Not a data expert? Here's an engaging and entertaining guide to interpreting and drawing insights from any chart, graph, or other data visualization you'll encounter. You're a business professional, not a data scientist. How do you make heads or tails of the data visualizations that come across your desk-let alone make critical business decisions based on the information they're designed to convey? In The Big Picture, top data visualization consultant Steve Wexler provides the tools for developing the graphical literacy you need to understand the data visualizations that are flooding your inbox-and put that data to use. Packed with the best four-color examples created in Excel, Tableau, Power BI, and Qlik, among others, this one-stop resource empowers you to extract the most important information from data visualizations quickly and accurately, act on key insights, solve problems, and make the right decisions for your organization every time.

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.

Meta-analysis, decision analysis, and cost-effectiveness analysis are the cornerstones of evidence-based medicine. These related quantitative methods have become essential tools in the formulation of clinical and public policy based on the synthesis of evidence. All three methods are taught with increasing frequency in medical schools and schools of public health and in health policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. This book is a lucid introduction, and will serve the needs of students taking introductory courses that cover these topics. It will also be useful to clinicians and policymakers who need to understand the quantitative underpinnings of the methods in order to best apply the information that derives from them. The second edition of this popular book adds new material on cumulative meta-analysis as a method to explore heterogeneity. The coverage of cost-effectiveness analysis has been brought into close alignment with recommendations of the U.S. Public Health Panel on Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Health and Medicine. Many of the examples have been replaced with more current examples, and all of the material has been updated to reflect recent advances in the methods and the emergence of consensus about some previously controversial issues. analysis. These three closely related methods have become even more important for synthesizing research since the first edition was published in 1994. And they have gained legitimacy as tools for guiding health policy. In the Second Edition, Petitti has added new material on cumlative meta-analysis and the exploration of heterogeneity, incorporated recommendations for standardizing the conduct of cost-effectiveness analysis, and updated the rest of the text.

Computing has become essential for the modeling, analysis, and optimization of systems. This book is devoted to algorithms, computational analysis, and decision models. The chapters are organized in two parts: optimization models of decisions and models of pricing and equilibria.

In the last few years, competition has become increasingly more complex, variable and dynamic, as can be seen in phenomena like globalization and technological acceleration. To cope with the dynamism and uncertainty of competition, enterprises need capabilities that enable them to respond to competition, as well as to improve their analytical skills and knowledge in order to better manage new strategic projects.

Strategic analysis uses both quantitative and qualitative tools to understand both competitive contexts and available company resources. In Strategic Analysis: Processes and Tools, author Andrea Beretta Zanoni develops a theory of strategic analysis and offers models for the application of strategic analysis tools during all phases of the process including planning and decision-making, the development of control, and the formulation of a strategic diagnosis.

Under intense scrutiny for the last few decades, Multiple Objective Decision Making (MODM) has been useful for dealing with the multiple-criteria decisions and planning problems associated with many important applications in fields including management science, engineering design, and transportation. Rough set theory has also proved to be an effective mathematical tool to counter the vague description of objects in fields such as artificial intelligence, expert systems, civil engineering, medical data analysis, data mining, pattern recognition, and decision theory.

Rough Multiple Objective Decision Making is perhaps the first book to combine state-of-the-art application of rough set theory, rough approximation techniques, and MODM. It illustrates traditional techniques-and some that employ simulation-based intelligent algorithms-to solve a wide range of realistic problems. Application of rough theory can remedy two types of uncertainty (randomness and fuzziness) which present significant drawbacks to existing decision-making methods, so the authors illustrate the use of rough sets to approximate the feasible set, and they explore use of rough intervals to demonstrate relative coefficients and parameters involved in bi-level MODM. The book reviews relevant literature and introduces models for both random and fuzzy rough MODM, applying proposed models and algorithms to problem solutions.

Given the broad range of uses for decision making, the authors offer background and guidance for rough approximation to real-world problems, with case studies that focus on engineering applications, including construction site layout planning, water resource allocation, and resource-constrained project scheduling. The text presents a general framework of rough MODM, including basic theory, models, and algorithms, as well as a proposed methodological system and discussion of future research.

Presenting: Problem Solving Sans Statistics Enhance your problem-solving skills, and improve your company's profitability using the methods outlined in Solving Complex Industrial Problems without Statistics. Introducing a process that involves working through problems and solutions without relying on complicated statistical design or analysis, this book pulls away from data-driven thinking and provides the problem solver with a new way of solving problems. Utilizing techniques that have been applied in facilities throughout the U.S., Canada, Italy, China, and Hong Kong, it demonstrates the use of process and problem differences and similarities, and provides a better understanding of analogous comparisons. The book incorporates visual analysis tools and problem examples in a format that facilitates comprehension and learning, presents novel concepts that do not require numbers or statistics, and provides a better understanding of the solution system/process overall. Each chapter presents new information, as well as case studies that include: Different problem situations Short histories detailing the operation, condition, and circumstances that were present at the time of each study Photographs, sketches, or tables with simple explanations to describe the circumstances, conditions, and the actions taken Methods of solution in rudimentary form Chapter summaries to review important mechanisms and workings Final summaries to tie together the important methods and techniques that facilitate easy problem solutions Solving Complex Industrial Problems without Statistics provides valuable insight into the solution of complex quality and manufacturing problems, without the use of statistics, and is essential to anyone involved in quality, control, problem-solving activities, or total quality management.

With the right mindset and insight, anyone can become a millionaire. Are you tired of just paying bills until you die? Are you wasting your life at a job that doesn't make you fulfilled or financially secure? Then Future Proofing You: Twelve Truths for Creating Opportunity, Maximizing Wealth, and Controlling Your Destiny in an Uncertain World is for you. In this life-changing book, celebrated author and entrepreneur Jay Samit, who's worked with such visionaries as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman, and hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, shares the key understandings and step-by-step process for becoming rich and never needing another job again. To prove the power of his 12 Truths, Samit also details the journey of how he mentored a broke millennial with these principles and empowered him to go from being on welfare to becoming a self-made millionaire in one year. Building upon the principles in his internationally acclaimed book Disrupt You, Samit explains: How to identify an idea and market to start your business How to build a virtual company with little or no capital The latest free software tools for managing your business Ways to get a piece of a trillion-dollar opportunity bigger than mobile How to harness the three primary fears of others to generate more sales Strategies for finding the right mentors to accelerate your success Techniques to structure any deal for creating recurring revenue and lasting wealth This book is perfect for anyone who is tired of jobs with no security, hopes to truly realize their professional and personal potential, and is looking for a way to build a better life for them and their family. Future Proofing You also belongs on the bookshelves of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs everywhere who hope to inspire their teams to become something greater than what they already are.

Praise for The PSYCHOLOGY of RISK

"The Psychology of Risk is equally vital for everyone from the day trader to short-term online trader to long-term investor. A clear, enjoyable insight into what makes trading success."
–Alpesh B. Patel, Financial Times columnist and author of Trading Online

"Once again Dr. Kiev delivers a book that should be read cover to cover and kept as a reference. The Psychology of Risk explores the elements of risk taking as they relate to the human psyche."
–John Floyd, Director, Proprietary Trading, Deutsche Bank AG

"In 2000 and 2001, benchmark U.S. equity indices experienced the worst two-year performance since the bear market of 1973—74. Among the winners in this tumultuous market environment were those that invested with short time horizons rather than those that utilized a rigid buy-and-hold ‘one decision’ philosophy. Against this backdrop, Kiev, in his familiar pull-no-punches style, delivers an insightful, timely, and pragmatic thesis that focuses on the inner game of trading: psychology, discipline, and the holy grail–timing. A captivating read for those in search of a performance edge."
–Ciaran T. O’Kelly, Head of Equity Trading, Salomon Smith Barney

"Ari has proven himself to be a keen coach of world-class traders. The Psychology of Risk is a great read for those looking to better understand what it takes to put oneself at risk in the market."
–Kevin Becker, CIO, Claiborne Capital Management, LP

"Ari Kiev has done it again. One of Wall Street’s preeminent trading coaches, he explores some useful principles of risk taking which will help traders to take their game to the next level."
Jay Goldman, Hedge Fund Manager, Goldman & Co., LP

In order to ensure environmentally responsible production and disposal of products, local governments are imposing stricter environmental regulations, some of which even require manufacturers to take back their products at the end of the product's useful life. These government regulations, together with increasing environmental awareness, have forced manufacturers to invest in environment-conscious manufacturing. The multiple Criteria Decision Making Techniques presented in this book can be employed to solve the problems of environment-conscious manufacturers in product design, logistics, disassembly and remanufacturing.

Macrocognition Metrics and Scenarios: Design and Evaluation for Real-World Teams translates advances by scientific leaders in the relatively new area of macrocognition into a format that will support immediate use by members of the software testing and evaluation community for large-scale systems as well as trainers of real-world teams. Macrocognition is defined as how activity in real-world teams is adapted to the complex demands of a setting with high consequences for failure. The primary distinction between macrocognition and prior research is that the primary unit for measurement is a real-world team coordinating their activity, rather than individuals processing information, the predominant model for cognition for decades. This book provides an overview of the theoretical foundations of macrocognition, describes a set of exciting new macrocognitive metrics, and provides guidance on using the metrics in the context of different approaches to evaluation and measurement of real-world teams.

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 explores and presents challenges that "traditional" organisations experience once they take off towards self-managing organisations (or Teal Organisations). The concept of Teal Organisations is not surprising nowadays, but strangely enough it remains a dream concept: the majority of modern organisations represent hierarchical managerial constructions, with little to no evidence of self-management. The main characteristics of self-management are well-known: whole tasks; organisational actors equipped with a certain skill portfolio that is required to accomplish these tasks; work organised in teams that have autonomy for decision-making and performance management. Self-management is often accompanied by greater flexibility, better use of employees' creative capacities, increased quality of work life, and decreased employee absenteeism and turnover, eventually resulting in increased job satisfaction and organizational commitment. In this volume, we suggest that self-managing teams require a new way forward in modern organisations. Particularly, we offer a new roadmap for leaders who are responsible for the implementation of self-managing teams.

"Brick by Brick" takes you inside the LEGO you've never seen. By following the teams that are inventing some of the world's best-loved toys, it spotlights the company's disciplined approach to harnessing creativity and recounts one of the most remarkable business transformations in recent memory.
"Brick by Brick" reveals how LEGO failed to keep pace with the revolutionary changes in kids' lives and began sliding into irrelevance. When the company's leaders implemented some of the business world's most widely espoused prescriptions for boosting innovation, they ironically pushed the iconic toymaker to the brink of bankruptcy. The company's near-collapse shows that what works in theory can fail spectacularly in the brutally competitive global economy.
It took a new LEGO management team - faced with the growing rage for electronic toys, few barriers to entry, and ultra-demanding consumers (ten-year old boys) - to reinvent the innovation rule book and transform LEGO into one of the world's most profitable, fastest-growing companies.
Along the way, "Brick by Brick" reveals how LEGO:
- Became truly customer-driven by co-creating with kids as well as its passionate adult fans
- Looked beyond products and learned to leverage a full-spectrum approach to innovation
- Opened its innovation process by using both the "wisdom of crowds" and the expertise of elite cliques
- Discovered uncontested, "blue ocean" markets, even as it thrived in brutally competitive red oceans
- Gave its world-class design teams enough space to create and direction to deliver
built a culture where "profitable" innovation flourishes
Sometimes radical yet always applicable, "Brick by Brick" abounds with real-world lessons for unleashing breakthrough innovation in your organization, just like LEGO. Whether you're a senior executive looking to make your company grow, an entrepreneur building a startup from scratch, or a fan who wants to instill some of that LEGO magic in your career, you'll learn how to build your own innovation advantage, brick by brick.

If you can slice a melon or make a right-hand turn, you can be a breakthrough innovator.
The title of this book, "Cause a Disturbance," says it all, and it most assuredly will cause a disturbance in the way you think about business: your business.
Everyone knows--and everyone talks about--how important innovation is in the competitive battle to find, delight, and keep customers, yet far too few achieve it. As Tencer and Cardoso explain, "There's a big difference between an occasional spark of innovation and an eternal flame." But the reality is different; most firms struggle to consistently innovate. All that can change. Kick-start your business with attitude. Cause a disturbance
Whether your business is in transition or simply looking for an innovative spark, give it a lift with "Cause a Disturbance." Within these pages you will learn how innovation can change your business in simple steps through The 90% Rule(R) a straightforward philosophy that drives you to constantly ask "What's the next 10%? What's the next product, service, or process improvement that will create a continuously engaged customer base and strengthen my brand?"
Cause a disturbance in the way you think about innovation as you open your mind to the possibilities--and simplicity--of being innovative every day

Today there are more technology, technologists, knowledge and experts than at any time in human history; but from a global perspective, it is difficult to argue that this accumulation of knowledge and technology has put the world in an unambiguously better position than it was in the past. Business is not getting any easier to do and major corporate collapses based on poor decisions, poor conduct, and poor judgement continue to occur. In public administration too, basic institutions and services (education, health, transport) seem to be continually undergoing "crises" of inadequate delivery and excessive pressure. Wisdom and Management in the Knowledge Economy explains why unwise managerial practice can happen in a world characterized by an excess of information and knowledge. Drawing on Aristotle's idea of practical wisdom, the book develops a theory of social practice wisdom that addresses important social psychological and sociological dynamics that underpin wise management and organizations. As well as providing a detailed theory of social practice wisdom, this book considers practical issues in organizational communication, behavior, culture, change and knowledge as well as in HRM, leadership, ethics, strategy, international business, business education, and wisdom research. By introducing the notion of social practice wisdom, aspects of social structure, organizational culture, and organizational communication needed for wisdom to flourish are for the first time rendered visible in a way that opens new possibilities for wiser management, wiser organizations, and wisdom research.

The processes and consequences of household decision-making are investigated using multi-disciplinary research methods of decision analysis that involves statistical, mathematical, psychological, anthropological, and econometric techniques brought together in a holistic manner. This study is focused in the Ada and Selale regions of the Central Ethiopian Highlands. The technologies studied are fertilizer, improved crop varieties, pesticides, and cross-bred cows. Goals and strategies of households, institutions, access to information, indigenous knowledge, risk taking behavior, and their impacts on household decision-making were studied. Technology adoption was studied under a variety of controllable (e.g., allocation of labor) and uncontrollable (natural factors such as rainfall or government intervention) environments. The findings demonstrated that agricultural producers can attain greater increases in food production and the efficiency with which it is produced if they adopt at least two innovations. The study revealed that non-physical resources such as indigenous knowledge and institutions play a fundamental role on the ability of producers to achieve increases in food production. For development to be sustained, therefore, investments in physical resources should be matched with those in non-physical resources.

The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision Making comprehensively surveys theory and research on organizational decision-making, broadly conceived. Emphasizing psychological perspectives, while encompassing the insights of economics, political science, and sociology, it provides coverage at the individual, group, organizational, and inter-organizational levels of analysis. In-depth case studies illustrate the practical implications of the work surveyed. Each chapter is authored by one or more leading scholars, thus ensuring that this Handbook is an authoritative reference work for academics, researchers, advanced students, and reflective practitioners concerned with decision-making in the areas of Management, Psychology, and HRM. Contributors: Eric Abrahamson, Julia Balogun, Michael L. Barnett, Philippe Baumard, Nicole Bourque, Laure Cabantous, Prithviraj Chattopadhyay, Kevin Daniels, Jerker Denrell, Vinit M. Desai, Giovanni Dosi, Roger L.M. Dunbar, Stephen M. Fiore, Mark A. Fuller, Michael Shayne Gary, Elizabeth George, Jean-Pascal Gond, Paul Goodwin, Terri L. Griffith, Mark P. Healey, Gerard P. Hodgkinson, Gerry Johnson, Michael Johnson-Cramer, Alfred Kieser, Ann Langley, Eleanor T. Lewis, Dan Lovallo, Rebecca Lyons, Peter M. Madsen, A. John Maule, John M. Mezias, Nigel Nicholson, Gregory B. Northcraft, David Oliver, Annie Pye, Karlene H. Roberts, Jacques Rojot, Michael A. Rosen, Isabelle Royer, Eugene Sadler-Smith, Eduardo Salas, Kristyn A. Scott, Zur Shapira, Carolyne Smart, Gerald F. Smith, Emma Soane, Paul R. Sparrow, William H. Starbuck, Matt Statler, Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, Michal Tamuz, Teri Jane Ursacki-Bryant, Ilan Vertinsky, Benedicte Vidaillet, Jane Webster, Karl E. Weick, Benjamin Wellstein, George Wright, Kuo Frank Yu, and David Zweig.

This book provides a detailed examination of the complex negotiation processes surrounding intergovernmental conferences in the European Union.

Since the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and its ?appendix?, the Treaty of Nice in 2002, any reform of the treaty framework of the European Union seems to be doomed to fail, evidenced by the decline of the Constitutional Treaty and by the current fate of the Lisbon treaty. By presenting an extensive quantitative study of the Intergovernmental Conference of 1996/7 prior to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the authors argue that these negotiations reveal the major challenges of European integration. Drawing on advanced statistical methods, they contend that multi-level negotiations require an appropriate coordination of informal administrative networks and the empowerment of administrative leadership, with these factors significantly shaping the dynamics and outcomes of negotiations. Through these findings, this book lays down the foundation for future evidence-based evaluations of negotiations and implementation studies, and delivers new insights on decision-making within the European Union.

European Union Intergovernmental Conferences will be of interest to students and researchers of political science, sociology, administrative science, business and management studies, international law and European law.

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences.
This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press.
Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1973 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

The phenomenon of entrepreneurship has attracted researchers from a variety of disciplines and a diverse number of analytical approaches. Currently, there is a considerable amount of confusion and a variety of conflicting theories which are being used interchangeably and ambiguously. In this important new book, the authors argue that there are analytically distinct forms of entrepreneurship, each of them having an individual logic of their own. They highlight the role of individual economic agents with endowments of new knowledge or new combinations of old knowledge as entrepreneurs, and thus identify them as dynamic factors in the knowledge economy. Overall, this book not only provides a contemporary overview of current research in the field, but also summarizes the policy conclusions that can be drawn from current research.

"What should I do?," "How should I deal with this?," "How should I behave?," "How should I act?" we ask ourselves daily. But, this is only the first part of the sentence, while the full sentence is "What should I do ... to achieve such and such?," for example to complete an assigned task, to do well before my boss or a client, to be pleased with myself, to carry out my plans, to make money in the stock market, to pass an exam, to complete an application, etc. These and similar questions that people ask, consciously or not, openly or not, are decisions.

What skills must we master, especially when there is a need to make not only elementary decisions, but also decisions that affect the existence, health, and even lives of people? First, Laszlo Zsolnai writes that we should acquire the skill of gaining knowledge. Only then will we stand a chance of reacting to things that are improbable today, but could become a fact tomorrow. Also essential is the skill of designing, i.e., preparing actions conceptually in order to make decisions before irreversible changes occur. Finally, it is essential to master the skill of multidimensional judgment within the space defined by effectiveness, efficiency, and ethics.

This is Zsolnai's attempt to build a model of making ethical decisions both effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the model is much broader than purely an analytical framework would be. It must tell us how to act rather than limit us to reflection on actions already performed; it must combine decision and praxiological analysis of human conduct. The proposed model enlarges the scope of the debate and suggests new avenues of both rational and responsible decision making. This is an original statement of the crossover of policy and morality.