God's secret weapon and His change agent for the world. He's all in on the church. As such the church is God's organizational servant on the earth. It's to be an enterprise of the highest quality. It's to sparkle with kingdom power, love, and truth. As Ephesians 3:10 states, "[God's] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms." For such a task, outstanding leaders are needed. Great leaders are not just for the arenas of business, politics, or the military. The church must also focus on recruiting, training, and deploying the best. As the leader goes, so goes the organization. This book assists in the great endeavor of planting churches. It gives church planters a biblical and conceptual framework so they can be armed with a map for how to go about establishing new works. This framework is rooted in the humble yet glorious, small yet significant, quiet yet powerful ways of Jesus.

Social Innovation: Comparative Perspectives investigates socio-economic impact. Since it is hard to establish causality and to measure social properties when investigating impact, especially at the level of society, the book narrows down impact to one priority aspect: social innovation - understood as organizations' capacity to generate novel ideas, ways and means of doing things, of addressing public and social problems of many kinds. This volume's primary assertion is that the Third Sector, specifically through stimulating civic involvement, is best placed to produce social innovation, outperforming business firms and state agencies in this regard. By investigating actor contributions to social innovation across seven fields of activity, Social innovation: Comparative Perspectives develops our understanding of why and how the Third Sector is central to functioning, cohesive and viable societies. This volume is based on contributions of the project "ITSSOIN - Impact of the Third Sector as Social Innovation" funded by the European Commission under the 7th framework programme. It will be of insight across disciplines, in particular to the growing social innovation community, innovation researchers more generally and to non-profit scholars. The practical relevance of the book will be of interest to European and national policy makers and practitioners across different sectors.

Never has the need for church planting been more acute or more necessary. The world around us is beset with problems of every kind-political, social, economic, racial, and moral. The list is endless, and the difficulties are systemic and entrenched. The best minds, institutions, and efforts are being marshaled to address these problems, but are we getting to the root issues? Could it be that the solutions lie elsewhere? Indeed, the greatest reformer to ever live told us the hope we need comes from the church. Yes, the church, as anemic and as irrelevant as it may seem to some (or many). Jesus said of the community He would birth, "You are the light of the world and the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13-14). The church, in all its forms, from small to big, whether found in the countryside or in megacities is God's redeeming force for society, for culture, and for the nations. The church is God's secret weapon and His change agent for the world. He's all in on the church. As such the church is God's organizational servant on the earth. It's to be an enterprise of the highest quality. It's to sparkle with kingdom power, love, and truth. As Ephesians 3:10 states, "[God's] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms." For such a task, outstanding leaders are needed. Great leaders are not just for the arenas of business, politics, or the military. The church must also focus on recruiting, training, and deploying the best. As the leader goes, so goes the organization. This book assists in the great endeavor of planting churches. It gives church planters a biblical and conceptual framework so they can be armed with a map for how to go about establishing new works. This framework is rooted in the humble yet glorious, small yet significant, quiet yet powerful ways of Jesus.

Mapping Motivation for Top Performing Teams is the final volume in a series of books that are all linked to the author's Motivational Map toolkit. Each book builds on a different aspect of personal, team and organisational development. This book, using the Motivational Map, the Team Motivational Map, as well as the Organisation Motivational Map, is a practical guide to understanding how team dynamics and success are hugely influenced by motivational factors, which are not usually taken into account. The book is a deeper exploration of team mapping which occurs in Chapter 6 of Mapping Motivation (2015), Chapter 6 of Mapping Motivation for Engagement (with Steve Jones, 2019), and Chapter 6 of Mapping Motivation for Leadership (with Jane Thomas, 2020). But whereas these chapters only touched on specific aspects of team dynamics, this book covers the issues more comprehensively; it also attempts to avoid replication of materials, although there are bound to be small overlaps. It covers not only how motivations affect team productivity and how this can be boosted through targeted Reward Strategies, but also how 'mapping' provides profounder insights into the four key characteristics of top performing teams: the clear remit, vital interdependency, strong belief, and real accountability. How Motivational Maps covers these areas, we believe to be original, eye-opening and effective in the management of change. Further, as always with Motivational Maps, its language and metrics raise self-awareness at an individual and team level, and so can help resolve conflicts through its common and non-judgmental language. Managing teams is the key skill of managers: thus this book is a handbook for managers everywhere who wish to excel at management, for without bringing their teams on board (i.e. motivating their teams), they are not effectively managing.

This handbook is a comprehensive and up to date work of reference that offers a survey of the state of financial geography. With Brexit, a global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as new financial technology threatening and promising to revolutionize finance, the map of the financial world is in a state of transformation, with major implications for development. With these developments in the background, this handbook builds on this unprecedented momentum and responds to these epochal challenges, offering a comprehensive guide to financial geography. Financial geography is concerned with the study of money and finance in space and time, and their impacts on economy, society and nature. The book consists of 29 chapters organized in six sections: theoretical perspectives on financial geography, financial assets and markets, investors, intermediation, regulation and governance, and finance, development and the environment. Each chapter provides a balanced overview of current knowledge, identifying issues and discussing relevant debates. Written in an analytical and engaging style by authors based on six continents from a wide range of disciplines, the work also offers reflections on where the research agenda is likely to advance in the future. The book's key audience will primarily be students and researchers in geography, urban studies, global studies and planning, more or less familiar with financial geography, who seek access to a state-of-the art survey of this area. It will also be useful for students and researchers in other disciplines, such as finance and economics, history, sociology, anthropology, politics, business studies, environmental studies and other social sciences, who seek convenient access to financial geography as a new and relatively unfamiliar area. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for practitioners in the public and private sector, including business consultants and policy-makers, who look for alternative approaches to understanding money and finance.

The Psychology of Entrepreneurship: New Perspectives is an update of the earlier landmark volume in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Organizational Frontiers Series. This new book takes stock of the advances in the field of the psychology of entrepreneurship with all new chapters and presents the latest findings on traditional topics, such as cognition, motivation, affect, personality, and action. The Psychology of Entrepreneurship: New Perspectives compiles research of the most prolific scholars in the field to produce an overview of the most important psychological topics relevant to entrepreneurship. It includes novel insights into topics such as entrepreneurial cognition, intrapreneurship and innovation, leadership, entrepreneurial competencies, action theory, entrepreneurship training, and the process of entrepreneurship. Additionally, the updated volume presents new topics that have become more and more important in entrepreneurship research. These topics include affect, clinical psychology and disorders, biological correlates of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial teams, culture, identity, starting capital, failure and exit, contextual factors, age and demographic change, evidence-based entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs' well-being. With a collection of authors comprising experts who have developed the field over the last decade, The Psychology of Entrepreneurship: New Perspectives is vital to all students, scholars, and instructors interested in staying abreast of the most current, novel research and insights into the psychology of entrepreneurship.

The GCBME Book Series aims to promote the quality and methodical reach of the Global Conference on Business Management & Entrepreneurship, which is intended as a high-quality scientific contribution to the science of business management and entrepreneurship. The Contributions are expected to be the main reference articles on the topic of each book and have been subject to a strict peer review process conducted by experts in the fields. The conference provided opportunities for the delegates to exchange new ideas and implementation of experiences, to establish business or research connections and to find Global Partners for future collaboration. The conference and resulting volume in the book series is expected to be held and appear annually. The year 2019 theme of book and conference is "Transforming Sustainable Business In The Era Of Society 5.0". The ultimate goal of GCBME is to provide a medium forum for educators, researchers, scholars, managers, graduate students and professional business persons from the diverse cultural backgrounds, to present and discuss their research, knowledge and innovation within the fields of business, management and entrepreneurship. The GCBME conferences cover major thematic groups, yet opens to other relevant topics: Organizational Behavior, Innovation, Marketing Management, Financial Management and Accounting, Strategic Management, Entrepreneurship and Green Business.

An accessible guide to an increasingly complex subject, Entrepreneurial Finance: Concepts and Cases demonstrates how to address often- overlooked financial issues from the entrepreneur's standpoint, including challenges faced by start-ups and small businesses. This new edition retains the original's structure, around seven modules or building blocks designed to be taught across a full semester with natural break points built into each chapter within the modules. The building blocks present macro- concepts which are explored in greater detail in each of the chapters. Each concept is illustrated by a short case and followed by thoughtful questions to enhance learning. The cases are new or fully updated for the second edition, and deal with real companies, real problems, and currently unfolding issues. A new chapter on business models includes coverage of social ventures, and the chapters on forms of business ownership and financing have been expanded. Upper- level undergraduate students of entrepreneurship will appreciate the book's practical approach and engaging tone, along with the hands- on cases and exercises that help students to break down complex concepts. Online resources for instructors include a case teaching manual, lecture slides, test bank, and interactive exercises.

This book captures a range of important developments that have occurred in Information Systems over the last forty years, with a particular focus on India and the developing world. Over this time, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Information Systems (IS) have come to play a critical role in supporting, complementing and automating managerial decisions, shaping and transforming industries, and contributing to deep societal and economic change. This volume examines a range of topics for those interested in the adoption and use of these technologies across varied situations. It combines empirical studies on the application and impact of IS with commentaries, debates and insights on the transformative role that IT and the IT industry have played, and continue to play, within India as well as globally. The book draws attention to issues and challenges that organizations grapple with in tech-enabled environments, and provides insights on the role of automation and computational techniques. It explores the global impact of the technology revolution on economic growth and development, electronic globalization, and the wider opportunities and challenges of a hi-tech world. The chapters cover various themes such as e-government in India, internet-based distribution systems, internet banking, and use of collaborative IT tools and functions to support virtual teams in the software industry and the business process outsourcing industry. Other chapters focus on methodological advances, such as systems thinking which finds applications in organizational decision-making, and the use of fuzzy logic. This volume will interest professionals and scholars of information technology and information systems, computer studies, IT systems, economics, and business and management studies.

This book discusses the main techniques and newest trends to manage and optimize the production and service systems. The book begins by examining the three main levels of decision systems in production: the long term (strategic), the middle term (tactical) and short term (operational). It also considers online management as a new level (a sub level of the short term). As each level encounters specific problems, appropriate approaches to deal with these are introduced and explained. These problems include the line design, the line balancing optimization, the physical layout of the production or service system, the forecasting optimization, the inventory management, the scheduling etc. Metaheuristics for Production Systems then explores logistic optimization from two different perspectives: internal (production management), addressing issues of scheduling, layout and line designs, and external (supply chain management) focusing on transportation optimization, supply chain evaluation, and location of production. The book also looks at NP-hard problems that are common in production management. These complex configurations may mean that optimal solutions may not be reached due to variables, but the authors help provide a good solution for such problems. The effective new results and solutions offered in this book should appeal to researchers, managers, and engineers in the production and service industries.

This book shows the patterns of the fuzzy front end of innovation and how it can be managed successfully. Topics in this book cover traditional instruments and processes such as technology monitoring, market-oriented research management, lead-user developments, but also modern approaches such as frontloading, user community-driven innovation, crowdsourcing, anthropological expeditions, technological listening posts in global R&D settings, cross-industry innovation processes, open innovation, and IP cycle management. Contributions are based on latest research and cases studies on this new paradigm. The authors investigate this phenomenon, linking the practice of the early innovation phase to the established body of innovation research. Conceptional articles complement case studies to provide the reader with insight on managing the fuzzy front end of innovation.Lessons learned with success factors and checklists complement each chapter. "

It is now widely recognized that in regions like Africa, for economic and other reasons, the public sector has had to disengage and divest from many areas of the economy and allow private enterprise, especially scalable start-ups and new ventures, to enter and flourish if economic development and employment are to grow. There is, however, a training and education gap since entrepreneurship is rarely taught formally at African universities and, when it is, it is often approached from a Western perspective which may not be appropriate given that African environments are significantly different from most Western ones in terms of economic infrastructure and political considerations. This book allows readers to understand the African entrepreneurial context by guiding them through the principal stages in the life of a new venture, and offers approaches, both Western and indigenous, that can inform their entrepreneurial actions. It concludes by examining some specialized topics, including female, youth, and social entrepreneurship, as well as real estate and technology. Exercises throughout the book will enable readers to evaluate their motivations and preparedness for entrepreneurship and learn how to communicate a new venture's key features to potential stakeholders. By focusing on the distinctive features of entrepreneurship in the African context, and taking a conversational tone, this is an informative and practical text that will be useful for students of Global Entrepreneurship and Business as well as actual and prospective entrepreneurs in the private, non-profit, and public sectors.

The development of entrepreneurial abilities in people with dyslexia is a subject of great interest. It has gained increasing importance in economically difficult times because of its potential for the development of new business opportunities. This book brings together contributions from researchers, educators, and entrepreneurs with dyslexia, investigating this subject from many perspectives. Is there something different in the profile of a person with dyslexia that supports the development of entrepreneurship? This book aims to draw out key themes which can be used in education to motivate, mentor, and create the business leaders of tomorrow. It offers a fundamental text for this area of study with a comprehensive, international examination of its topic. It includes views by new and established international writers and researchers, providing up-to-date perspectives on entrepreneurship, dyslexia, and education. It is accessible to read, to understand, and to learn from, and is suitable for recommended reading for graduate and postgraduate students. The diverse views and perspectives demonstrated in this book make it as relevant as possible for a wide group of readers. It informs study in the fields of business and dyslexia, and will be of interest to educators, researchers, and to anyone interested in the overlap of entrepreneurship and dyslexia.

This book provides a conceptual framework for systemic flexibility and business agility, drawing on a basis of research/case applications in various types of flexibility and agility in business. The selected papers address a variety of issues concerning the theme of systemic flexibility and business agility and are organized into following five parts: (i) Systemic and Strategic Flexibility; (ii) Information and Business Agility; (iii) Flexibility, Innovation and Business Excellence; (iv) Flexibility in Value and Supply Chains; and(v) Financial Flexibility and Mergers & Acquisitions. Flexibility and agility in business are emerging as key dimensions of business excellence that encompass the requirements of both choice and speed. The two concepts, flexibility and agility, have been used in multiple ways and often interchangeably, both in literature and in practice. The growing need for flexibility/agility in business can be seen from reactive as well as proactive perspectives. A business enterprise is expected to possess reactive flexibility/ agility (as adaptability and responsiveness) in order to cope with the changing and uncertain business environment. It may also endeavor to intentionally generate flexibility/agility as a strategic change in a variety of ways, such as leadership change, reengineering, innovation in products and processes, use of information and communication technology, and learning orientation.

Computational intelligence has a long history of applications to business - expert systems have been used for decision support in management, neural networks and fuzzy logic have been used in process control, a variety of techniques have been used in forecasting and data mining has become a core component of customer relationship management in marketing. While there is literature on this field, it is spread over many disciplines and in many different publications, making it difficult to find the pertinent information in one source. ""Business Applications and Computational Intelligence"" addresses the need for a compact overview of the diversity of applications in a number of business disciplines, and consists of chapters written by leading international researchers. Chapters cover most fields of business, including: marketing, data mining, e-commerce, production and operations, finance, decision-making, and general management. ""Business Applications and Computational Intelligence"" provides a comprehensive review of research into computational intelligence applications in business, creating a powerful guide for both newcomers and experienced researchers.

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.

As business schools expand their entrepreneurship programs and organizations seek people with entrepreneurial skills, it has become clear that the skills and mindset of an entrepreneur are highly valued in all business contexts. This latest edition of Entrepreneurship Skills for New Ventures continues to focus on helping students develop entrepreneurial skills, whether they seek to become entrepreneurs or employees. Focusing on the entrepreneurial start-up process, the fourth edition of Entrepreneurship Skills for New Ventures takes the reader through the steps of selecting, planning, financing, and controlling the new venture. The authors cover multiple forms of new ventures, as well as ways to utilize entrepreneurial skills in other contexts, encouraging students to engage with the material and apply it to their lives in ways that make sense for them. Skill development features include: New exercise on analyzing the lean entrepreneurship option Entrepreneurial profiles of small-business owners Personal applications for students to apply questions to their new venture or a current business Global and domestic cases Elevator pitch assignments that put students in the venture capitalist position Application exercises and situations covering specific text concepts Business plan prompts to help students construct a business plan over the course of a semester Featuring pedagogical tools like review questions and learning outcomes, as well as online materials that expand upon skill development and offer instructor resources, the fourth edition of Entrepreneurship Skills for New Ventures is the perfect resource for instructors and students of entrepreneurship.