This volume of the International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics explores the latest economic and financial developments in Africa and Asia. Chapters cover a range of topics such as: the relationship between good stewardship, agency costs, and performance of South African firms; stock market dynamics in Thailand, including risk & mutual fund clustering and zero-investment portfolios strategies; and a special focus on financial markets in Indonesia such as fundamental indexing with Markowitz mean variance portfolios, a financial performance analysis of highway companies before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, and a credit risk scoring model for consumer financing. Comparative Analysis of Trade and Finance in Emerging Economies also addresses the issue of whether the West African Monetary Zone can form a Currency Union, and, examines the impact of non-tariff measures of China on the export of agricultural products of Laos. These peer-reviewed papers touch on a variety of timely, interdisciplinary subjects such as stock markets and the effects of public policy. Together, ISETE 31, is a crucial resource of current, cutting-edge research for any scholar of international finance and economics.

Information & communication technology (ICT) and the automotive sector are two of the most important industries in the EU and the US. The EU's eastern expansion and economic globalization have reinforced competition on the one hand; on the other hand the importance of outsourcing and off-shoring has increased. Against this background the intensification of innovation dynamics becomes crucial - and with them the role of regional innovation clusters. The analysis examines seven regions and six EU countries. The focus is on cluster and network dynamics in both industries, as regional ICT clusters are playing an increasingly central role in many European regions. Specialization and structural change in the automotive sector are highlighted, and new strategic approaches for multinational companies and changes in policy options are identified.

ITIL(R) 4 is the latest evolution of the leading best-practice framework for ITSM (IT service management). It has been significantly updated from ITIL v3 and addresses new ITSM challenges, includes new technologies and incorporates new ways of working. ITIL(R) Foundation Essentials ITIL 4 Edition is the ultimate revision guide for candidates preparing for the ITIL 4 Foundation exam. It is fully aligned with the Foundation course syllabus and gives a clear and concise overview of the facts. Whether you are taking an ITIL 4 Foundation training course or are a self-study candidate, new to the framework or looking to upgrade your ITIL 2011 certification, this guide is the essential companion. It: Provides definitions of the key terms and concepts used in ITIL 4; Presents detailed information in clear, user-friendly and easy-to-follow ways through tables, bullet points and diagrams; and Explains the key figures and diagrams in the ITIL syllabus. This second edition has been updated to align with amendments to the ITIL(R) 4 Foundation syllabus, including: Replacing 'change control' with 'change enablement' throughout; The removal of 'IT' from the definition of a change; and Updating definitions for customer, sponsor and user. Start preparing for your ITIL Foundation exam - order your copy today. ITIL(R) is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. This book is an official AXELOS licensed product.

Named one of "The five best books to understand AI" by The Economist The impact AI will have is profound, but the economic framework for understanding it is surprisingly simple. Artificial intelligence seems to do the impossible, magically bringing machines to life-driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI brings can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In the face of such uncertainty, many either cower in fear or predict an impossibly sunny future. But in Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and provide economic clarity about the AI revolution as well as a basis for action by executives, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs. In this new, updated edition, the authors illustrate how, when AI is framed as cheap prediction, its extraordinary potential becomes clear: Prediction is at the heart of making decisions amid uncertainty. Our businesses and personal lives are riddled with such decisions. Prediction tools increase productivity-operating machines, handling documents, communicating with customers. Uncertainty constrains strategy. Better prediction creates opportunities for new business strategies to compete. The authors reset the context, describing the striking impact the book has had and how its argument and its implications are playing out in the real world. And in new material, they explain how prediction fits into decision-making processes and how foundational technologies such as quantum computing will impact business choices. Penetrating, insightful, and practical, Prediction Machines will help you navigate the changes on the horizon.

The authors present a multifaceted, global view of the human dynamics of education, supply, demand, & career development in the information systems and technology industry, offering a tool to meet the challenges of improving education & employing an optimal supply of information systems & technology graduates in the decades to come.

A fascinating look at the trailblazing companies using artificial intelligence to create new competitive advantage, from the author of the business classic, Competing on Analytics, and the head of Deloitte's US AI practice. Though most organizations are placing modest bets on artificial intelligence, there is a world-class group of companies that are going all-in on the technology and radically transforming their products, processes, strategies, customer relationships, and cultures. Though these organizations represent less than 1 percent of large companies, they are all high performers in their industries. They have better business models, make better decisions, have better relationships with their customers, offer better products and services, and command higher prices. Written by bestselling author Tom Davenport and Deloitte's Nitin Mittal, All-In on AI looks at artificial intelligence at its cutting edge from the viewpoint of established companies like Anthem, Ping An, Airbus, and Capital One. Filled with insights, strategies, and best practices, All-In on AI also provides leaders and their teams with the information they need to help their own companies take AI to the next level. If you're curious about the next phase in the implementation of artificial intelligence within companies, or if you're looking to adopt this powerful technology in a more robust way yourself, All-In on AI will give you a rare inside look at what the leading adopters are doing, while providing you with the tools to put AI at the core of everything you do.

Praise for THE MAVERICK AND HIS MACHINE

"Like all great biographers, Kevin Maney gives us an engaging story and so much more. His fascinating and definitive book about IBM’s founder is replete with amazing revelations and character lessons that resonate today. Among the gems: how a demanding curmudgeon managed to shape a collaborative corporate culture–and create a legacy that changed the world."
–Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Harvard Business School, bestselling author of Evolve!
and When Giants Learn to Dance

"The gripping story of sky-high ambition, iron willpower, huge bet-the-company gambles, humiliating failure, and unparalleled success–one of the best books ever written about the technology industry, about one of the most fascinating people in twentieth-century America."
–Marc Andreessen
Cofounder of Opsware, Inc. and Netscape

"The story of Watson and IBM is a compelling–and, at times, cautionary–tale of a determined, charismatic, flawed, and ultimately successful leader. Anyone interested in the story of business in America, the birth of high-tech, or simply the rags-to-riches tale of one determined businessman should read this book."
–Robert M. Menschel
Senior Director, Goldman Sachs
author of Markets, Mobs, and Mayhem

"In an action-packed story that reads like a novel, Kevin Maney paints a convincing portrait of a man who, having been a convicted criminal, redeemed himself and reshaped the American business landscape. The career of Thomas Watson, the effective founder of IBM, is not only fascinating, but offers many critical lessons on management and personal conduct that remain extremely poignant today."
–Peter Krass
author of Carnegie

Hardbound. Global changes in policy and technology in the telecommunications industry in the 1990s are described and analysed in this volume, showing how this industry creates a bridge for society's transition to the next century. Dynamic innovations in technology are encouraging a relatively free world market and a Global Information Infrastructure for use by developed and developing economies. The volume discusses the challenges posed by these innovations for closing the gap between the information-rich and information-poor. Lessons are included for corporate and individual users as they prepare for the Global Information Infrastructure. Societal impacts of new networks, multimedia, cellular communications, equipment standards, telemedia, digital cash, the Internet, and innovative satellite systems are explored in detail with a view to future developments.

From the Wall Street Journal's Tripp Mickle, the dramatic, untold story inside Apple after the passing of Steve Jobs by following his top lieutenants-Jony Ive, the Chief Design Officer, and Tim Cook, the COO-turned-CEO-and how the fading of the former and the rise of the latter led to Apple losing its soul. Steve Jobs called Jony Ive his "spiritual partner at Apple." The London-born genius was the second-most powerful person at Apple and the creative force who most embodies Jobs's spirit, the man who designed the products adopted by hundreds of millions the world over: the iPod, iPad, MacBook Air, the iMac G3, and the iPhone. In the wake of his close collaborator's death, the chief designer wrestled with grief and initially threw himself into his work designing the new Apple headquarters and the Watch before losing his motivation in a company increasingly devoted more to margins than to inspiration. In many ways, Cook was Ive's opposite. The product of a small Alabama town, he had risen through the ranks from the supply side of the company. His gift was not the creation of new products. Instead, he had invented countless ways to maximize a margin, squeezing some suppliers, persuading others to build factories the size of cities to churn out more units. He considered inventory evil. He knew how to make subordinates sweat with withering questions. Jobs selected Cook as his successor, and Cook oversaw a period of tremendous revenue growth that has lifted Apple's valuation to $3 trillion. He built a commanding business in China and rapidly distinguished himself as a master politician who could forge global alliances and send the world's stock market into freefall with a single sentence. Author Tripp Mickle spoke with more than 200 current and former Apple executives, as well as figures key to this period of Apple's history, including Trump administration officials and fashion luminaries such as Anna Wintour while writing After Steve. His research shows the company's success came at a cost. Apple lost its innovative spirit and has not designed a new category of device in years. Ive's departure in 2019 marked a culmination in Apple's shift from a company of innovation to one of operational excellence, and the price is a company that has lost its soul.

The Universal Service Desk (USD) - Implementing, controlling and improving service delivery defines what a USD is, why it is valuable to an organisation and how to build and implement one. It also discusses the evolution of the USD as part of integrated workplace management. Understand the essentials of any USD - buy this book today!

This work uses case studies to explore why large scale electronics failed to win a leadership position in the early computer industry and why IBM, a firm with a heritage in the business machines industry, succeeded. The cases cover both the US and the UK industry, focusing on electronics giants GE, RCA, English Electric, EMI and Ferranti.

This title provides a broad overview of how women are portrayed and treated in America's news and entertainment industries, including film, television, radio, the internet, and social media. This book provides a one-stop resource for understanding the participation and representation of women in the U.S. media in such areas as narrative film, scripted television programming, advertising, video games, news, and sports. Coverage is wide-ranging and comprehensive, covering historical developments and trends as well as such relevant issues as gender disparities in pay and advancement opportunities, stereotypical gender portrayals in popular entertainment, sexual harassment in America's media and entertainment industries, and the dearth of positive media representations of women of color. Engaging with this history and reading about current issues related to this topic will be useful to those interested in understanding more about why women's engagement in media-in such roles as performer, journalist, producer, and writer-is important. It will also help readers better understand how and why problematic media representations of women hinder efforts to achieve full gender equality in American society. Provides readers with an understanding of the history of women's representation in developing and contemporary media industries Highlights and discusses current issues related to women's representation in media forms Offers perspectives from a variety of writers on specific elements of women's representation and professional prospects in American media industries Profiles accomplished women who have impacted media industries in meaningful ways

This useful pocket guide is an ideal introduction for those wanting to understand more about ISO 38500. It describes the scope, application and objectives of the Standard and outlines its six core principles.

Industry analysts are in the business of shaping the technological and economic future. They attempt to 'predict' what will become the next big thing; to spot new emerging trends and paradigms; to decide which hi-tech products will win out over others and to figure out which technology vendors can deliver on their promises. In just a few short years, they have developed a surprising degree of authority over technological innovation. Yet we know very little, if anything about them. This book seeks to explain how this was achieved and on what this authority rests. Who are the experts who increasingly command the attention of vendor and user communities? What is the nature of this new form of technical and business knowledge? How Industry Analysts Shape the Digital Future offers the first book length study into this rarely scrutinized form of business expertise. Contributions to this volume show how, from a small group of mainly North American players which arose in the 1970s, Gartner Inc. has emerged as clear leader of a $6 billion industry that involves several hundred firms worldwide. Through interviews and observation of Gartner Inc. and other industry analyst firms, the book explores how these firms create their predictions, market classifications and rankings, as well as with how these outputs are assessed and consumed. The book asks why many social scientists have ignored the proliferation of these new forms of management and technical expertise. In some cases scholars have 'deflated' this kind of business acumen, portraying it as arbitrary knowledge whose methods and content do not deserve enquiry. The valuable exception here has been the path-breaking work on the 'performativity' of economic, financial or accounting knowledge. Drawing upon recent performativity arguments, the book argues the case for a Sociology of Business Knowledge.

Over the course of the last two decades, Iran has gone through major industrial transformation, in spite of major obstacles in the path of the country's development. This comprehensive book examines the Iranian government's mobilization of resources to develop science and technology, presenting an overview of the structure, dynamics, and outcomes of the government's science and technology policies. It evaluates sectors at the systems level and emphasizes the prominence of government, rather than of the market, in the innovation system of the Iranian economy. Written by authors who are in positions of leadership in the industries they discuss, this book offers an unparalleled look into Iran's current technology achievements.

In the estimating, planning and management of any project, large or small, an understanding of the impact of risk is critical. This book explains how the growing number of people choosing to or forced to organise their work as projects can make realistic assessments of the uncertainty affecting costs, timescale and revenue, before commitments are made. A clear analysis of the role of uncertainty is combined in this concise and practical handbook with simple, cost-effective techniques for measuring and modelling the overall risk to a project’s budget and schedule. There is advice and help here for the whole project team, including project managers; bid managers; project sales professionals; planners; estimators; managers running a project-based business; and consultants and auditors advising a projects business. Drawn from the author’s extensive experience on projects ranging in scale from a few man-months to hundreds of man-years, the book will beelevant to anyone involved in a project-based business. Examples are presented as simple models, built in spreadsheets using the @Risk software package. No more than basic knowledge of Lotus 1-2-3^® or Excel^® will be required by the reader.

Information Technology and Organizational Transformation is arguably the key challenge facing corporate executives and business school academics alike as we approach the millennium. Much that is superficial has been written on the topic in recent years. The siren call of the more popular literature in this area — seductive in the simplicity of the message of radically improved business performance brought about by IT and process re-engineering — has led to the unwary foundering on the rocks of the realpolitik associated with organizational change. But organizational innovation is possible — as the case studies included in this book amply demonstrate. While ‘best practice’ solutions may be illusory, the examples given herein, taken together with the fruits of research undertaken by leading academics from Continental Europe, Scandinavia, North America and the UK, provide key lessons that one ignores at one’s peril. This is a highly important contribution to knowledge. Bringing together such key themes as organizational learning, knowledge management, IT and business strategy alignment, the management of change, inter-organizational communications, corporate innovation and business process change, this book provides significant learning for those willing to challenge much of the received wisdom on this fascinating topic.

This open access book presents the foundations of the Big Data research and innovation ecosystem and the associated enablers that facilitate delivering value from data for business and society. It provides insights into the key elements for research and innovation, technical architectures, business models, skills, and best practices to support the creation of data-driven solutions and organizations. The book is a compilation of selected high-quality chapters covering best practices, technologies, experiences, and practical recommendations on research and innovation for big data. The contributions are grouped into four parts: * Part I: Ecosystem Elements of Big Data Value focuses on establishing the big data value ecosystem using a holistic approach to make it attractive and valuable to all stakeholders. * Part II: Research and Innovation Elements of Big Data Value details the key technical and capability challenges to be addressed for delivering big data value. * Part III: Business, Policy, and Societal Elements of Big Data Value investigates the need to make more efficient use of big data and understanding that data is an asset that has significant potential for the economy and society. * Part IV: Emerging Elements of Big Data Value explores the critical elements to maximizing the future potential of big data value. Overall, readers are provided with insights which can support them in creating data-driven solutions, organizations, and productive data ecosystems. The material represents the results of a collective effort undertaken by the European data community as part of the Big Data Value Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the European Commission and the Big Data Value Association (BDVA) to boost data-driven digital transformation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP Industry Oriented Conferences held at the 20th World Computer Congress in Milano, Italy on September 7-10, 2008.

The IFIP series publishes state-of-the-art results in the sciences and technologies of information and communication. The scope of the series includes: foundations of computer science; software theory and practice; education; computer applications in technology; communication systems; systems modeling and optimization; information systems; computers and society; computer systems technology; security and protection in information processing systems; artificial intelligence; and human-computer interaction. Proceedings and post-proceedings of refereed international conferences in computer science and interdisciplinary fields are featured. These results often precede journal publication and represent the most current research. The principal aim of the IFIP series is to encourage education and the dissemination and exchange of information about all aspects of computing.

Bits and Atoms explores the governance potential found in the explosive growth of digital information and communication technology in areas of limited statehood. Today, places with weak or altogether missing state institutions are tied internally and to the larger world by widely available digital technology. The chapters in the book explore questions of when and if the growth in digital technology can fill some of the governance vacuum created by the absence of an effective state. For example, mobile money could fill a gap in traditional banking or mobile phones could allow rural populations to pay for basic services and receive much needed advice and market pricing information. Yet, as potentially revolutionary as this technology can be to areas of limited statehood, it still faces limitations. Bits and Atoms is a thought-provoking look at the prospects for and limitations of digital technology to function in place of traditional state apparatuses.