"Rational Decision Making for Managers" provides students with a basic understanding of quantitative and analytical techniques that managers use to make complex business decisions and helps them to recognise when they are appropriate. Sarah Keast and Mike Towler also show the characteristics of the decisions that can be informed by the use of each technique, thereby guiding the reader in their choice.

"Rational Decision Making for Managers" features: separate chapters on robustness analysis and game theorya strong contextual discussion and clear structurea concise mathematical appendix

The book is essential reading for students studying business decision making, quantitative methods and business research methods.

This book outlines the benefits and limitations of simulation, what is involved in setting up a simulation capability in an organization, the steps involved in developing a simulation model and how to ensure that model results are implemented. In addition, detailed example applications are provided to show where the tool is useful and what it can offer the decision maker. In Simulating Business Processes for Descriptive, Predictive, and Prescriptive Analytics, Andrew Greasley provides an in-depth discussion of Business process simulation and how it can enable business analytics How business process simulation can provide speed, cost, dependability, quality, and flexibility metrics Industrial case studies including improving service delivery while ensuring an efficient use of staff in public sector organizations such as the police service, testing the capacity of planned production facilities in manufacturing, and ensuring on-time delivery in logistics systems State-of-the-art developments in business process simulation regarding the generation of simulation analytics using process mining and modeling people's behavior Managers and decision makers will learn how simulation provides a faster, cheaper and less risky way of observing the future performance of a real-world system. The book will also benefit personnel already involved in simulation development by providing a business perspective on managing the process of simulation, ensuring simulation results are implemented, and that performance is improved.

How does your team react to change? Do they dig in with their heels to resist it or do they welcome it with open arms? In this 1-hour read, Mac Anderson and Tom Feltenstein take you through each step of change - from the realization that change is a good thing, to implementing that change in every department and across all channels. You may not have a choice about change, but you can choose how you and your team react to it. Change Is Good...You Go First provides the motivation you and your team need to embrace change. The book includes 21 ways to inspire change and objectives to help your team achieve its goals.

Revolutionize meetings! Over 20,000 copies sold - the easy-to-use guide for running democratic meetings of any size The key to promoting true democracy in meetings is clear, easy-to-understand rules of order that support the right of each member to participate fully and equally, and the right of the majority to make decisions while respecting minority rights. An alternative to Robert's Rules of Order and other complicated and unwieldy guides, Democratic Rules of Order is the guide for the rest of us. It lays out clear, concise, easy-to-use rules for governing meetings from clubs and non profits to formal meetings. Benefits include: A complete set of laws for governing meetings Can be read in an hour Plain language, free of complex protocol and jargon to enable equal and efficient participation Tested and honed through thousands of successful meetings Adoptable as the official rules of order for meetings of any size Allows informality, including decisions by consensus, but ensures formality when needed A sample meeting that uses all the rules plus answers to 31 common questions. Now in its tenth edition, and with over 20,000 copies sold, Democratic Rules of Order will produce fair, efficient, and harmonious decisions in meetings of any size or complexity.

Make Better Decisions, Leverage New Opportunities, and Automate Decisioning at Scale Prescriptive analytics is more directly linked to successful decision-making than any other form of business analytics. It can help you systematically sort through your choices to optimize decisions, respond to new opportunities and risks with precision, and continually reflect new information into your decisioning process. In Prescriptive Analytics, analytics expert Dr. Dursun Delen illuminates the field's state-of-the-art methods, offering holistic insight for both professionals and students. Delen's end-to-end, all-inclusive approach covers optimization, simulation, multi-criteria decision-making methods, inference- and heuristic-based decisioning, and more. Balancing theory and practice, he presents intuitive conceptual illustrations, realistic example problems, and real-world case studies-all designed to deliver knowledge you can use. Discover where prescriptive analytics fits and how it improves decision-making Identify optimal solutions for achieving an objective within real-world constraints Analyze complex systems via Monte-Carlo, discrete, and continuous simulations Apply powerful multi-criteria decision-making and mature expert systems and case-based reasoning Preview emerging techniques based on deep learning and cognitive computing

This title was first published in 2000: The International Library of Management is a comprehensive core reference series comprised of the most significant and influential articles by the leading authorities in the management studies field. Volumes in the series include a full-length introduction from the editor, an internationally recognized expert, which provides an authoritative guide to the selection of essays chosen and to the wider field itself. The collections of essays is both international and interdisciplinary in scope and provides an entry point for investigating the myriad of study within the discipline.

Better Governance Across the Board is a practical guide for achieving good corporate governance of organizations regardless of whether they are for profit, listed, state-owned, family owned, or widely held. It delves into the questions boards must ask if they are to fulfill their fiduciary duties, taking account of regulatory issues. Part 1 defines corporate governance, explaining the four reasons why it matters and how it applies to a wide range of organizations. Part 2 explores the "Five P" framework of Purpose, Principles, Power, People, and Processes that helps boards to create sustainable value. Part 3 concludes by showing how the organization's long-term "license to operate" is achieved by boards focusing on the three most important assets of the organization: its reputation; its people, and its processes. This book explores the dilemmas that currently exist in modern approaches to corporate governance and suggests ways of overcoming them. Based on ten years of teaching more than 1,500 directors of publicly listed companies, it integrates key principles of leadership, ethics, branding, and governance into a unique five-factor framework to help directors make good decisions in strategy, risk management, succession planning, internal controls, and stakeholder engagement.

Unleash the transformative power of face to face groups

The third edition of this ground-breaking book continues to advance its mission to support groups to do their best thinking. It demonstrates that meetings can be much more than merely an occasion for solving a problem or creating a plan. Every well-facilitated meeting is also an opportunity to stretch and develop the perspectives of the individual members, thereby building the strength and capacity of the group as a whole.

This fully updated edition of The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making guides readers through the struggle and the satisfaction of putting participatory values into practice, helping them to fulfill the promise of effective group decision-making. With previous editions already embraced by business and community leaders and consulting professionals around the world, this new book is even more insightful and easy to use.

New for this edition: 60 pages of brand new skills and toolsMany new case examplesMajor expansion and reorganization of the advanced sections of the book.New chapter: Teaching A Group About Group DynamicsDoubled in size: Classic Facilitator Challenges.Substantially improved: Designing Realistic Agendas - now three chapters, with wise, insightful answers to the most vexing questions about meeting design.

Evidence-Based Decision-Making: How to Leverage Available Data and Avoid Cognitive Biases examines how a wide range of factual evidence, primarily derived from a variety of data available to organizations, can be used to improve the quality of business decision-making, by helping decision makers circumvent the various cognitive biases that adversely impact how we all think. The book is built on the following premise: During the past decade, the new 'data world' emerged, in which the rush to develop competencies around business analytics and data science can be characterized as nothing less than the new commercial arms race. The ever-expanding volume and variety of data are well known, as are the great advances in data processing/analytics, data visualization, and related information production-focused capabilities. Yet, comparatively little effort has been devoted to how the informational products of business analytics and data science are 'consumed' or used in the organizational decision-making processes, as the available evidence shows that only some of that information is used to drive some business decisions some of the time. Evidence-Based Decision-Making details an explicit process describing how the universe of available and applicable evidence, which includes organizational and other data, industry benchmarks, scientific studies, and professional experience, can be assessed, amalgamated, and funneled into an objective driver of key business decisions. Introducing key concepts in relation to data and evidence, and the history of evidence-based management, this new and extremely topical book will be essential reading for researchers and students of data analytics as well as those working in the private and public sectors, and in the voluntary sector.

Doug Hall shares data-proven methods that can make sales, marketing, and business development measurably more effective.

These conference proceedings focus on the topics of data-driven decision-making, stochastic decision-making, fuzzy decision-making and their applications in real-life problems. Beijing University of Chemical Technology organized IFDS2016, the 4th International Forum on Decision Sciences, with the theme "Data-Driven Decision-Making." The proceedings collect 84 selected papers presenting cutting-edge modeling and solution methods and include numerous practical case studies, making it a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners working in the fields of decision science, operations research, management science and engineering.

In every decision problem there are things we know and things we do not know. Risk analysis science uses the best available evidence to assess what we know while it is carefully intentional in the way it addresses the importance of the things we do not know in the evaluation of decision choices and decision outcomes. The field of risk analysis science continues to expand and grow and the second edition of Principles of Risk Analysis: Decision Making Under Uncertainty responds to this evolution with several significant changes. The language has been updated and expanded throughout the text and the book features several new areas of expansion including five new chapters. The book's simple and straightforward style-based on the author's decades of experience as a risk analyst, trainer, and educator-strips away the mysterious aura that often accompanies risk analysis. Features: Details the tasks of risk management, risk assessment, and risk communication in a straightforward, conceptual manner Provides sufficient detail to empower professionals in any discipline to become risk practitioners Expands the risk management emphasis with a new chapter to serve private industry and a growing public sector interest in the growing practice of enterprise risk management Describes dozens of quantitative and qualitative risk assessment tools in a new chapter Practical guidance and ideas for using risk science to improve decisions and their outcomes is found in a new chapter on decision making under uncertainty Practical methods for helping risk professionals to tell their risk story are the focus of a new chapter Features an expanded set of examples of the risk process that demonstrate the growing applications of risk analysis As before, this book continues to appeal to professionals who want to learn and apply risk science in their own professions as well as students preparing for professional careers. This book remains a discipline free guide to the principles of risk analysis that is accessible to all interested practitioners. Files used in the creation of this book and additional exercises as well as a free student version of Palisade Corporation's Decision Tools Suite software are available with the purchase of this book. A less detailed introduction to the risk analysis science tasks of risk management, risk assessment, and risk communication is found in Primer of Risk Analysis: Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Second Edition, ISBN: 978-1-138-31228-9.

Focus on SAP business analytics business gains, key features, and implementation. The book includes example implementations of SAP business analytics, the challenges faced, and the solutions implemented. SAP Business Analytics explains both the strategy and technical implementation for gathering and analyzing all the information pertaining to an organization. Key features of the book are: A 360-degree view of an organization's data and the methods to gather and analyze that data The strategies that need to be in place to gather relevant data from disparate systems Details about the SAP business analytics suite of products The technical implementations used to gather data from disparate systems such as ERP and CRM Real business cases as examples Analytics is the driving force in today's business, be it healthcare, marketing, telecommunications, or retail and hence the most vital part of any organization's strategy. What You'll Learn Gain an understanding of business analytics in general Absorb the technical details of the SAP business analytics suite of products Discover the challenges faced during an enterprise-level analytics project implementation Learn the key points to be kept in mind during the technical implementation of an SAP business analytics project Who This Book Is For Analytics strategists, BI managers, BI architects, business analysts, and BI developers.

Medical decision making has evolved in recent years, as more complex problems are being faced and addressed based on increasingly large amounts of data. In parallel, advances in computing power have led to a host of new and powerful statistical tools to support decision making. Simulation-based Bayesian methods are especially promising, as they provide a unified framework for data collection, inference, and decision making. In addition, these methods are simple to implement and can help to address the most pressing practical and ethical concerns arising in medical decision making.

• Provides an overview of the necessary methodological background, including Bayesian inference, Monte Carlo simulation, and utility theory.
• Driven by three real applications, presented as extensively detailed case studies.
• Case studies include simplified versions of the analysis, to approach complex modelling in stages.
• Features coverage of meta-analysis, decision analysis, and comprehensive decision modeling.
• Accessible to readers with only a basic statistical knowledge.

This book offers a simple introduction to the theory and practice of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) without a pre-requisite for a sophisticated mathematical background. AHP is an intuitive and mathematically simple methodology in the field of multi-criteria decision making in Operational Research (OR). Using Super Decisions v3, the newly developed software by the Creative Decisions Foundations, this book provides a quick and intuitive understanding of AHP using spreadsheet examples and step-by-step software instructions. Super Decisions v3 marks a drastic departure from the previous version 2 in terms of interface and ratings model development. In addition to a concise guide, instructional videos are also available to demonstrate how to use the different features of Super Decisions v3. Most AHP books assume the reader has basic OR mathematical background; however, AHP was developed with the goal that decision makers can take advantage of this methodology without struggling with the mathematics behind it. For this reason, only basic arithmetic knowledge is required from the readers. In conclusion, this book delivers a quick and practical understanding of the AHP methodology that can be useful for corporate executives and decision-makers in all fields.

800-CEO-READ BESTSELLER Featured in Fortune, Harvard Business Review, and Entrepreneur, Go Long is "mandatory reading for the CEOs and boards of all public companies," according to David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group. The lifespans of companies are growing shorter each day. Why do some companies thrive and grow, while others fail? Inspired by the CEO Academy, the annual off-the-record gathering of chief executives organized by the authors, reveals how some of the world's most prominent business leaders resisted short-term pressures to successfully manage their organizations for the long term, and in turn, aim to create more jobs, more satisfied customers, and more shareholder wealth. In Go Long, authors Dennis Carey, Brian Dumaine, Michael Useem, and Rodney Zemmel take you behind the scenes to witness the business decisions that are enabling leading organizations to outsmart and outlast the competition. Why did CEO Larry Merlo allow CVS to take a $2 billion hit-on purpose? How did former CEO Alan Mulally maneuver Ford's $48 billion turnaround? How did director Maggie Wilderotter and her fellow board members engage top management to embark on an unusual exercise to help Hewlett Packard Enterprise build a long-term strategy? Why did former CEO Paul Polman turn back to Unilever's original mission of leading with a purpose to fuel profits? How did former Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg convince his investors and board to allow him to make a $150 billion bet? How did former CEO George Buckley find a way to address investor calls for 3M to spend less on research and development while still finding a way to innovate? These leaders argue that a short-term mindset might satisfy investors for this quarter or next, but there's a heavy price to be paid. Instead, they argue, long-term thinking is your best short-term strategy. "Considering the enormous harm that short-term investing has done not only to companies, but to countries as well, this book should be required reading in boardrooms everywhere. A concise, powerful call for responsible, long-term business practices."-Kirkus Reviews "A must-read. If you're looking to build or lead a company that grows consistently not just from quarter to quarter, but year to year ... this book is for you."-Indra Nooyi, Board of Directors, Amazon; former Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo, Inc.

The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness'why some companies make the leap and others don't.

The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

• Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
• The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
• A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

Political speeches don't just mirror what transpires in the world; they have the potential to change people's minds, move them into action, reinforce existing assumptions, and reshape cultures. They define public participation and are the 'nexus points' of disparate discourses, both nationally and globally. Because of their power to sustain the status quo or effect change, speeches warrant public attention and careful study. To examine them is to understand how they are crafted, what elements they possess, and how these elements come together to affect their audience. This volume analyzes selected speeches delivered by Benigno 'Noynoy' Simeon C. Aquino III, President of the Republic of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. They are speeches that have been used to shape public perception, gain support, and build identification between Aquino's presidency and his audience. By mobilizing the concepts of presidential image, myth, metaphors, and rhetorical citizenship, readers are guided through a process of examining the rhetorical trajectory of the Philippine presidency, how a president's discourse has attempted to shape Philippine socio-political reality, and how the evolving milieu the president has found himself in shapes his discourse. The essays in this volume will hopefully generate a discussion not only on the place of President Benigno Aquino's rhetoric in Philippine presidential history, but also of how rhetorical practices in an evolving democratic society in Asia can extend and expand theorizations of presidential rhetoric and political communication at large.

The most difficult part of making decisions in the health care field on all levels (national, regional, institutional, patient) is linked to the very complexity of the system itself, to the intrinsic uncertainty involved and its dynamic nature. This requires not only the ability to analyze and interpret a large amount of information but also arrange it so that it becomes a cognitive base for appropriate decision-making. Moreover, decisions in the health care field are subjected to many challenges and constraints: fast change and uncertain outcomes, aging population, increasing citizen expectations, equity considerations and limited resources. Operations research, statistical and economic-related quantitative methods supply these decisions making tools and methodology. The contributed book presents a collection of applications to concrete situations detailing the problem area, the methodology employed, the implementation and results. Each topic addressed in the book will be structured in such a way that an interdisciplinary and wide audience will be able to use the materials presented. As an example the book chapters will address health policies issues, planning health services, epidemiology and disease modelling, home-care modelling, logistics in health care, capacity planning, quality and appropriateness.

WINNER: Business Book Awards 2022 - Leadership Your biggest asset in leadership is you. How can you expect people to trust and believe in you, if you aren't truthful and don't embrace your whole self at work? There is a need for a new kind of leadership; one that bleeds personality and rings true to employees and customers alike who crave authenticity. You Lead argues that business leaders deliver superior results, communities of engagement both inside and outside of the company and true values-driven success when they are themselves and come across as genuine. Bestselling author, Minter Dial, shows readers how embracing your whole self at work encourages people to also be themselves, seek true fulfilment at work and merge the personal and professional to become true examples of what you stand for. You Lead is a call to arms to leaders to stop pretending to be who they are not, and play on their uniqueness and strengths, to allow people to do the same and develop a culture of authenticity and purpose. With practical advice, real-life stories and a simple framework, this book shows you how you can: - Be yourself, lead by example and merge the professional and personal - Stand for something and allow people to develop true purpose at work - Allow a community to flourish through the right kind of governance model - Radiate your purpose through employees and customers alike for long-term performance

This book fills a void for a balanced approach to spreadsheet-based decision modeling. In addition to using spreadsheets as a tool to quickly set up and solve decision models, the authors show how and why the methods work and combine the user's power to logically model and analyze diverse decision-making scenarios with software-based solutions. The book discusses the fundamental concepts, assumptions and limitations behind each decision modeling technique, shows how each decision model works, and illustrates the real-world usefulness of each technique with many applications from both profit and nonprofit organizations. The authors provide an introduction to managerial decision modeling, linear programming models, modeling applications and sensitivity analysis, transportation, assignment and network models, integer, goal, and nonlinear programming models, project management, decision theory, queuing models, simulation modeling, forecasting models and inventory control models. The additional material files Chapter 12 Excel files for each chapter Excel modules for Windows Excel modules for Mac 4th edition errata can be found at https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/486941

This book is about how models can be developed to represent demand and supply on markets, where the emphasis is on demand models. Its primary focus is on models that can be used by managers to support marketing decisions. Modeling Markets presents a comprehensive overview of the tools and methodologies that managers can use in decision making. It has long been known that even simple models outperform judgments in predicting outcomes in a wide variety of contexts. More complex models potentially provide insights about structural relations not available from casual observations. In this book, the authors present a wealth of insights developed at the forefront of the field, covering all key aspects of specification, estimation, validation and use of models. The most current insights and innovations in quantitative marketing are presented, including in-depth discussion of Bayesian estimation methods. Throughout the book, the authors provide examples and illustrations. This book will be of interest to researchers, analysts, managers and students who want to understand, develop or use models of marketing phenomena.

Why Everyone Needs Analytical Skills Welcome to the age of data. No matter your interests (sports, movies, politics), your industry (finance, marketing, technology, manufacturing), or the type of organization you work for (big company, nonprofit, small start-up)--your world is awash with data. As a successful manager today, you must be able to make sense of all this information. You need to be conversant with analytical terminology and methods and able to work with quantitative information. This book promises to become your "quantitative literacy" guide--helping you develop the analytical skills you need right now in order to summarize data, find the meaning in it, and extract its value. In Keeping Up with the Quants, authors, professors, and analytics experts Thomas Davenport and Jinho Kim offer practical tools to improve your understanding of data analytics and enhance your thinking and decision making. You'll gain crucial skills, including: * How to formulate a hypothesis * How to gather and analyze relevant data * How to interpret and communicate analytical results * How to develop habits of quantitative thinking * How to deal effectively with the "quants" in your organization Big data and the analytics based on it promise to change virtually every industry and business function over the next decade. If you don't have a business degree or if you aren't comfortable with statistics and quantitative methods, this book is for you. Keeping Up with the Quants will give you the skills you need to master this new challenge--and gain a significant competitive edge.