"Whether by design, accident or merely synchronicity, Checkland appears to have developed a habit of writing seminal publications near the start of each decade which establish the basis and framework for systems methodology research for that decade." Hamish Rennie, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 1992

Thirty years ago Peter Checkland set out to test whether the Systems Engineering (SE) approach, highly successful in technical problems, could be used by managers coping with the unfolding complexities of organizational life. The straightforward transfer of SE to the broader situations of management was not possible, but by insisting on a combination of systems thinking strongly linked to real-world practice Checkland and his collaborators developed an alternative approach - Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) - which enables managers of all kinds and at any level to deal with the subtleties and confusions of the situations they face. This work established the now accepted distinction between ‘hard’ systems thinking, in which parts of the world are taken to be ‘systems’ which can be ‘engineered’, and ‘soft’ systems thinking in which the focus is on making sure the process of inquiry into real-world complexity is itself a system for learning. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (1981) and Soft Systems Methodology in Action (1990) together with an earlier paper Towards a Systems-based Methodology for Real-World Problem Solving (1972) have long been recognized as classics in the field. Now Peter Checkland has looked back over the three decades of SSM development, brought the account of it up to date, and reflected on the whole evolutionary process which has produced a mature SSM. SSM: A 30-Year Retrospective, here included with Systems Thinking, Systems Practice closes a chapter on what is undoubtedly the most significant single research programme on the use of systems ideas in problem solving. Now retired from full-time university work, Peter Checkland continues his research as a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow.

When The Knowledge-Creating Company appeared, it was hailed as a landmark work in the field of knowledge management. Now, Enabling Knowledge Creation ventures even further into this all-important territory, showing how firms can generate and nurture ideas by using the concepts introduced in the first book.

Games, or contexts of strategic interaction, pervade and suffuse our lives and the lives of all organisms. How are we to make sense of and cope with such situations? How should an agent play? When will and when won't cooperation arise and be maintained? Using examples and a careful digestion of the literature, Agents, Games, and Evolution: Strategies at Work and Play addresses these encompassing themes throughout, and is organized into four parts: Part I introduces classical game theory and strategy selection. It compares ideally rational and the "naturalist" approach used by this book, which focuses on how actual agents chose their strategies, and the effects of these strategies on model systems. Part II explores a number of basic games, using models in which agents have fixed strategies. This section draws heavily on the substantial literature associated with the relevant application areas in the social sciences. Part III reviews core results and applications of agent-based models in which strategic interaction is present and for which design issues have genuine practical import. This section draws heavily on the substantial literature associated with the application area to hand. Part IV addresses miscellaneous topics in strategic interaction, including lying in negotiations, reasoning by backward induction, and evolutionary models. Modeled after the authors' Agents, Games, and Evolution course at the University of Pennsylvania, this book keeps mathematics to a minimum, focusing on computational strategies and useful methods for dealing with a variety of situations.

An economy low in carbon and high in life satisfaction will require thousands, if not millions of exceptional leaders. This book is the first to bring together sustainability knowledge with the leadership skills and tools to help you become one of those leaders. In it you will find everything you need to get started straight away, and to grow your effectiveness, even in a world that remains perversely intent on the opposite. Whether you are new to the whole idea of sustainability, or reasonably well informed but not entirely confident about what to do for the best, this guide will help you 'do' sustainability. Free of checklists and policy recommendations, the focus is on you, and on developing your capacity to identify the right thing to do wherever you are and whatever your circumstances. This is essential reading for those in or aspiring to sustainability-literate leadership, and a must for all those teaching leadership and management.

"Environmental Finance provides a thorough, objective discussion of the environmental risk issues facing financial institutions and how to effectively manage both the challenges and opportunities they present. A very current, informative and comprehensive reference."
–James R. Evans, Manager, Environmental Risk Management
RBC Financial Group

Today, environmentally irresponsible companies run the risk of hurting their bottom line as well as their image. As a result, environmental risk is reshaping the way insurance companies underwrite to corporate clients, banks lend, investors invest, and companies operate. Banks and insurance companies are also developing new environmental financial products to help their corporate customers protect their bottom line against changes in environmental legislation and the impact of adverse weather and climate change.

Environmental Finance: A Guide to Environmental Risk Assessment and Financial Products is one of the first books to explore this emerging field. This comprehensive reference opens with a discussion of the concepts and tools used by financial institutions to develop environmental policies and products, and then details how recent changes in the financial services sector have affected the capacity of companies to respond to the environmental challenge. From here you’ll learn about innovative new products such as tradable pollution permits, weather derivatives, catastrophe bonds, and many other market-based solutions that are being created in response to every type of environmental problem–from hurricanes to asbestos.

The financial and social consequences of environmental risk will continue to grow. Learn how to hedge these risks and come out on top with Environmental Finance as your guide.

Decision-making tools are needed to support environmental management in an increasingly global economy. Addressing threats and identifying actions to mitigate those threats necessitates an understanding of the basic risk assessment paradigm and the tools of risk analysis to assess, interpret, and communicate risks. It also requires modification of the risk paradigm itself to incorporate a complex array of quantitative and qualitative information that shapes the unique political and ecological challenges of different countries and regions around the world. This book builds a foundation to characterize and assess a broad range of human and ecological stressors, and risk management approaches to address those stressors, using chemical risk assessment methods and multi-criteria decision analysis tools. Chapters discuss the current state-of-knowledge with regard to emerging stressors and risk management, focusing on the adequacy of available systematic, quantitative tools to guide vulnerability and threat assessments, evaluate the consequences of different events and responses, and support decision-making. This book opens a dialogue on aspects of risk assessment and decision analysis that apply to real-time (immediate) and deliberative (long-term) risk management processes.

Project teams are the rule, rather than the exception, in today's organizations. But, thanks to the pressure of performance goals, conflicting agendas, and political jockeying, few teams make consistently superior decisions. In "Moving Out of the Box: Tools for Team Decision Making" author Jana M. Kemp, an authority on team decision making, saves the day by offering tested methods and tools that teams and leaders can use to ratchet up their performance level.
The book argues that making good decisions involves expansive group conversation that leads to sound conclusions and swift execution. This sounds simple, but in many organizations, making a decision and seeing it through can become an exercise in frustration for managers and employees alike. At one end of the spectrum are "command-and-control" decisions, proclaimed from on-high and implemented through the ranks without input or buy-in from those affected by the decision. This approach can lead to resentment and backlash. At the other end are purely collaborative, consensus-driven decisions that often lead to inoffensive, weak choices and sub-par results.
"Moving Out of the Box" shows that there is a time for consensus, a time for command-and-control, and a time to integrate both approaches. Providing examples of successes and failures, the text identifies five decision-making profiles--antisurvival, boxed-in, neutral, engaged enthusiasm, extreme excitement--to help you position yourself in relation to your teammates, facilitate discussion, and steer your group toward the most effective end point. The text includes scenarios, exercises, quizzes, sample questions, and other conversation starters. And, the book ends with a blueprint for putting decisions into action.

Popular culture can help us think creatively and teach us the best ways to use our imagination. Leadership Insights for Wizards and Witches outlines various leadership styles, theories, and concepts through the imaginative lens of J.K. Rowling's magical world - from ethical, servant, and authentic leadership, to power, influence, and persuasion. Combining the immersive and enchanting context of the series with the scholarly discipline of leadership, Simha teaches key theories using examples of characters and situations familiar to fans. Leadership Insights for Wizards and Witches encourages readers to consider how they themselves can approach personal and organizational problems by finding solutions using insights and perspectives gathered from the discipline of leadership. Readers will gain a vital understanding of how not to lead for a holistic mastery of leadership. Leadership Insights for Wizards and Witches harnesses surprisingly relatable examples from the renowned mystical stories and movies to inform a variety of readers, ranging from high school students to undergraduate students and professional practitioners - and of course fans everywhere - regardless of professional backgrounds and experience. The Exploring Effective Leadership Practices through Popular Culture series breaks down leadership theories, making them clearer, manageable, and easier to put into practice.

This is the state-of-the-art, international handbook for a field of inquiry that is still emergent and yet occupies a central position in contemporary management and organization theory. Mark Easterby-Smith and Marjorie Lyles have drawn together in their authoritative reference work original essays from the leading scholars in organizational learning and knowledge management around the world.

Not least in importance is the linkage they make between these two adjacent areas: learning and knowledge are often debated separately despite their close relationship. In this volume leading scholars from the fields of organizational learning, the learning organization, knowledge management and organizational knowledge, examine the issues and debates, as well as the processes and management implications, that are key to each of these approaches. The resulting set of essays offers researchers and students an invaluable guide.

Tracing the roots of learning and knowledge debates across the disciplines of economics, psychology, and social theory, and charting the key contributions scholars have made, this is a major, in-depth overview which all scholars of organizational learning and knowledge management will need on their shelves.

This book develops a whole strategy for decision-making, with the full participation of the decision-maker and utilizing continuous feedback. It introduces the use of the very well-known and proven methodology, linear programming, but specially adapted for this purpose. For this, it incorporates a method to include subjective concepts, as well as the possibility of working with many different and even contradictory objectives. The book is liberally populated with diverse case studies to illustrate the concepts. This practical guide will be of interest to anyone undertaking analysis and decision-making, on both simple and complex projects, and who is looking for a strategy to organize, classify, and evaluate the large amount of information required to make an informed decision. The strategy includes methods to analyze the results and extract conclusions from them.

Learning is an essential process for attaining and maintaining sustainability at both the individual and business level. Establishing a learning organization requires a whole-hearted and sustained endeavour. This book facilitates such an endeavour by providing both a coherent framework for analysis and practical models for action. It focuses on the choices organizations make about the design and implementation of specific learning mechanisms.

The authors illustrate this "learning-by-design" approach through six detailed case studies, taken from different industries and national settings and focusing on different aspects of organizational learning. They then present an overall analysis of the cases, capturing the nature of the learning requirements, design dimensions and mechanisms, and looking at how these link to each other and to company strategy, resources, and performance. Various learning paradoxes are discussed, as well as issues that merit further study.Students of management and organizational studies, academics in these fields, and executives will find this a valuable resource for learning, reflection, and practice.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of UNISCON 2008 held in Klagenfurt, Austria, during April 22-25, 2008.

UNISCON combines the ECOMO workshop series and the ISTA conference series. The 19 papers dealing with conceptual modeling, model-driven software development and information systems applications represent a 30% selection from the original set of submissions.

They are completed by two keynote lectures and 35 papers from internationally renowned researchers, invited in honor of Heinrich C. Mayr, whose 60th birthday is also celebrated at this event, that he originally created.

This thought provoking book is concerned with the need to deal adequately with uncertainty in environmental decision making. The author advances a critique of the use of traditional models and then develops an alternative model of decision making under uncertainty, based on the work of George Shackle. Richard Young forwards a critique of the conventional expected utility approach and, using an alternative conceptualisation of environmental uncertainty, contends that there are a number of different modes of uncertainty and that many environmental decisions are characterised by what is termed 'hard uncertainty'. The presence of hard uncertainty radically alters the way in which environmental uncertainty can be dealt with at both an epistemological and a practical level and poses a number of problems for traditional decision making frameworks based on probability. The author goes on to apply the model to a case study of the Belize Southern Highway - the first major application of Shackle's theory in the context of environmental economics. Detailing and explaining practical and theoretical approaches, this book will interest and inform academics in the fields of environmental economics and environmental science, geography, economics and social science, as well as decision makers in governmental and non-governmental agencies.

Primer on Risk Analysis: Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Second Edition lays out the tasks of risk analysis in a straightforward, conceptual manner, tackling the question, "What is risk analysis?" Distilling the common principles of many risk dialects into serviceable definitions, it provides a foundation for the practice of risk management and decision making under uncertainty for professionals from all disciplines. New in this edition is an expanded risk management emphasis that includes an overview chapter on enterprise risk management and a chapter on decision making under uncertainty designed to help decision makers use the results of risk analysis in practical ways to improve decisions and their outcomes. This book will empower you to enter the world of risk management in your own domain of expertise by providing you with practical, insightful, useful and adaptable knowledge of risk analysis science including risk management, risk assessment, and risk communication. Features: Answers the fundamental question, "What is Risk Analysis?" Presents the tasks of risk management, risk assessment, and risk communication in a straightforward, conceptual manner Responds to the continuing evolution of risk science and addresses the language of risk as it continues to evolve 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 Includes a new chapter on decision making under uncertainty provides practical guidance and ideas for using risk science to improve decisions and their outcomes Features an expanded set of examples of the risk process that demonstrate the growing applications of risk analysis This book is suitable for executives, professionals and students who seek a fundamental understanding of risk management, risk assessment, and risk communication. A more detailed examination of this topic, suitable for practitioners from any discipline as well as students and professionals who aspire to become experts in the practice of risk analysis science, is found in Principles of Risk Analysis: Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Second Edition, ISBN: 978-1-138-47820-6.

We've known for years now that demands on leaders are only increasing. Yet we have lacked widely understood, empirically grounded and rigorous ways to support the development of adequate maturity of heart, complexity of mind and skilful practice for leaders to meet these demands. Over the past three decades, a growing number of scholars and practitioners have explored the value of a developmental approach to these issues. In Maturing Leadership, Jonathan Reams brings together a cast of expert contributors to introduce this work to a wider audience. While this approach has previously been on the margins of mainstream leadership development research, Reams brings it to the centre, moving beyond the cliched characterizations of 'inner work' to bring a finer granularity, precision and rigor to the subjective workings of leaders. The chapters explore how applying insights from the field of constructivist cognitive development can be a key driver for supporting improvements in how we approach leadership development. For researchers and students of leadership, this is an essential addition to the leading theories of developmental approaches to leadership. Increasing complexity in the world is not a passing fad, and the need for leaders to grow in the maturity and sophistication of their responses is a long-term need.

BIS 2008 was the 11th in a series of international conferences on Business - formation Systems. The conference took place in Innsbruck which means that after Klagenfurt it was the second Austrian BIS edition. The BIS conference series from its veryroots has been recognized by professionalsas a forum for the exchangeand disseminationof topicalresearchin the development,implemen- tion, application and improvement of computer systems for business processes. The theme of this conference was"Business Processes and Social Contexts- Reaching Beyond the Enterprise."The material collected in this volume covers research trends as well as current achievements and cutting-edge developments in the area of modern business information systems. A set of 41 papers were - lectedforthepresentationduringthemaineventandgroupedaroundconference topics: Business Process Management, Service Discovery and Composition, - tologies, Information Retrieval, Interoperability, Mobility and Contexts, Ent- prise Resource Planning, Wikis and Folksonomies, Rules and Semantic Queries. The Program Committee consisted of more than 80 members that carefully evaluated all the submitted papers. This year they were supported by an Easy- Chair review system, and again, we observed an increase in the quality of the reviews. This not only raised the quality of the conference but also positively a?ected the work of the authors. The regular program was complemented by the outstanding keynote spe- ers. We are proud that BIS 2008 hosted Alistair Barros (SAP, Australia), Hans Ulrich Buhl (University of Augsburg, Germany), Fabio Ciravegna (University of She?eld, UK), John Davies (BT, UK), and Frank Leymann (University of Stuttgart, Germany).

This volume introduces a new concept - strategic entrepreneurship - which integrates the insights of entrepreneurship and strategic management.
This volume describes a new concept - strategic entrepreneurship - which fuses the insights of entrepreneurship and strategic management.
The editors have invited the world's finest entrepreneurship and strategic management scholars to contribute chapters on key issues that are influencing research in both fields, and to integrate findings across the two.
Investigates the overlap between entrepreneurship and strategic management in the context of six distinct domains: resources and organizational learning, innovation, alliances and networks, internationalization, strategic leadership, and growth.
The contributors use both traditional and new theoretical approaches in order to further the reader's understanding of wealth creation in the current business environment.

Scale at Speed gets your business over the hump of doing fine to triple revenue in two years. Unlike other business growth books, this is a how-to guide, matching theory with easily actionable steps. Scale at Speed has helped founders, entrepreneurs and business leaders: - Chart a clear route to business transformation - Build enthusiastic and talented support for your vision - Uncover your unique value proposition - Introduce processes and KPIs - Untangle yourself from the day-to-day - Become a market leader while reducing marketing costs - Achieve the best exit price Written in a clear, honest and engaging style by Felix Velarde, founder of the 2Y3X growth accelerator, which has been helping businesses scale since 2016. Velarde founded one of the world's first web design consultancies, before spending a twenty-year career creating, growing and selling digital marketing's highest-profile businesses.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Business Information Systems, BIS 2007, held in Poznan, Poland in April 2007. Among the issues addressed in the 49 revised full papers presented together with one keynote lecture are business process management, Web services, ontologies, information retrieval, system design, agents and mobile applications, decision support, social issues, specific MIS issues.

Science reassures, art disturbs (Proverb)

This intriguing exploration of underlying forces in decision making takes as its starting point a wealth of high profile decision disasters. In brilliantly readable analyses, Helga Drummond shows how better awareness of the inherent uncertainties of the decision making process could have made the outcomes very different.

Examples showcased include:

The Hatfield rail crash
The Kursk submarine disaster
The Challenger disaster
The year 2000 fuel crisis
The WWII Dardanelles expedition
The Barings Bank collapse
The Taurus Stock Exchange Project The Hillsborough tragedy
The King's Cross underground fire
The Millennium Dome

This entertaining yet instructive book offers new insight into the realities of decision making, and shows how you can confront them to improve your prospects of success.

Society is now facing challenges for which the traditional management toolbox is increasingly inadequate. Well-grounded theoretical frameworks, such as systems thinking and cybernetics, offer general level interpretation schemes and models that are capable of supporting understanding of complex phenomena and are not impacted by the passage of time. This book serves the knowledge society to address the complexity of decision making and problem solving in the 21st century with contributions from systems and cybernetics. A multi-disciplinary approach has been adopted to support diversity and to develop inter- and trans-disciplinary knowledge within the shared thematic of problem solving and decision making in the 21st century. Its conceptual thread is cyber/systemic thinking, and its realisation is supported by a wide network of scientists on the basis of a highly participative agenda. The book provides a platform of knowledge sharing and conceptual frameworks developed with multi-disciplinary perspectives, which are useful to better understand the fast changing scenario and the complexity of problem solving in the present time.

Increasingly India, with its expertise in communication technology, is becoming the "global back office" to international supply chains. Many international companies (and examples are legion, but a few examples are IBM, Sony, Exxon/Mobil, etc.) have employed Indian resources to help them with their data, their computerized decision support and their knowledge management. With large corporations opening the path to India, it has allowed a substantial communications and decision-support infrastructure to develop in a number of Indian cities. Therefore, opportunities have emerged for both large and small enterprises in the global market place to utilize these developing Indian resources.

DECISION SUPPORT FOR GLOBAL ENTERPRISES is a volume of a mixture of peer-reviewed and invited papers. The volume will have two primary goals: (1) Stimulate creative and thoughtful discussion between academic research leaders and the practitioner information systems community that will improve both the research and practice in the area. (2) Increase the awareness of the problems and challenges faced by global enterprises that can be met with innovative computerized decision support systems. In addition to the positive aspects, the limitations of these systems and technologies are also explored. Emphasized in the book will be research on the following topics: (1) the emerging enterprise decision making processes and technologies; (2) decision making in uncertain, rapidly changing conditions; (3) the changing infrastructure in organizations and society; (4) the expanding role of web technologies; and (5) emerging theories and practices for managing knowledge and in making decisions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management, PAKM 2006, held in Vienna, Austria in November/December 2006.

The 29 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 123 submissions. All aspects of knowledge management and their role in next-generation business solutions are addressed in perspective to business and organisation sciences, cognitive science, and computer science.