The concepts and theories of knowledge management and networks are well documented. Yet there are few, if any, guidelines on how to implement knowledge management within an organization, especially focusing on how to manage knowledge in a network environment. Putting Knowledge Networks into Action visualizes paths that allow one to make connections between theories, concepts and concrete actions. It shows how to integrate these different roots into a holistic view on managing knowledge in networks. It develops a methodology that will help the reader move towards building and maintaining knowledge networks in his or her organization.

This volume is intended to stimulate a change in the practice of decision support, advocating an interdisciplinary approach centred on both social and natural sciences, both theory and practice. It addresses the issue of analysis and management of uncertainty and risk in decision support corresponding to the aims of Integrated Assessment. A pluralistic method is necessary to account for legitimate plural interpretations of uncertainty and multiple risk perceptions. A wide range of methods and tools is presented to contribute to adequate and effective pluralistic uncertainty management and risk analysis in decision support endeavours. Special attention is given to the development of one such approach, the Pluralistic fRamework for Integrated uncertainty Management and risk Analysis (PRIMA), of which the practical value is explored in the context of the Environmental Outlooks produced by the Dutch Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM). Audience: This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners whose work involves decision support, uncertainty management, risk analysis, environmental planning, and Integrated Assessment.

Decisions in uncertainty Scientific reaction to change During latter decades, the basic elements that have traditionally made up the society in wh ich economic activity develops, have been submitted to the effect of multiple aggressions as a consequence of the outcome of events motivated by the nature itself of the human being, always seeking a level of happiness that is never reached. In a very brief manner we are accustomed to mention these by using words such as revolution, profound changes, convulsions . . . ., the results of which are manifest through non-linear reactions that lead to a future charged with uncertainty. To get to know, explain and treat this new world constitutes one of the many objectives of those who desire a society in the service of man, and for those who aspire to the fact of the concept of mutuality transcending the use less limits of the printed word. But for this it will be necessary to overcome a whole realm of obstacles placed in the way by those comfortably embedded in old principles, decrepit ideas and are not willing to open the windows of their mind to receive the fresh air of a new era."

All industrial countries have developed regulatory systems to assess and manage the risk of chemical substances to the working and natural environment. The pressure to harmonize these often specialized regulatory systems is increasingly strong at the international level. Such harmonization not only entails the assessment of particular chemicals, but also the way assessment procedures and their boundary with risk management is organized. As these initiatives intensify, they increasingly raise important questions of how to integrate national differences in the international regulatory arena. How will national consultation procedures relate to international decision-making on chemical risks? How will differences in national risk assessment procedures be accommodated? How will the international regulatory system be integrated with different national styles of regulation and government? Presenting the experiences and insights of both people from within the worlds of risk assessment and management and from the field of Science Studies, this book forms a state-of-the-art in the discussion on the Politics of Chemical Risk. By offering scenarios, or sketches of a regulatory future, it points to the choices that can be made and the opportunities to be explored. As such, it offers an agenda for environmental and occupational scientists, policy-makers and students of science and technology alike.

This book looks at the complexity of knowledge. It takes into account diverse disciplines such as economics, social sciences, international business, and organization studies. The authors focus on knowledge internationally from a macro to a more micro level, from the state to households, from knowledge production to knowledge consumption, lifting the veil on knowledge complexities. By making the complexities more transparent, the authors enrich readers' understanding and illuminate their perception of knowledge as a key factor in the development of the twenty-first century world.

Appendices A Rotastore A. l Tabular Results for Different Models A. 2 Tabular Results for Different Algorithms B OptiTrans B. l Input Data B. l. l Input Data Common to all Solution Approaches B. 1. 2 Specific Input Data for the MILP Model and the Column Enumeration Approach B. 1. 3 Specific Input Data for the Heuristic Methods B. 1. 3. 1 Penalty Criteria B. 1. 3. 2 Control Parameters of the OptiTrans Software B. 2 Tabular Results B. 2. 1 Tabular Results for the MILP Model B. 2. 2 Tabular Results for the Heuristic Methods B. 2. 2. 1 Input Data for a Whole Day - Offline Analysis B. 2. 2. 2 Results for CIH and SA References Index Preface This book covers the analysis and development of online algorithms involving exact optimization and heuristic techniques, and their appli- tion to solve two real life problems. The first problem is concerned with a complex technical system: a special carousel based high-speed storage system - Rotastore. It is shown that this logistic problem leads to an NP-hard Batch Presorting Pr- lem (BPSP) which is not easy to solve optimally in offline situations. We consider a polynomial case and develope an exact algorithm for offline situations. Competitive analysis showed that the proposed online - gorithm is 312-competitive. Online algorithms with lookahead improve the online solutions in particular cases. If the capacity constraint on additional storage is neglected the problem has a totally unimodular polyhedron.

"Systems Thinking is a topic which is at the forefront of how we think about management in the Public Sector and Service Industries. This collection from leading thinkers in the field takes a case study approach to a variety of issues which encompass topics such as Banking, Electrical Distribution, Manufacturing and Adult Social Care"--

A compelling look inside the mind and powerful leadership methods of Americas coaching legend, John Wooden . .

Praise for "Wooden on Leadership": .

What an all-encompassing Pyramid of Success for leadership! Coach Woodens moral authority and brilliant definition of success encompass all of life. How I admire his lifes work and concept of what it really means to win!
--Stephen R. Covey, author, "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People" and "The 8th Habit: From . Effectiveness to Greatness," .

"Wooden On Leadership" offers valuable lessons no matter what your endeavor. 'Competitive Greatness' is our goal and that of any successful organization. Coach Woodens Pyramid of Success is where it all starts.
. --Jim Sinegal, president And CEO, Costco. .

John Woodens goal in 41 years of coaching never changed; namely, to get maximum effort and peak performance from each of his players in the manner that best served the team. "Wooden on Leadership" explains step-by-step how he pursued and accomplished this goal. Focusing on Woodens 12 Lessons in Leadership and his acclaimed Pyramid of Success, it outlines the mental, emotional, and physical qualities essential to building a winning organization, and shows you how to develop the skill, confidence, and competitive fire to be at your best when your best is needed--and teach your organization to do the same.. . .

Though he was better at it than almost anyone in American history, building a sports dynasty was never a goal for UCLA head coach John Wooden. Rather, it was Woodens passionate desire to teach his players how to become the best team they could be. To Wooden, Competitive Greatness was a tangible and teachable force. .

One of the lesser-known aspects of Woodens career is the private notebooks in which he regularly recorded his observations, goals, and leadership concepts as they applied to basketball, success, and life. "Wooden on Leadership" draws from those personal notes to share practical and powerful leadership skills that anyone can use to improve performance and overcome self-imposed limitations..

"Wooden on Leadership" contains the best of Woodens observations, covering everything from teamwork (It takes 10 hands to score a basket) and self-control (Emotion is the enemy) to concentration (Dont look at the scoreboard) and dealing with defeat (Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out). Featuring pivotal moments in Woodens own leadership journey, it explores the 15 fundamental leadership qualities--building blocks--of his famous Pyramid of Success, illustrating their relevance in building a winning organization. Each chapter concludes with Woodens Rules to Lead By, point-by-point action steps covering the chapters key concepts. along with pivotal moments in his own leadership journey. .

On Wooden summary sections throughout the book feature penetrating insights on Coach Woodens leadership methods from players and coaches who worked with him during his career, including All-Americans Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Gail Goodrich, and David Meyers and assistant coaches Denny Crum, Gary Cunningham, and Eddie Powell. As participants and contributors to Woodens legacy, their words provide a revealing and personal perspective..

"Wooden on Leadership" reveals the leadership wisdom of John Wooden. It presents the core concepts, methods, and beliefs that Wooden usedto teach his teams how to attain Competitive Greatness, and true personal success. . .

Banking is now an active asset-liability risk management enterprise, attributable in large part to the globalization of commerce. The authors of this descriptive yet practical, applications-oriented book examine the sources and management of traditional and nontraditional banking risks, then the conventional on-balance sheet and the modern off-balance sheet risk management methods. Unlike other more general risk management books, however, they focus closely on the use of financial derivatives--instruments to control the core risks attributable to credit and to fluctuations in interest and foreign exchange rates. The authors cover all this and more, giving experienced and novice practitioners both an easily accessed way to understand and cope with the banking risks they are already familiar with, and the new risks just emerging. The book will also be useful as a supplemental text in college-level courses on money and banking and on the operation of financial markets in general.

The authors begin by explaining how banking has moved from a routine financial process to an active and impersonal process of risk management, from relationship banking to community banking. Even banks that have stayed with traditional lending are now assuming greater risks. The authors then focus on the details of measuring, monitoring, and controlling risks. They define risk and the different philosophical approaches to its management, then continue with a discussion of operational matters, such as risk identification and classification. They discuss the evolution of banking risk management and the banking environment of the 20th Century, with special attention to the differences in methods used during the time of fragmented and highly regulated economies and those used in the highly integrated global economies of the last quarter century. The book describes in useful detail the major financial derivative products: forwards, options, caps, collars, and swaps, and their uses as risk management devices and tools for speculation, both. The book also treats on-balance sheet risk management methods, such as credit options and credit swaps. Interest rate risk is also covered in detail, and so too the management of foreign currency risk.

Over the past ten years, there has been growing interest in the process of strategic decision-making among both managers and researchers. Strategic decisions are important for five main reasons: They are large-scale, risky and hard to reverse; they are a bridge between deliberate and emerging strategies; they can be a major source of organizational learning; they play an important part in the development of individual managers and they cut accross functions and academic disciplines. Strategic Decisions summarizes the current state of the art in research on strategic decision-making, with chapters prepared by leading strategy researchers. The editors also present implications for current application and proposed directions for future research.

The purpose of Multiple Criteria Analysis in Strategic Siting Problems is to demonstrate how multiple criteria can be used in analysis of facility location problems. The book begins with an overview, explains the internationally most popular multiple objective analysis methods, and demonstrates their applications on real problems. Siting problems reviewed include nuclear waste disposal in the U.S., solid waste management in Finland, pipeline location in India, and pipeline location in Russia. Methods covered are multiattribute utility analysis, analytic hierarchy process, the ELECTRE outranking method, and verbal decision analysis. The book concludes with a comparative review of methods. The book uses the multi-attribute, multi-party framework of Kunreuther to present the decision context, to include parties with interests in the decisions, as well as the sequence of project events. This perspective is valuable in identifying the qualitative backgrounds of siting problems that need to be considered. The book demonstrates the importance of multiple criteria in hazardous facility site selection. It also shows how each of the four methodologies covered operate, both in terms of demonstration problems worked with numbers, and how these methods have been applied in the real applications. The real applications were taken from refereed journal documentation, with the exception of Russian pipeline analysis decisions in which Professor Larichev participated. The book is recommended for those interested in decision-making involving problems with social import. This includes environmental aspects, as well as international aspects of decision making.

A discussion on the social complexity approach, where dialogue and stories allow for the degrees of freedom needed for the opportunities of emergence to take root. The authors focus on the experience of coherence and how such experiential lessons differ from the establishment and maintenance of categories and labels.

Knowledge Unplugged announces the results of a major survey of knowledge management practice within the most influential companies in the world, by the most influential management consultancy group in the world. The McKinsey Knowledge Management team interviewed top executives and also investigated how far their plans were implemented in practice, in 40 companies in the US, Europe and Japan. In many companies they discovered a significant gap between the vision at the top and the reality on the shop floor. Knowledge Unplugged draws together their findings and presents a practical guide to improving knowledge building and sharing at all levels within an organization, vividly illustrated with case studies of best practice and common pitfalls. They argue that knowledge management is much more than simply installing a new database and can only be successful when it is at the heart of everyday personal exchanges, personal incentives and personal responsibilities at every level of the firm.

This work results from my interest in the field of vector optimiza tion. I stumbled first upon this subject in 1982 during my six months visit to the Istituto di Elaborazione della Informazione in Pisa, Italy, supported by a fellowship of the (Italian) Consiglio Nationale delle Richerche. I was attracted then by a gap between vector optimiza tion used to serve as a formal model for multiple objective decision problems and the decision problems themselves, the gap nonexis tent in scalar optimization. Roughly speaking, vector optimization provides methods for ranking decisions according to a partial order whereas decision making requires a linear ordering of decisions. The book deals with vector optimization. However, vector opti mization is considered here not only as a topic of research in itself but also as a basic tool for decision making. In consequence, all results presented here are aimed at exploiting and understanding the structure of elements (decisions) framed by a vector optimiza tion problem with the underlying assumption that the results should be interpretable in terms and applicable in the context of decision making. Computational tractability of results is therefore of special concern throughout this book. A unified framework for presentation is offered by the Cone Sep aration Technique (CST) founded on the notion of cone separation."

The essays and lectures collected in this book center around knowledge transfer from the complex-system sciences to applications in business, industry and society, as viewed from a broad perspective. The contributions aim to raise awareness across the spectrum to meet the increasing need to integrate lessons from complexity research into everyday planning, decision making, logistics or optimization procedures and forecasting. The writing has been largely kept non-technical.

While executives are keen to harness organizational knowledge and improve business performance, the topic of how academics can produce rigorous and relevant theory in working relationships with practitioners is a much contested topic. Many aspects of this knowledge co-creation can create tensions, and the ways in which research is conducted and published can affect practitioner acceptance, as well as its consequent uptake and use in different contexts. Expertly compiled by Jean Bartunek and Jane McKenzie, with contributions from global thinkers in the field, this book offers a concise and up-to-date review of the essential analysis and action underlying scholarly engagement with the world of business. It discusses the sorts of capabilities academics need to collaborate effectively with practitioners and illustrates good practice through international case studies drawn from acknowledged centres of excellence. These show how to negotiate different constituencies with different priorities, values, and practices to work together to produce research of rigor and relevance. It will be a key reference and resource for all researchers who are engaged with practitioners, and an invaluable tool for training academics to develop research with impact.

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO STRATEGY. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. The Financial Times Guide to Strategy is your unbeatable reference on strategy. It offers an incisive overview of both corporate level and business unit level strategy, an A to Z of the world's leading strategic thinkers and introduces the key strategic tools and techniques you need to develop your own strategy. Based on long experience and on conversations with leading strategists around the world, Richard Koch helps you discover each critical step in creating, delivering and understanding successful strategy. The fifth edition of this bestselling book is your easy-to-read, jargon-free guide to the strategic models and thinkers you really need to know about. Updated with new tools and examples, The Financial Times Guide to Strategy shows you which questions to ask, how to go about answering them, and then what action to take. This is the smartest and most readable strategy guide available anywhere.

Noted CEOs, academics, and military personnel share their experience as visionary leaders The Vision Code explores the concept of "vision" and leadership. The book reveals the secrets of building and executing a strong vision within any organization. Oleg Konovalov--an acclaimed global thought leader--draws together in one volume in-depth interviews with nineteen extraordinary global visionaries that represent a variety of industries and organizations. These leaders explain why a vision is needed, how to implement it, how to communicate a vision effectively, and how to live by it with integrity. As Konovalov explains, vision is a key leadership skill that can be developed as a practical business tool for leading a company today and into the future. The stories of the nineteen leaders reveal how to develop a compelling vision and follow through with the vision in order to inspire an entire workforce. When a leader taps into the power of "vision," he or she creates a more meaningful business experience and ultimately, a better life. This compelling book: Offers a guide for making the concept of vision a reality Provides the information needed to develop a clear and persuasive vision Contains an accessible guide to a much-needed skill Includes interviews with Marshall Goldsmith (#1 Leadership Thinker), Martin Lindstrom (#1 Branding Expert), Garry Ridge (Chairman and CEO of WD-40 Company) and many others Written for leaders at all levels in organizations and industries of any type The Vision Code is a must-have book for anyone who wants to develop the skill to become a visionary leader.

A compact guide to knowledge management, this book makes the subject accessible without oversimplifying it. Organizational issues like strategy and culture are discussed in the context of typical knowledge management processes. The focus is always on pointing out all the issues that need to be taken into account in order to make knowledge management a success. The book then goes on to explore the role of information technology as an enabler of knowledge management relating various technologies to the knowledge management processes, showing the reader what can, and what cannot, be achieved through technology. Throughout the book, references to lessons learned from past projects underline the arguments. Managers will find this book a valuable guide for implementing their own initiatives, while researchers and system designers will find plenty of ideas for future work.

This book recommends and examines the various approaches to incorporating an accurate measure of risk into the appraisal of an international investment. It considers the way in which decisions on international investment projects are taken and how they should be. It critiques and integrates existing theories, including the global capital asset pricing rule of financial theory, theories of strategy making and the real options approach, to show how risk should be incorporated into the present value formula and its various elements to produce a clear decision rule.