Firm growth. This concept has interested researchers for generations. Economists have sought to predict and measure firm growth using a host of different variables, while strategic management scholars depict growth as the result of clever analyses and rational resource exploitation. Entrepreneurship scholars - ever engrossed by successful start-ups - have pondered why growth sometimes comes fast and sometimes never at all, while the field of business history has given countless examples of growing firms in a range of different settings. Yet despite research across fields, our knowledge of how growth in a firm actually comes about is limited and we still know little about the process. This book offers a new reading of economist Edith Penrose's The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. The bold statement is that although Penrose's work - across fields and generations - is amongst the most quoted on firm growth, the basic points of her work have yet to be realized and explored empirically. Essentially, growth is created by a dynamic interrelation between the firm's self-conception and its image of context. Based on these two subjective categories, the firm makes decisions and its actions lead it to develop along a particular path. To Penrose this is the basic engine that drives the growth and development of firms. This book discusses how the engine of firm growth can be captured in empirical analysis using interpretative theory and narrative methods inspired by recent streams of research in business history.

This book presents 3D3C platforms - three-dimensional systems for community, creation and commerce. It discusses tools including bots in social networks, team creativity, privacy, and virtual currencies & micropayments as well as their applications in areas like healthcare, energy, collaboration, and art. More than 20 authors from 10 countries share their experiences, research fi ndings and perspectives, off ering a comprehensive resource on the emerging fi eld of 3D3C worlds. The book is designed for both the novice and the expert as a way to unleash the emerging opportunities in 3D3C worlds. This Handbook maps with breadth and insight the exciting frontier of building virtual worlds with digital technologies. David Perkins, Research Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education This book is from one of the most adventurous and energetic persons I have ever met. Yesha takes us into new undiscovered spaces and provides insight into phenomena of social interaction and immersive experiences that transform our lives. Cees de Bont, Dean of School of Design & Chair Professor of Design, School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University When you read 3D3C Platforms you realize what a domain like ours -- 3D printing -- can and should do for the world. Clearly we are just starting. Inspiring.David Reis, CEO, Stratasys Ltd This book provides a stunning overview regarding how virtual worlds are reshaping possibilities for identity and community. Th e range of topics addressed by the authors- from privacy and taxation to fashion and health care-provide a powerful roadmap for addressing the emerging potential of these online environments. Tom Boellstorff , Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine Handbook on 3D3C Platforms amassed a unique collection of multidisciplinary academic thinking. A primer on innovations that will touch every aspect of the human community in the 21st century. Eli Talmor, Professor, London Business School

Includes global case studies of organizations in the cultural sector to facilitate translation of theory into practice Author team combines academic and practitioner expertise Unique combination of fundraising and creative/cultural industries

This is the fifth volume in a series dealing with such topics as information systems practice and theory, information systems and the accounting/auditing environment, and differing perspectives on information systems research.

This book explores all relevant aspects of net scoring, also known as uplift modeling: a data mining approach used to analyze and predict the effects of a given treatment on a desired target variable for an individual observation. After discussing modern net score modeling methods, data preparation, and the assessment of uplift models, the book investigates software implementations and real-world scenarios. Focusing on the application of theoretical results and on practical issues of uplift modeling, it also includes a dedicated chapter on software solutions in SAS, R, Spectrum Miner, and KNIME, which compares the respective tools. This book also presents the applications of net scoring in various contexts, e.g. medical treatment, with a special emphasis on direct marketing and corresponding business cases. The target audience primarily includes data scientists, especially researchers and practitioners in predictive modeling and scoring, mainly, but not exclusively, in the marketing context.

The short history of the International Working Conference on Educating Professionals for Network Centric Organizations is a good illustration of the tremendous rate of development of global networking, its impact and of its deep penetration into management of business, industty and administration. In 1996, when the theme and name of the conference had been set, there was yet no heavy use of networks in the fields just mentioned. However, it has been already established well enough to enable those with a visionary sense to feel that it will be an important subject and it could be an interesting theme for a conference to be held within two years. It seemed a risky decision at the time but it turned out to be very successful when conducted in 1998. It has been stated that "it took until 1997 for the business world to discover the Internet." In less than two years, the Internet and the Intranets are a vital component for running major parts of the business world. This fast pace puts some pressure on writing papers and holding a conferenc- effort has to be made to have meaningful contents despite the changes. A time span of 9 months between writing a paper and having it published, seemed once to be very short, but it is not so any more when referring to a dynamic issue like global networking.

This book summarizes the results of Design Thinking Research carried out at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA and Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. The authors offer readers a closer look at Design Thinking with its processes of innovations and methods. The contents of the articles range from how to design ideas, methods and technologies via creativity experiments and wicked problem solutions, to creative collaboration in the real world and the connectivity of designers and engineers. But the topics go beyond this in their detailed exploration of design thinking and its use in IT systems engineering fields and even from a management perspective. The authors show how these methods and strategies work in companies, introduce new technologies and their functions and demonstrate how Design Thinking can influence as diverse a topic area as marriage. Furthermore, we see how special design thinking use functions in solving wicked problems in complex fields. Thinking and creating innovations are basically and inherently human - so is Design Thinking. Due to this, Design Thinking is not only a factual matter or a result of special courses nor of being gifted or trained: it's a way of dealing with our environment and improving techniques, technologies and life.

"Everybody loves an innovation, an idea that sells." But how do we arrive at such ideas that sell? And is it possible to learn how to become an innovator? Over the years Design Thinking - a program originally developed in the engineering department of Stanford University and offered by the two D-schools at the Hasso Plattner Institutes in Stanford and in Potsdam - has proved to be really successful in educating innovators. It blends an end-user focus with multidisciplinary collaboration and iterative improvement to produce innovative products, systems, and services. Design Thinking creates a vibrant interactive environment that promotes learning through rapid conceptual prototyping. In 2008, the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program was initiated, a venture that encourages multidisciplinary teams to investigate various phenomena of innovation in its technical, business, and human aspects. The researchers are guided by two general questions: 1. What are people really thinking and doing when they are engaged in creative design innovation? How can new frameworks, tools, systems, and methods augment, capture, and reuse successful practices? 2. What is the impact on technology, business, and human performance when design thinking is practiced? How do the tools, systems, and methods really work to get the innovation you want when you want it? How do they fail? In this book, the researchers take a system's view that begins with a demand for deep, evidence-based understanding of design thinking phenomena. They continue with an exploration of tools which can help improve the adaptive expertise needed for design thinking. The final part of the book concerns design thinking in information technology and its relevance for business process modeling and agile software development, i.e. real world creation and deployment of products, services, and enterprise systems.

This book is a guide to asset and risk management from a practical point of view. It is centered around two questions triggered by the global events on the stock markets since the middle of the last decade:

- Why do crashes happen when in theory they should not?

- How do investors deal with such crises in terms of their risk measurement and management and as a consequence, what are the implications for the chosen investment strategies?

The book presents and discusses two different approaches to finance and investing, i.e., modern portfolio theory and behavioral finance, and provides an overview of stock market anomalies and historical crashes. It is intended to serve as a comprehensive introduction to asset and risk management for bachelor s and master s students in this field as well as for young professionals in the asset management industry. A key part of this bookis the exercises to further demonstrate the concepts presented with examples and a step-by-step business case. AnExcel file with the calculations and solutions for all 17 examples as well as all business case calculations can be downloaded at extras.springer.com."

Virtual reality--one of the most advanced and exciting technologies to emerge in recent decades--offers businesspeople a new way to grasp information and use it quickly and effectively. By literally experiencing information in an artificially created computer generated world instead of reading, hearing, or viewing it on a screen, businesspeople can get information in a way that has proved most successful and most natural for humans. The result is saved time and money, savings that are essential to any enterprise if it is to survive and prosper in today's fast-paced, competitive business environment. The first book to explore virtual reality strictly for businesspeople, Virtual Reality Systems in Business provides essential information not only on theory and the scientific underpinnings of this new technology, but also on its methods, purposes, and day-to-day applications.

Readers will learn how virtual reality applies to retailing, marketing, design, manufacturing, accounting, finance, training, human resource management, and other functions critical to the operations of any organization, public or private. They will learn the types of hardware and software currently available to develop the virtual worlds they need in their specific organizations, and how to procure them from vendors. Also covered are the methodologies by which computer professionals can develop their own virtual reality systems, and the relationship between virtual reality systems and computer databases and data communications. Explained too is the basic framework underlying business-oriented virtual reality systems and how these systems tie in with nonbusiness oriented systems. A major contribution to our understanding of today's technologies and the benefits that will accrue from them in years to come.

Researchinbothacademicandnon-academiccircleshasremainedvirtuallyiden- calinitsconductandorganizationoverthelastfewdecades. Disparategroupsof researchershaveworkedontheirideas,projectsandinventionsinisolatedclusters, withlittlesharingofinformationandsynergiesfromcollaboration. Theadventof social networks and Web technologies has led to the creation of new research networksthathavedramaticallyreducedthebarriersandobstaclestocollaboration forresearcherswhoaregeographicallyandorganizationallydistant. Webtechnologiesusebroadbandconnections,improvedbrowsers,and"rich" multimediainconcertwithanewgenerationofwebsitesthatencouragedusersto contribute to content. Blogs, forums, wikis, and other forms of user-generated contentare,inmanycases,themajorsourceofcontentforthesewebsites. Theevolutionofsocialnetworksbeganwiththetrulysocialnetworksoffriends pavingthewayforbusinessnetworks,whichinturnledtothecurrentresearch networksthatconnectacademicandnon-academicresearchersacrosstheworld. Beingmuchmorerobustthantheoriginalsocialnetworksandthebusinessn- worksthatfollowed,collaborativeresearchnetworkshavethepotentialtoeven- ate in technological advances, innovation, and economic contributions to both industryandnations. Currently,tensofthousandsofresearchersareusingresearchnetworks,ushering in a new paradigm for research. In this paradigm, collaboration is made much easier,andsharingofresearchknowledgeisinstant. Synergiesfromroutinecoll- oration will yield huge advances in research productivity and innovation. The challengeforadministratorsinbothindustryandacademiaistounderstandhow researchnetworksarechangingthepracticeofresearchandtodecidehowbestto embracesuchtechnologiesandusethemtotheirbestadvantage. v . Contents PartI e-ResearchCollaboration:Theory AnOverviewofe-ResearchCollaboration ...3 1 Introduction...3 2 SocialNetworksandResearchCollaboration ...6 3 WebTechnologies,SocialNetworksande-ResearchCollaboration...6 4 AnOverviewofThisBook...7 5 PartOne:e-ResearchCollaboration:Theory...8 6 PartTwo:e-ResearchCollaboration:Technologies...9 7 PartThree:e-ResearchCollaboration:Challenges...10 8 Conclusions...12 References...1 2 AnAnatomyofCollaborationWithintheOnlineEnvironment ...15 1 IntroductiontoCollaborationTheory...15 2 De?ningCollaboration...16 2. 1 Cooperation...16 2. 2 Coordination...17 2. 3 Collaboration...18 3 EssentialElementsofCollaboration...19 3. 1 Communication...19 3. 2 TrustandRespect ...20 3. 3 EqualityandPower...21 3. 4 StrategicAlliances...22 3. 5 IncentiveandValue...23 3. 6 Negotiation...23 3. 7 Inter-organisationalKnowledgeSharing...24 vii viii Contents 4 ComparisonofCooperation,CoordinationandCollaboration...25 5 PracticalImplicationsforCollaborationTheory...30 References...32 Time,PlaceandCyberspace:FoundationsforSuccessful e-ResearchCollaboration ...35 1 Introduction...35 2 Context:RoleofCommunicationinCollaborations ...36 3 Methodology:CaseStudyofDigitalHumanitiesCommunity...39 4 Findings:e-ResearchCommunicationTools,UsesandDrawbacks...40 5 ImplicationsofResearchResults:FindingtheBalance Betweene-ResearchToolsandIn-personCommunications...43 6 ConclusionsandRecommendationsforGlobalResearchTeams...46 References...47 GapsandBridgesinInterdisciplinaryKnowledgeIntegration ...49 1 Introduction...49 2 KnowledgeIntegrationWithinandBeyondEpistemicCultures...5 1 3 ThePuzzleofInterdisciplinaryKnowledgeIntegration...51 4 ResearchApproach...54 5 COMDEV ...54 6 CollaborationGapsandBridges...55 6. 1 CollaborationBridges...56 7 EntrepreneurialGaps ...57 8 EntrepreneurialBridges...59 9 Conclusion...60 References...63 BuildingaConceptualFrameworkforCreatingNewKnowledge ThroughaVirtualInterdisciplinaryEnvironmentProcess ...

This book attempts to link some of the recent advances in crowdsourcing with advances in innovation and management. It contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it provides a global definition, insights and examples of this managerial perspective resulting in a theoretical framework. Second, it explores the relationship between crowdsourcing and technological innovation, the development of social networks and new behaviors of Internet users. Third, it explores different crowdsourcing applications in various sectors such as medicine, tourism, information and communication technology (ICT), and marketing. Fourth, it observes the ways in which crowdsourcing can improve production, finance, management and overall managerial performance. Crowdsourcing, also known as "massive outsourcing" or "voluntary outsourcing," is the act of taking a job or a specific task usually performed by an employee of a company or contractors, and outsourcing it to a large group of people or a community (crowd or mass) via the Internet, through an open call. The term was coined by Jeff Howe in a 2006 issue of Wired magazine. It is being developed in different sciences (i.e., medicine, engineering, ICT, management) and is used in the most successful companies of the modern era (i.e., Apple, Facebook, Inditex, Starbucks). The developments in crowdsourcing has theoretical and practical implications, which will be explored in this book. Including contributions from international academics, scholars and professionals within the field, this book provides a global, multidimensional perspective on crowdsourcing.

As the use of digital technology has grown, so necessarily has the body of research into its effects at the personal, group and organizational levels, but there is no one book that looks at how digital technology has specifically influenced creativity. Digital Creativity: Individuals, Groups, and Organizations discusses all spectrums of influence that digital technologies have on creativity from the individual, team, and organization level. This book offers a new kind of creativity model encompassing all three levels of creativity. It combines each level into a unified creativity framework in which organizations regardless of their industry types could benefit in reengineering their business processes as well as strategies. For this purpose, the book considers various factors that would affect creativity- individuals' digital efficacy, heterogeneity among members (i.e., age, gender, races, tenure, education, and culture, etc), CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication), task complexity, exploitation, exploration, culture, organizational learning capability, and knowledge networks among members. This book introduces a theorized and systematic glimpse into the exciting realm of digital creativity. It is organized with contents starting from individuals to teams and ultimately to organizations, each with various techniques and cases. Each chapter shows how individuals, teams, and organizations can become more creative through use of digital technologies.

The new organizational paradigms of global cooperation and collaboration require new ways and means for their support. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can and will play a significant role in this support. However, the many currently available and seemingly conflicting solutions, the confusing terminology, the lack of business justification, and last but not least the insufficient understanding of the technology by the end user community has significantly hampered the large scale application of the relevant ICT support and thereby the acceptance of the new paradigms.

Many of these issues have been addressed in the workshops of the international initiative on Enterprise Inter- and Intra-Organizational Integration, which has been supported by the European IST Programme and NIST. The main subjects of the initiative: relations between knowledge management and business process modeling, interoperability of business processes and process models, enterprise engineering and integration, and representation of process models. Ontologies and agent technologies - the latter with their relations to ontologies and models - have been further subjects of discussions in several workshops.

Results of the initiative are reported in this volume, which comprises the proceedings of the International Conference on Enterprise Integration and Modeling Technology (ICEIMT'02). The conference was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in Valencia, Spain in April 2002.

Enterprise Inter- and Intra-Organizational Integration: Building International Consensus provides not only a wealth of information on the state of the art of the subjects of theinitiative, it also identifies opportunities for research and development. Potential projects are identified in the work group reports and some of those will be taken up by organizations involved.

Business Principles for Landscape Contracting, fully revised and updated in its third edition, is an introduction to the application of business principles of financial management involved in setting up your own landscape contracting business and beginning your professional career. Appealing to students and professionals alike, it will build your knowledge of financial management tools and enable you to relate their applications to real-life business scenarios. Focusing on the importance of proactive financial management, the book serves as a primer for students in landscape architecture, contracting, and management courses and entrepreneurs within the landscape industry preparing to use business principles in practice. Topics covered include: Financial management and accountability Budget development Profitable pricing and estimating Project management Creating a lean culture Personnel management and employee productivity Professional development Economic sustainability.

During the last two decades, there have been many reports about the success and failure of investments in ICT and information systems. Failures in particular have drawn a lot of attention. The outcome of the implementation of information and communication systems has often been disastrous. Recent research does not show that results have improved. This raises the question why so many ICT projects perform so badly. Information, Organization and Information Systems Design: An Integrated Approach to Information Problems aims at discussing measures to improve the results of information systems. Bart Prakken identifies various factors that explain the shortfall of information systems. Subsequently, he provides a profound discussion of the measures that can be taken to remove the causes of failure. When organizations are confronted with information problems, they will almost automatically look for ICT solutions. However, Prakken argues that more fundamental and often cheaper solutions are in many cases available. When looking for solutions to information problems, the inter-relationship between organization, information and the people within the organization should explicitly be taken into account. The measures that the author proposes are based on organizational redesign, particularly using the sociotechnical approach. In cases where ICT solutions do have to be introduced, Prakken discusses a number of precautionary measures that will help their implementation. The book aims to contribute to the scientific debate on how to solve information problems, and can be used in graduate and postgraduate courses. It is also helpful to managers.

What will business software look like in the future? And how will it be developed?

This book covers the proceedings of the first international conference on Future Business Software - a new think tank discussing the trends in enterprise software with speakers from Europe's most successful software companies and the leading research institutions. The articles focus on two of the most prominent trends in the field: emergent software and agile development processes.

"Emergent Software" is a new paradigm of software development that addresses the highly complex requirements of tomorrow's business software and aims at dynamically and flexibly combining a business software solution's different components in order to fulfill customers' needs with a minimum of effort. Agile development processes are the response of software technology to the implementation of diverse and rapidly changing software requirements. A major focus is on the minimization of project risks, e.g. through short, iterative development cycles, test-driven development and an intensive culture of communication."

This reference examines a wide range of environmental factors, both internal and external, that contribute to complexity.

This series is dedicated to developments in accounting information systems. Each volume is structured into three sections: information systems practice and theory; information systems and the accounting/auditing environment; and perspectives on information systems research. This volume includes evidence from three experiments relating to the effect of socioeconomic background on computer anxiety and performance. Other areas covered include audit expert system development, users affective responses to information systems through an empirical comparison of four operationalizations, articulating accounting database queries, audit decision aids and integrating group support systems into the accounting environment.

th This volume gathers together the technical papers presented at the 8 European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW), held in Helsinki Finland. ECSCW is an international forum for multidisciplinary research covering the technical, empirical, and theoretical aspects of collaboration and computer systems. The 20 papers presented here have been selected via a rigorous reviewing process from 110 submissions. Both the number of submissions and the quality of the selected papers are testimony to the diversity and energy of the CSCW community. We trust that you will find the papers interesting and that they will serve to stimulate further quality work within the community. The technical papers are complemented by a wider set of activities at ECSCW 2003, including tutorials, workshops, demonstrations, videos, posters and a doctoral colloquium. Together these provide rich opportunities for discussion, learning and exploration of the more recent and novel issues in the field. This conference could not have taken place without considerable enthusiasm, support and participation, not to mention the hard work of a number of people. In particular, we would like to thank the following: * The authors, representing over 17 countries and 97 institutions, who submitted a paper. So many submissions of such high quality are the basis of a good conference. * The members of the program committee who so diligently reviewed and discussed papers. Their collective decisions result in a good scientific program and their feedback to authors strengthens the work of the community.

This book starts with an introduction to process modeling and process paradigms, then explains how to query and analyze process models, and how to analyze the process execution data. In this way, readers receive a comprehensive overview of what is needed to identify, understand and improve business processes. The book chiefly focuses on concepts, techniques and methods. It covers a large body of knowledge on process analytics - including process data querying, analysis, matching and correlating process data and models - to help practitioners and researchers understand the underlying concepts, problems, methods, tools and techniques involved in modern process analytics. Following an introduction to basic business process and process analytics concepts, it describes the state of the art in this area before examining different analytics techniques in detail. In this regard, the book covers analytics over different levels of process abstractions, from process execution data and methods for linking and correlating process execution data, to inferring process models, querying process execution data and process models, and scalable process data analytics methods. In addition, it provides a review of commercial process analytics tools and their practical applications. The book is intended for a broad readership interested in business process management and process analytics. It provides researchers with an introduction to these fields by comprehensively classifying the current state of research, by describing in-depth techniques and methods, and by highlighting future research directions. Lecturers will find a wealth of material to choose from for a variety of courses, ranging from undergraduate courses in business process management to graduate courses in business process analytics. Lastly, it offers professionals a reference guide to the state of the art in commercial tools and techniques, complemented by many real-world use case scenarios.

This book is about using information in small businesses to compete; it is about strategy and information systems. It examines problems that these businesses face and suggests some solutions. It looks at how strategie planning takes place and how information systems should be designed and developed in line with strategy, from a business rather than a purely technical point ofview. The main contribution made is proposing an approach to crafting strategy, designing new business processes and information systems planning that could realistically be used by the average small business, that is one without great knowledge of strategy or information systems, and one that cannot afford to buy in this knowledge. The approach differs from others suggested in the literature in that it emphasises the important role of creativity in the process of creating strategy and in information system design and illustrates where this creativity may come from, it emphasises the importance of getting staff involved and it attempts to lessen the communication problems that exists between business people and information system developers, something that historically has caused problems.

Globalization of business, internationalization of trade, and increasing prevalence of multi-cultural interdisciplinary teams are beginning to redefine the nature of office work. Different-time/different-place/different-culture teams will become the norm. Same-time/same-place/same-culture teams will become the exception. The International Office of the Future (IOF) will be a dramatically different environment than that which exists in the majority of today's organizations. Prospects for the IOF give rise to numerous questions, which are addressed in this book. What are the salient issues? What design options or solution strategies exist to address these issues? How might these design options be best implemented? What are their implications? In addition, a number of specific topics will be discussed including: multi-cultural team productivity, IT platform requirements, and global telecommunications.

Japan is a tiny country that occupies only 0.25% of the world's total land area. However, this small country is the world's third largest in economy: the Japanese GDP is roughly equivalent to the sum of any two major countries in Europe as of 2012. This book is a first attempt to ask leaders of top Japanese companies, such as Toyota, about their thoughts on mathematics. The topics range from mathematical problems in specific areas (e.g., exploration of natural resources, communication networks, finance) to mathematical strategy that helps a leader who has to weigh many different issues and make decisions in a timely manner, and even to mathematical literacy that ensures quality control. The reader may notice that every article reflects the authors' way of life and thinking, which can be evident in even one sentence. This book is an enlarged English edition of the Japanese book What Mathematics Can Do for You: Essays and Tips from Japanese Industry Leaders. In this edition we have invited the contributions of three mathematicians who have been working to expand and strengthen the interaction between mathematics and industry. The role of mathematics is usually invisible when it is applied effectively and smoothly in science and technology, and mathematical strategy is often hidden when it is used properly and successfully. The business leaders in successful top Japanese companies are well aware of this invisible feature of mathematics in applications aside from the intrinsic depth of mathematics. What Mathematics Can Do for You ultimately provides the reader an opportunity to notice what is hidden but key to business strategy.

The first Digital Enterprise Technology (DET) International Conference was held in Durham, UK in 2002 and the second DET Conference in Seattle, USA in 2004. Sponsored by CIRP (College International pour la Recherche en Productique), the third DET Conference took place in Setubal, Portugal in 2006. Digital Enterprise Technology: Perspectives and Future Challenges is an edited volume based on this conference. Topics include: distributed and collaborative design, process modeling and process planning, advanced factory equipment and layout design and modeling, physical-to-digital environment integrators, enterprise integration technologies, and entrepreneurship in DET.