This book is a seminal contribution to decision making theory through its study of management decision making in six Beijing state enterprises during the period 1985 to 1989, when the government adopted decentralization as the key to reforming state industries. Through interviews, document surveys and analysis, the author provides a unique insight into not only the changes, but also the complex relations among managers, the Communist Party organization and planning authorities. Readers will gain a richer understanding of Chinese management issues and society.

The purpose of this book is to provide readers with an introduction to the fields of decision making, location analysis, and project and machine scheduling. The combination of these topics is not an accident: decision analysis can be used to investigate decision seenarios in general, location analysis is one of the prime examples of decision making on the strategic Ievel, project scheduling is typically concemed with decision making on the tactical Ievel, and machine scheduling deals with decision making on the operational Ievel. Some of the chapters were originally contributed by different authors, and we have made every attempt to unify the notation, style, and, most importantly, the Ievel of the exposition. Similar to our book on Integer Programming and Network Models (Eiselt and Sandblom, 2000), the emphasis of this volume is on models rather than solution methods. This is particularly important in a book that purports to promote the science of decision making. As such, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as weil as practitioners, will find this volume beneficial. While different authors prefer different degrees of mathematical sophistication, we have made every possible attempt to unify the approaches, provide clear explanations, and make this volume accessible to as many readers as possible.

The challenges that firms managing global work face are many. In addition to geographical and time zone differences, global firms face cultural differences. This book highlights the importance of organizing knowledge processes to overcome challenges involved in global work. It provides frameworks and tools that enable the reader to consider how to strike a balance between these knowledge processes. The book is a must read of practitioners, academics or students concerned with managing knowledge processes in globally distributed work

Freelance consulting, coaching, IT contracting and other self-employed professional roles are fast becoming the preferred way to find fulfilling work, generate a great income, and futureproof careers, whilst giving all the benefits and freedoms of being your own boss – but few know how to make it really work.

The Freelance Consultant is the comprehensive guide into turning your expertise into a viable, and valuable, business.

With independent consultant Richard Newton, you will discover a wealth of insider knowledge as well as a network of other successful advisors willing to share their stories. The Freelance Consultant will explain how to:

• Setup, run and thrive in your freelance, consultant or coaching business.
• Acquire those vital first paying clients.
• Know what it takes to become a successful, differentiated and valuable advisor.
• Build your business, define your services and set your prices.
• Understand your customers and identify, manage, and retain key clients.
• Keep developing and continually improving your skills an growing your business.

Reliability, Maintainability, and Supportability play a crucial role in achieving a competitive product. While manufacturing costs are important for the success of a product, they are not the sole domains in realizing its competitive edge. Improved manufacturing and operating quality and performance coupled with reduced acquisition cost and in-service cost of ownership are important in achieving business success. It is the early phase of design which offers the greatest opportunity to address these requirements, and thus create life cycle effectiveness. The main objective of Reliability, Maintenance and Logistic Support - A Life Cycle Approach is to provide an integrated approach to reliability, maintainability, maintenance and logistic support analysis. We not only look at the ways we can improve the design process to ensure the product offers value for money, but we also consider how the owners can get the most from these products once they have entered service. The approach provides a meaningful way of integrating reliability, maintenance and supportability to enhance the product performance and sales opportunities. Hence, the book covers the following objectives: (1) Introduce the concepts of reliability, maintainability and supportability and their role in the system life cycle and effectiveness. (2) Introduce the basic probability and statistical techniques that are essential for modelling reliability, maintainability and supportability problems. (3) Introduce reliability measures: how to predict them; how to determine from in-service real-world data; how to use them. (4) Analysis of advanced models in Reliability. (5) Discuss basic and advanced concepts in both maintainability and maintenance including preventive, corrective and condition based maintenance. (6) Discuss maintenance management and optimization concepts, such as reliability-centered maintenance and age-related maintenance. (7) Provide basic concepts in supportability and Integrated logistic support. (8) Discuss techniques for design for reliability, maintainability and supportability. (9) Analysis of simple and advanced models in spares forecasting and optimization. (10) Discuss data analysis, data management and data mining techniques.

This volume addresses the subject of uncertainty from the point of view of an extended conception of rationality. In particular, the contributions explore the premises and implications of plausible reasoning when probabilities are non-measurable or unknown, and when the space of possible events is only partially identified.

The proceedings contain lectures and short papers presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Reliability Theory and Its Application in Structural and Soil Me chanics", Bornholm, Denmark, August 31 -September 9,1982. The proceedings are organized in two parts. The first part contains 12 papers by the invited lecturers and the second part contains 23 papers by participants plus one paper from an invited lecturer (la~e arrival). The Institute dealt with specific topics on application of modem reliability theories in structural engineering and soil mechanics. Both fundamental theory and more ad vanced theory were covered. Lecture courses were followed by tutorial and summary discussions with active participation of those attending the Institute. Special lectures of topical subjects were given by a number of invited speake~, leading to plenary dis cussions and summary statements on important aspects of application of modem .re liability theory in structural engineering and soil mechanics. A great number of the participants presented brief reports of their own research activities.

Enterprise Modelling (EM) methods are frequently used by entrepreneurs as an analysis tool for describing and redesigning their businesses. The resulting product, an enterprise model, is commonly used as a blueprint for reconstructing organizations and such effort is often a part of business process re-engineering and improvement initiatives.

Automating Business Modelling describes different techniques of providing automated support for enterprise modelling methods and introduces universally used approaches. A running example of a business modelling method is included; providing a framework and detailed explanation as to how to construct automated support for modelling, allowing readers to follow the method to create similar support.

Suitable for senior undergraduates and postgraduates of Business Studies, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, practitioners in the fields of Knowledge Management, Enterprise Modelling and Software Engineering, this book offers insight and know-how to both student and professional.

Knowledge Management is a vast and diverse topic that must be addressed by all modern industrial companies, from the smallest SMEs to the most complex organizations. Knowledge is a critical and strategic asset and the key to competitiveness in the modern manufacturing environment, as it facilitates capacities essential for achieving the required responsiveness, flexibility, agility and innovation. Nevertheless, knowledge itself is difficult to explicate and capture, and often can be recognized only in the improvements it brings to products, technologies and enterprise organizations.

Four years ago, members of the CIRP community submitted a proposal to the 6th EU Framework Programme to establish a Network of Excellence (NoE). The European Community accepted this proposal, and thus the Virtual Research Laboratory - Knowledge Community in Production (VRL-KCiP) network was launched. The network set out to create a Knowledge Community in Production that would provide support and knowledge to EU industry. This goal was achieved thanks to (a) the ongoing cooperation and collaboration among the network partners, who represent leading universities worldwide, and (b) additional strong member partnerships with laboratories outside of Europe (Japan, Australia, South Africa, USA, and others).

The main efforts of the VRL-KCiP NoE were aimed at aiding European manufacturing industry in defining and structuring its strategic knowledge in order to meet worldwide strategic challenges. These challenges, detailed below, have remained constant over the four years of the network s activities:

1. Manufacturing must become knowledge intensive, given the demand for high-tech products (e.g. electronics, medicines).
2. Given the relatively high labor costs in Europe compared to those in developing countries, manufacturing processes in Europe require high levels of expertise to realize required productivity.

As a result of these challenges, over the past 30 years knowledge management (KM) has become a major issue in Europe, in academia as well as in industry. Indeed, firms have recognized that cultivating the "knowledge resource" is essential for management as well as for operations.

The aim of this book is to help readers understand the complex topic of knowledge. Moreover, it underlines why knowledge is one of the most important strategic issues in achieving future manufacturing competitiveness.

The book is a collection of 34 complementary contributions written by researchers from multinational locations and multidisciplinary perspectives. This book is unique in that it is based on the collective experience of these researchers and represents the status and current issues in the study and implementation of Knowledge Management today.

The book describes fundamental concepts in knowledge and knowledge management and provides several case studies in the fields of design and manufacturing. In particular, the book presents several very original examples of knowledge management and knowledge sharing in the context of European manufacturing. Actual experiences and feedbacks are presented with respect to knowledge engineering approaches for design, manufacturing, and more generally for enterprise engineering. Moreover, methods and tools for knowledge integration within the extended enterprise and the value chain are described, and the role of knowledge management and documents in supporting radical innovation projects is also highlighted.

The book discusses ontology, which constitutes the basis for formalizing and mapping knowledge from different points of view. Concrete examples are described and elaborated, mainly with respect to product, process and resource description and management along the lifecycle of mechanical systems.

Moreover, the book outlines the knowledge management efforts within the VRL-KCiP network. These efforts include (a) realizing a common knowledge management capability in the multilingual, multinational, multidisciplinary distributed research lab, and (b) developing a knowledge map, which now forms the basis for efficient collaboration within the VRL-KCiP consortium. In addition, the benefits of developing networks of experts and shared knowledge among multi-cultural communities are highlighted.

It is our hope that this book will offer you new insight into the topic of knowledge management in the European manufacturing context."

This text examines new research at the interface of operations research, behavioral and cognitive sciences, and decision analysis. From the cognitive behaviorist who collects empirical evidence as to how people make decisions to the engineer and economist who are the consumers of such understanding, the reader encounters the familiar Traveling Salesman Problem and Prisoner's dilemma, how agricultural decisions are made in Argentina's Pampas region, and some social goals that come into play as an element of rational decision-making.

In these 14 self-contained chapters, broad topics covered include the integration of decision analysis and behavioral models, innovations in behavioral models, exploring descriptive behavior models, and experimental studies.

Many of the environmental impacts made by organisations are created by early strategic planning, marketing and design decisions. This book encourages managers and students of management to explore how and when environmental decisions are made in organisations. It introduces them to the processes and tools they can use to change the environmental direction of their organisation and reduce its environmental impact on the earth. It guides the reader down the track whose destination is ecological sustainability.

The Leader's Guide to Resilience is your essential toolkit to build authentic strength within your business, so you can thrive in a changing and challenging world. Resilience is the core of growth and regrowth. It is what contributes most to the advancement of your organisation and your role as leader. Your personal resilience, and that of your teams, organisation and broader community network, must be actively nurtured to give you the tools to face anything that comes your way. This book will give you clear, effective and adaptable methods to initiate your first steps in building resilience, as well as advanced practical ways to refine, develop and future-proof your progress once on the path. Whatever life throws at you, resilience will help you bounce back. 2021 Firebird Book Award Winner - Business, Leadership and Motivation

Ira Horowitz Depending upon one's perspective, the need to choose among alternatives can be an unwelcome but unavoidable responsibility, an exciting and challenging opportunity, a run-of-the-mill activity that one performs seem ingly "without thinking very much about it," or perhaps something in between. Your most recent selections from a restaurant menu, from a set of jobs or job candidates, or from a rent-or-buy or sell-or-Iease option, are cases in point. Oftentimes we are involved in group decision processes, such as the choice of a president, wherein one group member's unwelcome responsibility is another's exciting opportunity. Many of us that voted in the presidential elections of both 1956 and 1984, irrespective of political affiliation, experienced both emotions; others just pulled the lever or punched the card without thinking very much about it. Arriving at either an individual or a group decision can sometimes be a time consuming, torturous, and traumatic process that results in a long regretted choice that could have been reached right off the bat. On other occasions, the "just let's get it over with and get out of here" solution to a long-festering problem can yield rewards that are reaped for many 1 ORGANIZATION AND DECISION THEORY 2 years to come. One way or another, however, individuals and organiza tions somehow manage to get the decision-making job done, even if they don't quite understand, and often question, just how this was accomplished."

The long-awaited follow-up to the international bestsellers, Business Model Generation and Value Proposition Design Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneurs' Business Model Canvas changed the way the world creates and plans new business models. It has been used by corporations and startups and consultants around the world and is taught in hundreds of universities. After years of researching how the world's best companies develop, test, and scale new business models, the authors have produced their definitive work. The Invincible Company explains what every organization can learn from the business models of the world's most exciting companies. The book explains how companies such as Amazon, IKEA, Airbnb, Microsoft, and Logitech, have been able to create immensely successful businesses and disrupt entire industries. At the core of these successes are not just great products and services, but profitable, innovative business models--and the ability to improve existing business models while consistently launching new ones. The Invincible Company presents practical new tools for measuring, managing, and accelerating innovation, and strategies for reducing risk when launching new business models. Serving as a blueprint for your growth strategy, The Invincible Company explains how to constantly stay ahead of your competition. In-depth chapters explain how to create new growth engines, change how products and services are created and delivered, extract maximum profit from each type of business model, and much more. New tools--such as the Business Model Portfolio Map, Innovation Metrics, Innovation Strategy Framework, and the Culture Map--enable readers to understand how to design invincible companies. The Invincible Company: Helps large and small companies build their growth strategy and manage their core simultaneously Explains the world's best modern and historic business models Provides tools to assess your business model, innovation readiness, and all of your innovation projects Presented in striking 4-color, and packed with practical visuals and tools, The Invincible Company is a must-have book for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovation professionals.

Decision & Control in Management Science analyzes emerging decision problems in the management and engineering sciences. It is divided into five parts. The first part explores methodological issues involved in the optimization of deterministic and stochastic dynamical systems. The second part describes approaches to the model energy and environmental systems and draws policy implications related to the mitigation of pollutants. The third part applies quantitative techniques to problems in finance and economics, such as hedging of options, inflation targeting, and equilibrium asset pricing. The fourth part considers a series of problems in production systems. Optimization methods are put forward to provide optimal policies in areas such as inventory management, transfer-line, flow-shop and other industrial problems. The last part covers game theory. Chapters range from theoretical issues to applications in politics and interactions in franchising systems. Decision & Control in Management Science is an excellent reference covering methodological issues and applications in operations research, optimal control, and dynamic games.

Because of the dramatic changes that economic deregulation has caused in the electricity industry and the widespread social concern about nuclear power safety, Effects of Deregulation on Safety is extremely timely. Effects of Deregulation on Safety uses case studies of the effects of deregulation on the U.S. air and rail industries and the United Kingdom nuclear power industry, as a basis for identifying likely impacts of electricity deregulation on safety of the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry.

Effects of Deregulation on Safety provides a comprehensive overview of the safety experiences of these three case study industries and their implications for the U.S. nuclear power industry. The treatment of the subject is not highly technical, and hence is accessible to a wide range of readers with interests in the subject matter. The book draws on literature from roughly 250 references, ranging from brief news articles to book-length studies of deregulation in a particular industry, as well as original in-depth interviews with representatives of all three case study industries.

This wealth of empirical background information allows the book to go beyond mere speculation about the possible adverse safety consequences of deregulation, to identify situations in which particular adverse safety consequences actually occurred. The experience of the case study industries indicates that economic deregulation need not be incompatible with a reasonable safety record, especially in those aspects of safety that are positively related to productivity. But that safety also cannot be taken for granted after deregulation. Careful management attention is needed in order to avoid the types of safety problems that were associated with deregulation in the case study industries.

This volume presents new concepts and methods in Air Traffic Management, in particular: Collaborative Decision Making, as it incorporates for the first time airline companies in the management process; Congestion Pricing, as many part of the systems are and will remain saturated, hence only leveling of demand can contribute to global efficiency; Flow Management Methods, as the most important tools in planning and analysis; Models of Controller-Pilot Interaction, as deregulation increases the workload of this communication; Weather Forecast, as airport capacity is strongly affected by weather conditions.

This book is designed for the chemist, formulator, student, teacher, forensic scientist, or others who wish to investigate the composition of polymeric materials. Theinformationwithinthesepagesisintendedtoarmthereaderwiththenecessary workingknowledgetoanalyze, characterize, anddeformulatematerials. ThestructureoftheContentsisintendedtoassistthereaderinquicklylocating the subject of interest and proceed to it with a minimum of expended time and effort. The Contents provides an outline of major topics and relevant materials char- terizedforthereader'sconvenience. Anintroductiontoanalysisanddeformulation is provided in Chapter 1 to acquaint the reader with analytical methods and their applications. Extensive references are provided as additional sources ofinfor- tion. All tables arelocatedin theAppendix, beginning onp. 235. GUIDE FOR USE This is a practical book structured to efficiently use the reader's time with a minimum effort of searching for entries and information by following these brief instructions: 1. Searchthe Contents and/orIndex fora subject withinthe text. 2. Analysis/deformulation principles are discussed at the outset to familiarize the reader with analysis methods and instruments; followed by formu- tions, materials, and analysis ofpaint, plastics, adhesives, and inks; and finally reformulation methods to test the results of analysis. 3. Materials and a wide assortment of formulations are discussed within the text by chapter/section number. 4. Materials are referred toby various names (trivial, trade, and scientific), and these are listed in tables and cross-referenced to aid the reader.

Proceedings of the Third Symposium on Heavy Gas and Risk Assessment, Bonn, Wissenschaftszentrum, November 12-13, 1984

The present book treats a highly specialized topic, namely effec tivity functions, which are a tool for describing the power structure implicit in social choice situations of various kind. One of the ad vantages of effectivity functions is that they seem to contain exactly the information which is needed in several problems of implementa tion, that is in designing the rules for individual behaviour given that this behaviour at equilibrium should result in a prescribed functional connection between preferences and outcome. We shall be interested in both formal properties of effectiv ity functions and applications of them in social choice theory, and among such applications in particular the implementation problem. This choice of emphasis necessarily means that some other topics are treated only superficially or not at all. We do not attempt to cover all contributions to the field, rather we try to put some of the results together in order to get a reasonably coherent theory about the role of the power structure in cooperative implementation. The authors are indebted to many persons for assistance and advice during the work on this book. In particular, we would like to thank Peter Fristrup and Bodil Hansen for critical reading of the manuscript, and Lene Petersen for typesetting in '.lEX."

Expected utility provides simple, testable properties of the optimum behavior that should be displayed by risk-averse individuals in risky decisions. Simultaneously, given the existence of paradoxes under the expected utility paradigm, expected utility can only be regarded as an approximation of actual behavior. A more realistic model is needed. This is particularly true when treating attitudes toward small probability events: the standard situation for insurable risks. Non-Expected Utility and Risk Management examines whether the existing results in insurance economics are robust to more general models of behavior under risk.

Should you take a much-needed vacation or save money for the kids' education? Protect the endangered owl or maintain jobs for loggers? Have a heart-to-heart with a lying employee or fire him on the spot?

All of us face ethical choices. Sometimes they're easy: One side is wrong and the other is right. But how do we handle the really tough "right vs. right" dilemmas, where each side has strong moral arguments and we can't do both? This book helps us build Ethical Fitness(R)--a values-based decision-making process so definitive that it's now a registered trade mark.

Rushworth M. Kidder, founder of the Institute for Global Ethics, teaches us how to think for ourselves in order to resolve ethical dilemmas ranging from the intimately personal to the broadly philosophical. Unique in its approach and rich with illustrative anecdotes--updated with examples of real-world conflicts from today's political realm and from Dr. Kidder's own observations--How Good People Make Tough Choices is an indispensable resource for spotting, understanding, and resolving our toughest decisions.

Proceedings of the ISPRA-Course Held at the Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy, October 21-25, 1985, in Collaboration with EuReDatA

Multiple Criteria Decision Making and its Applications to Economic Problems ties Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM)/Multiple Objective Optimization (MO) and economics together. It describes how MCDM methods (goal programming) can be used in economics.

The volume consists of two parts. Part One of the book introduces the MCDM approaches. This first part, comprising Chapters 1-5, is basically an overview of MCDM methods that can most likely be used to address a wide range of economic problems. Readers looking for an in-depth discussion of multi-criteria analysis can grasp and become acquainted with the initial MCDM tools, language and definitions.

Part Two, which comprises Chapters 6-8, focuses on the theoretical core of the book. Thus in Chapter 6 an economic meaning is given to several key concepts on MCDM, such as ideal point, distance function, etc. It illustrates how Compromise Programming (CP) can support the standard premise of utility optimisation in economics as well as how it is capable of approximating the standard utility optimum when the decision-makers' preferences are incompletely specified. Chapter 7 deals entirely with production analysis. The main characteristic throughout the Chapter refers to a standard joint production scenario, analysed from the point of view of MCDM schemes. Chapter 8 focuses on the utility specification problem in the n-arguments space within a risk aversion context. A link between Arrows' risk aversion coefficient and CP utility permits this task.

The book is intended for postgraduate students and researchers in economics with an OR/MS orientation or in OR/MS with an economic orientation. In short, it attempts to fruitfully link economics and MCDM.

There is a complex relationship between the environment and the development of tourism, which this book discusses in a thorough and informative manner. Specialists from several disciplines pay attention to the challenges of sustainable tourism, devoting their full attention to cultural, regional and policy issues. This is a revised edition that has been expanded to 22 contributions, with inclusion of the cultural element. All chapters have been updated to include new data and information added to the existing body of literature in the last 7 years. It includes new developments and new insights into the relationship between tourism and the environment. An invaluable sequel to the first edition.