The book discusses a new approach to the classification problem following the decision support orientation of multicriteria decision aid. The book reviews the existing research on the development of classification methods, investigating the corresponding model development procedures, and providing a thorough analysis of their performance both in experimental situations and real-world problems from the field of finance.
Audience: Researchers and professionals working in management science, decision analysis, operations research, financial/banking analysis, economics, statistics, computer science, as well as graduate students in management science and operations research.

The study of management and organization has transitioned from approaches to deal with steady state management, to approaches that can cope with unknown or unknowable futures. The strategy field has has moved from business policy, through strategic planning, onto strategic management and now grapples with dynamic contexts as the new normal. In that trend the field has seen a broad movement in research interests in corporate and competitive strategies towards an emphasis on the manager's strategic role. Through this shift, strategy has moved from a concept of something organizations have towards something that managers do. This has happened while traditional boundaries of industries have become permeable and even melted away. Managers tasked with doing strategy have lost not just the certainty of a goal-oriented future, but also the certainty of understanding their current position. Decision-making tools have now moved from answer generators to scenario builders. When decisions can rely less on evidence and certainty, it is managers that take up the slack and fill the void. This book focuses on the challenge of making strategic decisions in conditions of uncertainty.

Decision-makers at all levels are being confronted with novel complexities and uncertainties and face long-term challenges which require foresight about long-term future prospects, assumptions, and strategies. This book explores how foresight studies can be systematically undertaken and used in this context. It explicates why and how methods like horizon scanning, scenario planning, and roadmapping should be applied when dealing with high levels of uncertainty. The scope of the book moves beyond "narrow" technology foresight, towards addressing systemic interrelations between social, technological, economic, environmental, and political systems. Applications of foresight tools to such fields as energy, cities, health, transportation, education, and sustainability are considered as well as enabling technologies including nano-, bio-, and information technologies and cognitive sciences. The approaches will be illustrated with specific actual cases.

This open access book focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty. It explores approaches and tools supporting the design of strategic plans under deep uncertainty, and their testing in the real world, including barriers and enablers for their use in practice. The book broadens traditional approaches and tools to include the analysis of actors and networks related to the problem at hand. It also shows how lessons learned in the application process can be used to improve the approaches and tools used in the design process. The book offers guidance in identifying and applying appropriate approaches and tools to design plans, as well as advice on implementing these plans in the real world. For decisionmakers and practitioners, the book includes realistic examples and practical guidelines that should help them understand what decisionmaking under deep uncertainty is and how it may be of assistance to them. Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice is divided into four parts. Part I presents five approaches for designing strategic plans under deep uncertainty: Robust Decision Making, Dynamic Adaptive Planning, Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways, Info-Gap Decision Theory, and Engineering Options Analysis. Each approach is worked out in terms of its theoretical foundations, methodological steps to follow when using the approach, latest methodological insights, and challenges for improvement. In Part II, applications of each of these approaches are presented. Based on recent case studies, the practical implications of applying each approach are discussed in depth. Part III focuses on using the approaches and tools in real-world contexts, based on insights from real-world cases. Part IV contains conclusions and a synthesis of the lessons that can be drawn for designing, applying, and implementing strategic plans under deep uncertainty, as well as recommendations for future work. The publication of this book has been funded by the Radboud University, the RAND Corporation, Delft University of Technology, and Deltares.

This book provides an overview of the nascent field of "information pooling and group judgmental accuracy." The contributors to this volume include mathematical psychologists, economists, social psychologists, political scientists, and statisticians. The book is organised around five review essays: one on information pooling from the perspective of models of individual judgment (Batchelder), one on information pooling and group judgment (Grofman and Owen), one on group judgment in applied settings (Hastie), and one on organisational design (Radner). Along with the review essays discussant comments are also provided which elaborate on points not covered in the essays. While the focus of these papers is largely theoretical and abstract, the subject of information pooling and optimal group judgment is clearly one of great practical importance and is directly relevant to issues of policy choice and organisational structure.

This book presents a range of qualitative and quantitative analyses in areas such as cybersecurity, sustainability, multivariate analysis, customer satisfaction, parametric programming, software reliability growth modeling, and blockchain technology, to name but a few. It also highlights integrated methods and practices in the areas of machine learning and genetic algorithms. After discussing applications in supply chains and logistics, cloud computing, six sigma, production management, big data analysis, satellite imaging, game theory, biometric systems, quality, and system performance, the book examines the latest developments and breakthroughs in the field of science and technology, and provides novel problem-solving methods. The themes discussed in the book link contributions by researchers and practitioners from different branches of engineering and management, and hailing from around the globe. These contributions provide scholars with a platform to derive maximum utility in the area of analytics by subscribing to the idea of managing business through system sciences, operations, and management. Managers and decision-makers can learn a great deal from the respective chapters, which will help them devise their own business strategies and find real-world solutions to complex industrial problems.

"Energy Budgets at Risk" "(EBar)"(R) provides everyone from facility energy managers and financial managers to government policy-makers and electric utilities program planners with the background information required to understand energy cost, price, efficiency, and related issues important in developing a balanced approach to facility energy risk management. Throughout the book, respected energy economist Dr. Jerry Jackson clearly shows how to reduce energy costs and increase cash flows by using risk management concepts developed in the financial industry.

The bestselling book that thoroughly explores the remarkable benefits of teams at all levels of the organization. The authors provide dozens of real accounts and case studies that illustrate successes and failures and demonstrate what can be learned from these examples. A must-read guide for business leaders.

This book presents the construction and resolution of 50 practical optimization problems and covers an exceptionally wide range, including games-associated problems (Unblock Me, Sudokus), logistical problems, and problems concerning plant distribution, production, operations scheduling, management and resource allocation. The problems are divided into 5 difficulty levels. Problems in the first few levels are focused on learning the model construction methodology, while those in the last level include complex optimization environments. For each problem solution, the specific steps are illustrated, promoting reader comprehension. In addition, all the models are implemented in an optimization library, LINGO, their solutions have been analyzed and their correct construction has been verified. The book also includes a simple guide to implementing models in LINGO in a straightforward manner and in any input data format (text files, spreadsheets or databases). As an ideal companion to the author's previously published work Modelling in Mathematical Programming, the book is intended as a basic tool for students of operations research, and for researchers in any advanced area involving mathematical programming.

1 Introduction.- 2 Review of Ordinary Least Squares and Generalized Least Squares.- 3 Point Estimation and Tests of Hypotheses in Small Samples.- 4 Large Sample Point Estimation and Tests of Hypotheses.- 5 Stochastic Regressors.- 6 Use of Prior Information.- 7 Preliminary Test and Stein-Rule Estimators.- 8 Feasible Generalized Least Squares Estimation.- 9 Heteroscedasticity.- 10 Autocorrelation.- 11 Lagged Dependent Variables and Autcorrelation.- 12 Unobservable Variables.- 13 Multicollinearity.- 14 Varying Coefficient Models.- 15 Models That Combine Time-Series and Cross-Section Data.- 16 The Analysis of Models with Qualitative or Censored Dependent Variables.- 17 Distributed Lags.- 18 Uncertainty in Model Specification and Selection.- 19 Introduction to Simultaneous Equations Models.- 20 Identification.- 21 Limited Information Estimation.- 22 Full Information Estimation.- 23 Reduced Form Estimation and Prediction in Simultaneous Equations Models.- 24 Properties of Dynamic Simultaneous Equations Models.- 25 Special Topics in Simultaneous Equations.- Appendix Estimation and Inference in Nonlinear Statistical Models.- A.1 Nonlinear Optimization.- A.1.1 Method of Steepest Ascent.- A.1.2 The Method of Newton.- A.1.3 Method of Quadratic Hill Climbing.- A.1.4 Numerical Differentiation.- A.2 Maximum Likelihood Estimation.- A.2.1 Use of the Method of Newton.- A.2.2 Method of Scoring.- A.2.3 The Method of Berndt, Hall, Hall, and Hausman.- A.2.4 Asymptotic Tests Based on the Maximum Likelihood Method.- A.2.4a The Wald Test.- A.2.4b The Lagrange-Multiplier Test.- A.2.4c The Likelihood Ratio Test Statistic.- A.2.4d Concluding Remarks.- A.3 Nonlinear Regression.- A.4 Summary and Guide to Further Readings.- A.5 References.

This is a book about the evaluation and choice of information sources by individuals and the design and management of information systems by organizations. The book studies the determinants of the value and cost of information, both to the individual and to the organization, provides technqiues for the assessment of the value of information and the comparison of informativeness among alternative sources, and presents principles for the optimal design and management of information systems. These topics are unified by the thesis that both information sources and information systems are valuable to the extent they contribute to better decision making. By providing students, researchers, and practitioners with a coherent notation and framework throughout, the book integrates the decision-theoretic approach to the evaluation of information with knowledge from information science and management information systems on the design, management, and cost of cooperative information systems, thereby demonstrating the multidisciplinary applicability of a unifying approach based on decision theory. Researchers and graduate students in economics, operations research, management information systems, and information science will find this book useful.

Optimal Control and Dynamic Games has been edited to honor the outstanding contributions of Professor Suresh Sethi in the fields of Applied Optimal Control. Professor Sethi is internationally one of the foremost experts in this field. He is, among others, co-author of the popular textbook "Sethi and Thompson: Optimal Control Theory: Applications to Management Science and Economics."

The book consists of a collection of essays by some of the best known scientists in the field, covering diverse aspects of applications of optimal control and dynamic games to problems in Finance, Management Science, Economics, and Operations Research. In doing so, it provides both a state-of-the-art overview over recent developments in the field, and a reference work covering the wide variety of contemporary questions that can be addressed with optimal control tools, and demonstrates the fruitfulness of the methodology.

This research-oriented book presents key contributions on architecting the digital transformation. It includes the following main sections covering 20 chapters: * Digital Transformation * Digital Business * Digital Architecture * Decision Support * Digital Applications Focusing on digital architectures for smart digital products and services, it is a valuable resource for researchers, doctoral students, postgraduates, graduates, undergraduates, academics and practitioners interested in digital transformation.

Personnel Management is a business function and business is a value-adding activity. A business, be it agriculture, manufacturing, mining, trading, or any other activity, is a process of conversion for the purpose of satisfying human needs and thereby adding value. Such conversion takes various forms. It may be in terms of quantity, quality, time, or space. All such conversions are done primarily through human effort. Therefore, the need for personnel management arose since the time business activities required organized application of human effort. The history of personnel management is thus very old. Incidentally, persons are generally averse to physical and repetitive work. It had, therefore, been a challenge for those managing other people to get the work done by them when it was not inspiring in terms of work content or remuneration. This book, in a historical perspective, explains how the personnel managers handled the challenge in different ages, and how the evolving socio-economic environment influenced their approaches and actions. A lot has changed in terms of personnel management over the years. With economic liberalization, personnel management is no longer a job of managing persons. This book also covers the larger activities of organizational management and beyond. In the days to come, personnel managers will have to be messengers of social harmony and growth, and an embodiment of trust. And then they will be able to serve the organizations and their employees the best.

This book is designed to help MIS and information center managers and their staffs to efficiently and cost effectively meet the needs of end-users in their organizations. Focusing on managerial aspects of information centers, Robert J. Thierauf explores the ways in which new information technology--spreadsheets, query languages, report writers, word processing, etc.--can be placed in the hands of end-users without the interdepartmental conflict and loss of systems control often associated with such transitions.

A guide to the essential skills of project management, enabling you to bring in projects on time and within budget. Juggling all the tasks and resources you need to make a project run smoothly can seem like an onerous task - from engaging with stakeholders and scoping out the full specification of the project, through to keeping a rein on costs and sticking to schedules. Manage Projects Successfully offers calm and practical advice to help you with setting priorities, communicating with others, monitoring progress and dealing with unexpected events. Practical, easy to read and jargon-free, the book contains a quiz to assess strengths and weaknesses, step-by-step guidance and action points, top tips to bear in mind for the future, common mistakes and advice on how to avoid them, and summaries of key points.

***BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS - FINALIST 2021*** Be Less Zombie distils 10 years of field research amongst some of the world's leading innovators into a pragmatic, actionable toolkit. Designed for managers who need more remarkable innovation with repeatable, scalable approaches, it shows readers how to: De-risk bolder, more profitable innovation Make innovation a predictable and measurable capability Equip managers with essential tools and skills for leading innovation and transformation Help teams find new capacity and energy to deliver today's business whilst discovering tomorrow's Turner's research also delves beyond the business world. He brings insights from a wide range of unexpected, expert sources including a guerrilla negotiator, a cage-fighter trainer, an X-Factor coach, a senior emergency room doctor, and a fashion designer. His 'Turn It On' innovation framework gives leaders and managers tools, processes and pathways to make bolder and more profitable innovation an inevitability, not an anomaly. This book is for: CEOs who need a better, more continuous pipeline of profitable innovation Senior leaders who need more ideas, collaboration and energy across their divisions Finance executives who want to resource innovation and yet measure it effectively Strategy, change and transformation managers charged with delivering greater organisational agility and differentiation HR executives who are trying to resource and equip leaders and employees with innovation capabilities Organisational development managers tasked with shaping more agile and innovative ways of working Team leaders who need to help their people find new capacity and energy to deliver bolder ideas Individual employees who want their managers to stop blocking their best ideas Elvin Turner is an award-winning innovation advisor to global corporations, government bodies, not-for-profit organisations, and start-ups around the world. He is also an associate professor at several business schools. For more information visit www.elvinturner.com. "A must-read for anyone - in any business sector, at any career level - who is passionate about the serious business of innovation. A practical guide to curating a culture of innovation and navigating against the headwinds of organizational status quo." Simon Collins, Senior Vice President, Mastercard "Most leaders struggle to get the innovation performance they need. This is the practical playbook they've been waiting for." Andy Billings, Vice President Profitable Creativity, Electronic Arts

Drawing on the experiences of six expatriate leaders who, collectively, had more than 78 years of experience managing United States Agency for International Development (USAID) international development projects in 26 countries around the world, this book provides a scholarly analysis of their stories, identifies factors expatriate leaders experienced managing projects, then integrates the factors into a theory that explains and helps define the success, or lack thereof, they achieved, and provides recommendations on how to deal with and overcome the issues. For decades, international development projects have played a crucial role in the delivery of U.S. foreign aid and yet, while considerable attention has been given to policymakers' foreign aid decisions concerning which countries receive U.S. foreign aid and how much each country receives, scant attention has been given to understanding the challenges encountered by the expatriate leaders recruited to manage the implementation of these international development projects, which unfold within a confluence of diverse multi-organizational contexts and culturally complex developing country environments. Even less is known about what factors these expatriate leaders experience that could explain, and help define, the success, or lack thereof, they achieve managing the implementation of these projects. This book is essential reading for international development leaders, practitioners, and scholars, as well as foreign aid policymakers, as they seek to improve international development.

The field of multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA), also termed multiple criteria decision aid, or multiple criteria decision making (MCDM), has developed rapidly over the past quarter century and in the process a number of divergent schools of thought have emerged. This can make it difficult for a new entrant into the field to develop a comprehensive appreciation of the range of tools and approaches which are available to assist decision makers in dealing with the ever-present difficulties of seeking compromise or consensus between conflicting inter ests and goals, i.e. the "multiple criteria." The diversity of philosophies and models makes it equally difficult for potential users of MCDA, i.e. management scientists and/or decision makers facing problems involving conflicting goals, to gain a clear understanding of which methodologies are appropriate to their particular context. Our intention in writing this book has been to provide a compre hensive yet widely accessible overview of the main streams of thought within MCDA. We aim to provide readers with sufficient awareness of the underlying philosophies and theories, understanding of the practi cal details of the methods, and insight into practice to enable them to implement any of the approaches in an informed manner. As the title of the book indicates, our emphasis is on developing an integrated view of MCDA, which we perceive to incorporate both integration of differ ent schools of thought within MCDA, and integration of MCDA with broader management theory, science and practice."

This book is for pathfinders- product, services, business, and nonprofit managers searching for ways to reach beyond the artificial barriers that constrain innovation and make "work" harder. Inspired by real life trailblazers and their own experiences, the authors decode the secrets of achieving breakthrough success at both organizational and interpersonal levels. Learn to use their methodology with the help of checklists and detailed examples that will transform your thinking and skills.

Forged at the heart of international political bodies by expert researchers, the innovation cluster concept has been incorporated into most public policies in industrialized countries. Based largely on the ideas behind the success of Silicon Valley, several imitative attempts have been made to geographically group laboratories, companies and training in particular fields in order to generate "synergies" between science and industry. In its first part, Innovation in Clusters analyzes the infatuation with the system of clusters that is integral to innovative policies by analyzing its socio historical context, its revival in management and its worldwide expansion, looking at a French example at a local level. In its second part, the book explores a specialized biotechnology cluster dating back to the end of the 1990s. The sociological survey conducted twenty years later sheds a different light on the dynamics and relationships between laboratories and companies, contradicting the commonly held belief that innovation is made possible by geographical proximity.

Valuable software, realistic examples, clear writing, and fascinating topics help you master key spreadsheet and business analytics skills with SPREADSHEET MODELING AND DECISION ANALYSIS, 8E. You'll find everything you need to become proficient in today's most widely used business analytics techniques using Microsoft (R) Office Excel (R) 2016. Author Cliff Ragsdale -- respected innovator in business analytics -- guides you through the skills you need, using the latest Excel (R) for Windows. You gain the confidence to apply what you learn to real business situations with step-by-step instructions and annotated screen images that make examples easy to follow. The World of Management Science sections further demonstrates how each topic applies to a real company. Each new edition includes extended trial licenses for Analytic Solver Platform and XLMiner with powerful simulation and optimization tools for descriptive and prescriptive analytics and a full suite of tools for data mining in Excel.

The broad field of managerial and organizational cognition (MOC) has diversified over the years. Where early studies of MOC focused on theories of rational conscious thought, illustrated for example by schema theory, over the years we have seen explorations of unconscious processing, heuristics and cognitive biases, along with emotions, identity, and the 'darker' sides of cognition. Thinking About Cognition takes stock by reflecting on the frontiers of the field and addressing the future beyond our current state-of-the-art. The result is a collection of papers reflects emerging research in the field of cognition and considers developments in mindfulness, networked societies, neuropsychology, identity theory, team cognition, decision making, distant futures, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, change, and agency. This fifth anniversary volume of New Horizons in Managerial and Organizational Cognition comprises of a collection of contributions that discuss frontiers of MOC research, address the challenges we face, inspire other scholars, and provide guidance on how to proceed.

This fascinating book aims to provide a deeper understanding of the decision-making processes of entrepreneurs. This is achieved via a comparison of entrepreneurial individuals with different levels of expertise in contexts with varying degrees of potential for entrepreneurial success. This multidisciplinary study is based on entrepreneurship theory and empirical research as well as cognitive psychology. The cognitive perspective provides a link between the entrepreneur and new business creation by focusing on an individual's cognitive behaviour rather than on their personality traits. The essential issues of gathering and application of knowledge and expertise are also addressed: one of the most important implications of the study is that successful entrepreneurial decision-making behaviour can actually be taught and learned. The book concludes, however, that the provision of optimal teaching methods of this decision-making behaviour is a stiff challenge faced by entrepreneurship education. Presenting a novel combination of cognitive psychology and entrepreneurship theory with important practical implications, this book will strongly appeal to those involved in the study of entrepreneurship and cognitive psychology, and business and management. Entrepreneurs themselves will also find much to interest them in this book.