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Books > Business & Economics > Business & management > Management & management techniques > Management decision making > General
Become a more effective decision-maker, communicator, and manager by using the valuable techniques described in this unique book. It's designed to help you break away from the constraints of the technologist's "analytical/scientific" viewpoint and employ broader organizational and personal perspectives that strengthen your decision-making ability and leadership skills. "Decision-Making for Technology Executives" shows you how to utilize this multiple perspective approach to problem-solving and systems development in real-world, outside the laboratory, situations. You learn how this three-dimensional approach has been applied successfully to a wide spectrum of complex systems tasks: from system forecasting to technology assessment, from industrial catastrophes to facility siting decisions, from corporate strategy to acquisition. Through valuable case studies, such as the Exxon Valdez and Bhopal accidents, you learn lessons on improving technology and risk assessment, forecasting, and crisis management. And through ready-to-implement, practical guidelines you see how to become a more effective decision-maker and manager, while improving communication between technologists and others involved in the decision process. A one-of-its-kind look at the multiple perspective concept, this guide helps to increase your understanding of complex sociotechnical systems, boost the technologist's effectiveness as an executive, and improve technological risk management, forecasting, and planning.
Life after Boris is a quick-to-read fable that should encourage any partner - or indeed anyone aspiring to partnership - in a professional services firm, to make sure that the succession planning issue is addressed in their firm. It seeks to demonstrate that with good planning, collaboration and proactive discussion, options can be found that will be acceptable to all. Without such an approach, the consequences could be serious. Succession planning is not inherently difficult or intellectually complex. It does, however, strike many raw nerves, both with those who are currently at the top of their firms and are contemplating retirement (or not), and also with those in the early stages of their careers who are anxious to know what the future holds for them in their current firm. The frustration, of course, is that many stakeholders in the succession planning process (of which there are far more than one might originally envisage) rush into decisions because of the apparent lack of a succession plan, thereby simply exacerbating the problem for all the other stakeholders. It is therefore critical that all firms, and the stakeholders within those firms, address the succession planning question before it becomes an issue. Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted is simply not an option. Initiating the succession planning process need not necessarily come from the current leaders. Indeed, their failure to do so is often at the root of the problem. The bright leaders of tomorrow have much at stake and although a great deal of tact and sensitivity will be needed, it is often these future leaders of a firm who are best positioned to bring about change. In the author's experience over the last 12 years of working with professional services firms around the world, one of the most frequently recurring catalysts for discussion has been succession management. Firms that got it right developed and prospered. Those that didn't struggled and often ended up having to merge and ultimately disappear into oblivion.
With technical skills in ever increasing demand and software updates coming thick and fast, the need for technical training is rising rapidly.This book is the essential guide to establishing, managing, growing and controlling a technical training business within a national or global organisation, providing you with the commercial understanding and industry knowledge you need to succeed.
"Risk or uncertainty assessments are used as aids to decision making in nearly every aspect of business, education, and government. As a follow-up to the author's bestselling Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry: A Practical Guide, Risk Modeling for Determining Value and Decision Making presents comprehensive examples of risk/uncertainty analyses from a broad range of applications. Decision/option selection
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.
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.
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.
In this age of Big Data and analytics, knowledge gained through experiential learning and intuition may be taking a back seat to analytics. However, the use of intuition should not be underestimated and should play an important role in the decision process. How Well Do Executives Trust Their Intuition covers the Fulbright research study conducted by this international team of editors. The main question of their investigation is: How well do executives trust their intuition? In other words, do they typically prefer intuition over analysis and analytics. And equally importantly, what types of intuition may be most favorable looking at different variables? The research utilizes survey and biometrics approaches with C-level executives from Canada, U.S., Poland, and Italy. In addition, the book contains chapters from leading executives in industry, academia, and government. Their insights provide examples of how their intuition enabled key decisions that they made. This book covers such topics as: Using intuition How gender, experience, role, industry, and country affect intuition Trust and intuition in management Trusting intuition It's a matter of heart Leadership intuition and the future of work Creating an intuitive awareness for executives Improvisation and instinct. The book explores how executives can use intuition to guide decision making. It also explains how to trust intuition-based decisions. How Well Do Executives Trust Their Intuition is a timely and prescient reminder in this age of data-driven analytics that human insight, instinct, and intuition should also play key roles.
Energy Risk Modeling is a primer on statistical methods for managers, students and anybody interested in the field. Illustrated through elementary and more advanced statistical Methods, it is primarily aimed at those individuals who need a gentle introduction in how to go about using statistical methods for modeling energy price risk. Statistical ideas are presented by outlining the necessary concepts and illustrating how these ideas can be implemented. This is the first energy risk book on the market to focus specifically on the role of statistical methods. Its practical approach makes the book a very useful reference and an interesting read.
Drawing upon his considerable practical experience in the field and his highly regarded theoretical work, Chacko explores the use of systems science in solving complex problems in a variety of contexts. The author operationally defines the characteristics of problems that require a systems approach, presents his own step-by-step systems approach protocol, and takes the reader through 25 applications of the protocol to actual events. Ranging from global strategy decision-making to corporate sales planning, the case examples clearly demonstrate the ways in which the systems approach can be an effective operational tool for managers and policymakers involved in decision-making hituations characterized by difficulty and uncertainty. The case examples included fall into two major categories: missions and markets. In the first group, Chacko analyzes problems such as the U.S. response to Soviet threats during the Cuban missile crisis, the decision to attempt to achieve a nuclear force reduction agreement, and the questions of where and how to base the nation's strategic air forces. Among the market applications examined are Texas Instruments' decision to develop, manufacture, and market semiconductor devices; a corporate strategy to increase market share by 30 percent; and the evaluation of electronic alternatives to paper-based communications. Throughout, Chacko pays particular attention to developing a workable approach to problem-solving in an atmosphere of complexity and uncertainty. His work will be especially useful to marketing and R&D professionals as well as to students of systems science and analysis.
This book undertakes to marry the concepts of "Concept Mapping" with a "Design Thinking" approach in the context of business analysis. While in the past a lot of attention has been paid to the business process side, this book now focusses information quality and valuation, master data and hierarchy management, business rules automation and business semantics as examples for business innovation opportunities. The book shows how to take "Business Concept Maps" further as information models for new IT paradigms. In a way this books redefines and extends business analysis towards solutions that can be described as business synthesis or business development. Business modellers, analysts and controllers, as well as enterprise information architects, will benefit from the intuitive modelling and designing approach presented in this book.Thepragmatic and agile methodspresented can be directly applied to improve the wayorganizations manage their business concepts and their relationships. "This book is a great contribution to the information management community. It combines a theoretical foundation with practical methods for dealing with important problems. This is rare and very useful. Conceptual models that communicate business reality effectively require some degree of creative imagination. As such, they combine the results of business analysis with communication design, as is extensively covered in this book." Dr. Malcolm Chisholm, President at AskGet.com Inc. Truly understanding business requirements has always been a major stumbling block in business intelligence (BI) projects. In this book, Thomas Frisendal introduces a powerful technique business concept mapping that creates a virtual mind-meld between business users and business analysts. Frisendal does a wonderful explaining and demonstrating how this tool can improve the outcome of BI and other development projects ." Wayne Eckerson, executive director, BI Leadership Forum "
This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic introduction to the ranking methods for interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets, multi-criteria decision-making methods with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets, and group decision-making methods with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations. Including numerous application examples and illustrations with tables and figures and presenting the authors' latest research developments, it is a valuable resource for researchers and professionals in the fields of fuzzy mathematics, operations research, information science, management science and decision analysis.
Operational risk is one of the oldest risks in the banking sector, and yet regulatory bodies including the Basle Committee are still working on a regulatory framework. Damage control measures introduced by banks have often proved ineffective. The successful management of operational risk will be a significant competitive advantage for banks in the future. This book is a practical guide to achieving control of operational risk. Using qualitative analysis, the author suggests risk identification procedures and provides tools for the analysis, quantification, and management of risk. He goes on to discuss future developments in both the regulatory and insurance sectors, including the most recent Basle Committee proposals.
Macroeconomic turbulence and volatility in financial markets can
fatally affect firm's performance. Very few firms make serious
attempts to inform market participants and other outsider
stakeholders about the impact of macroeconomic
fluctuations--manifested as changes in exchange rates, interest
rates, inflation rates and stock market returns-- on performance.
These stakeholders, as well as financial analysts, must make their
own assessments but they generally lack both the required tools and
the information to do so. Worse, top management in most firms do
not themselves possess the tools to identify whether a change in
performance represents a change in the firm's intrinsic
competitiveness or a reflection of macroeconomic conditions outside
their influence.
In a category saturated with breezy, self-help volumes, Russell Korobkin's long-awaited The Five Tool Negotiator stands apart as a revelatory guide for anyone eager to improve their bargaining skills. The nationally renowned author, who has spent three decades studying successful negotiations, now shares five distinct "tools" that we can all readily utilise: Bargaining Zone Analysis, Persuasion, Deal Design, Power and Fairness Norms. Drawing on his academic research, Korobkin incorporates lively anecdotes that bring to life concepts from the disparate fields of psychology, economics and game theory, along with fascinating social science experiments. These invaluable tools can be applied to everyday negotiations and transactions-from consumers hoping to obtain the best price for a used car to executives trying to close a multimillion-dollar deal. Intuitively accessible and reassuringly persuasive, this is a vital guide to mastering the critical skills of negotiation at the social, cultural and human level.
This book, originally published in 1996, develops a model of information gathering for small businesses. Whilst all small business owners gather and process some information, the quality and types of information gathered is limited. Size and resource constraints force small business owners to make difficult decisions related to the research that they conduct. The model developed in this book is tested in part through a study of the information gathering practices of small owners/managers in the landscaping industry in Wisconsin, USA.
This book provides a practice-driven, yet rigorous approach to executive management decision-making that performs well even under unpredictable conditions. It explains how executives can employ prescribed engineering design methods to arrive at robust outcomes even when faced with uncontrollable uncertainty. The book presents the paradigm and its main principles in Part I; in Part II it illustrates how to frame a decision situation and how to design the decision so that it will produce its intended behavior. In turn, Part III discusses in detail in situ case studies on executive management decisions. Lastly, Part IV summarizes the book and formulates the key lessons learned.
This book presents different techniques and methodologies that used to help improve the decision-making process and increase the likelihood of success in sector as follows: agriculture, financial services, logistics, energy services, health and others. This book collects and consolidates innovative and high-quality research contributions regarding the implementation techniques and methodologies applied in different industrial sectors. The scope is to disseminate current trends knowledge in the implementation of artificial intelligence techniques and methodologies in different fields as follows: supply chain, business intelligence, e-commerce, social media and others. The book contents are useful for Ph.D., Ph.D. students, master and undergraduate students, and professional and students in industrial engineering, computer science, information systems, data analytics and others.
When you start a new managerial role, there is an inevitable contrast between what you believed you would find and what you're actually faced with. And Now What? helps you manage this gap between expectation and reality, ensuring that you get off to the best possible start in your new job. This book is structured in two parts, and it begins by offering readers a panoramic perspective of what a 'landing' entails in terms of personal self-leadership and managing people and uncertainty. The first part of the book reviews the process of taking charge in your new role, from preparation through to implementation. The second part presents a range of case studies arranged in order of increasing professional responsibility, allowing the reader to take a trip from the first stages of a professional leader's life to the highest responsibilities of a chairperson's role - experiencing changes, promotions, exits, internationalizations and take-offs along the way. The most important thing for a leader is not to discover how to motivate, but to better understand their reasons for motivating others. In this way, you can think of the leadership journey as both a personal and a professional adventure.
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.
This volume examines different aspects of management consulting in an innovative and comprehensive way. The chapters are based on original research and cover a wide range of countries (e.g. Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Germany, Australia, and Norway), consulting firms, and client organizations. They show how the consulting industry managed to reach the importance it has today; how consultancies and management gurus develop new ideas and/or repackage old ones; and how consultants find or retain clients and interact with them in a given project.
Risk communication: the evolution of attempts Risk communication is at once a very new and a very old field of interest. Risk analysis, as Krimsky and Plough (1988:2) point out, dates back at least to the Babylonians in 3200 BC. Cultures have traditionally utilized a host of mecha nisms for anticipating, responding to, and communicating about hazards - as in food avoidance, taboos, stigma of persons and places, myths, migration, etc. Throughout history, trade between places has necessitated labelling of containers to indicate their contents. Seals at sites of the ninth century BC Harappan civilization of South Asia record the owner and/or contents of the containers (Hadden, 1986:3). The Pure Food and Drug Act, the first labelling law with national scope in the United States, was passed in 1906. Common law covering the workplace in a number of countries has traditionally required that employers notify workers about significant dangers that they encounter on the job, an obligation formally extended to chronic hazards in the OSHA's Hazard Communication regulation of 1983 in the United States. In this sense, risk communication is probably the oldest way of risk manage ment. However, it is only until recently that risk communication has attracted the attention of regulators as an explicit alternative to the by now more common and formal approaches of standard setting, insuring etc. (Baram, 1982)."
Getting what you want - even if you are the boss - isn't always easy. Almost every organization, big or small, works among a network of competing interests. Whether it's governments pushing through policies, companies trying to increase profits, or even families deciding where to move house, rarely can decisions be made in isolation from competing interests both within the organization and outside it. In this accessible and straightforward account, Hans de Bruijn and Ernst ten Heuvelhof cast light on multi-stakeholder decision-making. Using plain language, they reveal the nuts and bolts of decision-making within the numerous dilemmas and tensions at work. Drawing on a diverse range of illustrative examples throughout, their perceptive analysis examines how different interests can either support or block change, and the strategies available for managing a variety of stakeholders. The second edition of Management in Networks incorporates a wider spread of international cases, a new chapter giving an overview of different network types, and a new chapter looking at digital governance and the impact of big data on networks. This insightful text is invaluable reading for students of management and organizational studies, plus practitioners - or actors - operating in a range of contexts.
Risk management is a decision-making process which considers
political, social, economic and engineering factors with relevant
risk assessments relating to a potential hazard in order to
develop, analyse and compare options to facilitate the selection of
the optimal regulatory response for safety from that hazard. Rapid
technological developments, organisational changes and increased
demand for efficiency have all influenced the vulnerability of our
society. As a result, safety and risk management is becoming an
increasingly important field. Risk Management with Applications from the Offshore Petroleum Industry presents an in-depth discussion of some fundamental principles of risk management, related to the use of expected values, uncertainty handling and risk acceptance criteria. A decision framework for risk management is developed that provides a structure for the classification of risk decision problems and a procedure for the execution of the related decision-making processes. Several examples from the offshore petroleum industry are included to illustrate the use of the framework, but it can also be applied in other areas. With the inclusion of a risk management framework designed to achieve better decisions and therefore more desirable outcomes, Risk Management with Applications from the Offshore Petroleum Industry is a valuable resource for practitioners in the industry, engineering managers and regulatory authorities. Graduate students and researchers in risk management will find this book a comprehensive reference.
This second edition - completely up to date with new exercises - provides a comprehensive and self-contained treatment of the probabilistic theory behind the risk-neutral valuation principle and its application to the pricing and hedging of financial derivatives. On the probabilistic side, both discrete- and continuous-time stochastic processes are treated, with special emphasis on martingale theory, stochastic integration and change-of-measure techniques. Based on firm probabilistic foundations, general properties of discrete- and continuous-time financial market models are discussed. |
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