Provides a blueprint for your company's sustained and profitable growth. Let's face it: sustained business growth doesn't just happen. Growth must be planned for and executed, cultivated from a strategic standpoint and applied tactically at the frontline, led by the right people, and focused on the right objectives. The Growth Advantage provides a blueprint for sustained and profitable growth for any business. It is designed to help companies build the ultimate competitive edge. The book is broken into three parts that outline the Planning Advantage, the Execution Advantage, and the Company Advantage, which will help you align your company with its goals. The Growth Advantage cracks open the business secrets that teach companies how to achieve that dream of steady, predictable growth through effective planning and solid execution. Readers learn how their company can develop and sustain a blueprint for growth that guides company actions on a daily and weekly basis. Combining elements of culture, strategy, planning, execution, talent acquisition, training, motivation, accountability, and brand differentiation into one book with clear, actionable steps, Bob Lisser brings readers along a journey that starts with a plan and ends with success.

For courses on decision modeling through the use of spreadsheets. The perfect balance between decision modeling and spreadsheet use. It's important that textbooks support decision modeling courses by combining student's ability to logically model and analyze diverse decision-making scenarios with software-based solution procedures. Balakrishnan offers the perfect balance of the decision modeling process and the use of spreadsheets to set up and solve decision models. The third edition has been updated to reflect the latest version of Excel.

Praise for Risk budgeting

"Professor Pearson has raised the bar for books on market risk. Moving beyond descriptions of VaR calculation and stress testing, he provides careful discussions of both the refinements and the limits of the VaR technique. Even more importantly, this book provides structure to the heretofore vague idea of ‘risk budgeting.’ "
–Charles Smithson, Managing Partner, Rutter Associates

"Pearson has written an excellent resource for risk management practitioners who actually need to compute and use VaR. Numerous concrete examples make a broad range of VaR techniques accessible to the people who actually need to use them. The book also provides tangible applications of risk budgeting, a term often used but rarely made relevant. Pearson has put meat on the bones for plan sponsors who want to actually employ risk budgeting techniques."
–Bennett Golub, Co-head of Risk Management and Analytics,
Founding Partner, BlackRock

"An excellent book. This text provides a bridge from the theoretical to the practical, and clears the fog between the buzzwords of risk budgeting and the realities of a useful new portfolio management tool. Pearson’s writing is well balanced between needed academic foundation and the practicalities of managing portfolios."
–Rob Roy, Director, Cash and Investments, Adventist Health System

"I just wish I could summarize this book as ably as Professor Pearson summarizes the voluminous literature on Value-at-Risk. Unfortunately, I suspect no further compression is possible. To reduce the risk of reading rubbish, your best bet is to read this book."
–Dr. Peter Carr, Senior Consultant, Risk Capital Management

What can managers in today's uncertain, unimaginably complex world learn from President Obama and top Chinese executives? Charles-Edouard Bouee proposes "light footprint" management - comparable to a new American military doctrine and similar to a recently emerged Chinese management style that subordinates strategy to vision and tactics. Bouee explains how conventional management methodologies, techniques and tools can be adapted to the conditions of an increasingly ambiguous and apparently unmanageable world. "Light Footprint Management" explains the dynamics of the new business environment and describes the kinds of organization most likely to succeed in it.

The book presents the proceedings of the 4th EAI International Conference on Management of Manufacturing Systems (MMS 2019), which took place in Krynica Zdroj, Poland, on October 8-10, 2019. The conference covered Management of Manufacturing Systems with support for Industry 4.0, Logistics and Intelligent Manufacturing Systems and Applications, Cooperation management and its effective applications. Topics include RFID Applications, Economic Impacts in Logistics, ICT Support for Industry 4.0, Industrial and Smart Logistics, Intelligent Manufacturing Systems and Applications, and much more.

This book covers several new areas in the growing field of analytics with some innovative applications in different business contexts, and consists of selected presentations at the 6th IIMA International Conference on Advanced Data Analysis, Business Analytics and Intelligence. The book is conceptually divided in seven parts. The first part gives expository briefs on some topics of current academic and practitioner interests, such as data streams, binary prediction and reliability shock models. In the second part, the contributions look at artificial intelligence applications with chapters related to explainable AI, personalized search and recommendation, and customer retention management. The third part deals with credit risk analytics, with chapters on optimization of credit limits and mitigation of agricultural lending risks. In its fourth part, the book explores analytics and data mining in the retail context. In the fifth part, the book presents some applications of analytics to operations management. This part has chapters related to improvement of furnace operations, forecasting food indices and analytics for improving student learning outcomes. The sixth part has contributions related to adaptive designs in clinical trials, stochastic comparisons of systems with heterogeneous components and stacking of models. The seventh and final part contains chapters related to finance and economics topics, such as role of infrastructure and taxation on economic growth of countries and connectedness of markets with heterogenous agents, The different themes ensure that the book would be of great value to practitioners, post-graduate students, research scholars and faculty teaching advanced business analytics courses.

The Economics of Globally Shared and Public Goods responds to an urgent need to consolidate and refine the economic theories and explanations pertinent to globally shared resources. Making a clear distinction between theories and empirical models, it elucidates the problem of global public goods while incorporating insights from behavioral economics. Its comprehensive and technical review of existing theoretical models and their empirical results illuminate those models in practical applications. Relevant for economists and others working on challenges of globally shared goods such as climate change and global catastrophes, The Economics of Globally Shared and Public Goods provides a path toward greater co-operation and shared successes.

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the latest research on multiple criteria research analysis (MCDA) and related areas, gathering a collection of high-quality chapters prepared by leading scholars in the field. By covering the established streams in MCDA research and simultaneously exploring new and emerging areas of application, it offers a unique reference resource for the future development of MCDA. The book approaches MCDA as one of the most active areas in operations research and management science (OR/MS). It presents not only the significant advances achieved to date, but also the new opportunities and challenges arising for both the theory and practice of MCDA. Among many others, the book addresses behavioral and conceptual aspects of decision aiding and decision making, problem structuring issues in the framework of new technological and socio-economic advances, methodological and algorithmic advances for analytical modeling and decision aiding, as well as a number of new application areas in engineering, business, and the social sciences.

The book is divided into three relatively coherent sections that focus on understanding the emergence of (un)ethical decisions and behaviors in our work and social lives by adopting a psychological framework. The first section focuses on reviewing our knowledge with respect to the specific notions of ethical behavior and corruption. These chapters aim to provide definitions, boundary conditions and suggestions for future research on these notions. The second section focuses on the intra-individual processes (affect, cognition and motivation) that determine why and how people display unethical behavior and are able to justify this kind of behavior to a certain extent. In these chapters the common theme is that given specific circumstances psychological processes are activated that bias perceptions of ethical behavior and decision making. The third section explores how organizational features frame the organizational setting and climate. These chapters focus on how employment of sanctions, procedurally fair leadership and a general code of conduct shapes perceptions of the organizational climate in ways that it becomes clear to organizational members how just, moral and retributive the organization will be in case of unethical behavior.

Misaligned companies, like cars out of alignment, can develop serious problems if not corrected quickly. They are hard to steer and don't respond well to changes in direction. This groundbreaking book shows you how to get —and keep —all the vital elements of your organization aligned and headed in the same direction at the same time.

Managers must now keep their people centered in the midst of change, deemphasize hierarchy, and distribute leadership by distributing authority, information, knowledge, and customer data throughout their organization. Alignment is a response to the new business reality where customer requirements are in flux, where competitive forces are turbulent, and where the bond of loyalty between an organization and its people has been weakened. The old linear approach to management has given way to one of simultaneity —to alignment.

As pioneers of the alignment concept, the authors have developed this unique approach based on their work with leading companies throughout the world. The Power of Alignment is packed with war stories and the firsthand perspectives of industry leaders. You'll learn how world-class organizations, including Federal Express, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Columbia/HCA Healthcare, Citizens Utilities, AirTouch, and UNUM achieved extraordinary business results. Now, through the authors' expertise, you'll see how alignment can work for your organization.

In essence, alignment links the five key elements of an organization —people, process, customers, business strategies, and, of course, leadership —to obtain breakthrough results, chief among them, sustained growth and profit, loyal customers, and a high-performing work force. The Power of Alignment:

• Offers a clear framework for aligning and linking the crucial elements that build and sustain a company's success
• Provides self-assessment tools as well as benchmarking measures for evaluating an organization's critical competencies
• Enables managers to create a work force where each employee can relate his or her activities to the goals and strategic objectives of the company
• Helps a company determine when and where it is out of alignment, and gives descriptions of such common company pathologies as "The Phantom Limb Syndrome," "Strategy Interruptus," and "Dead Man Walking"
• Prescribes specific steps for getting an organization back on track toward a single, shared vision of its goals

Essential reading for all managers and executives, The Power of Alignment offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance.

"This book is savvy, detailed, timely, and clearly written. I highly recommend it for any leader facing the challenges posed by global business today." — Dana Mead Chairman and CEO, Tenneco Former Chairman National Association of Manufacturers

"It's not only the stars that have to be in alignment to reach your destination, it's all the internal processes, rewards, and drivers. Read The Power of Alignment, and while you may not unlock the secrets of the universe, you will overcome the barriers to corporate success." — William L. Boyan President and COO John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.

"This important book goes beyond TQM and reengineering by creating a new approach called Alignment. The authors show that great companies manage to link strategy and people and integrate customer needs with continuous improvement processes." — Peter Augustsson President and Group Chief Executive AB SKF.

"The Power of Alignment gets to the heart of a critical element of organizational leadership, namely focus. Every leader who reads it will undoubtedly do some serious soul-searching about the consistency of corporate vision, goals, management systems, and incentive mechanisms." — Louis E. Lataif Dean Boston University School of Management.

"Alignment has been a key ingredient in Fluor Daniel's ability to identify and deliver services that meet our customers' value requirements." — Les McCraw Chairman and CEO Fluor Corporation

Recent years have seen a radical upheaval in use of IT in the service and financial sectors. The turbulent conditions created by economic deregulation, political re-regulation and privatisation have produced considerable challenges to the effective and efficient management of IT. Managers Divided is concerned with the use and development of IT in commercial organisations. Its particular focus is on the major shifts that are taking place in the management and use of IT in organisations struggling to come to terms with a rapidly changing market and regulatory environments. It examines the deeply political nature of IT management, innovation and change. The authors analyse the shift from a technology-led to a strategic and marketing-led use of IT. They study the use and development of IT through detailed localised studies of management practice that are understood to be influenced by, and have consequences for, broader socio-political, economic, organisational, and technological conditions. Graduates and undergraduates studying corporate and strategic management, management information systems, work and employment gender research, organisation studies and finance will find this book an invaluable asset. Information Systems specialists and practitioners in financial services will find the book a useful source of information.

The global medical and scientific communities need to standardize methodologies and agree on minimum criteria to permit inter-study comparisons. This book develops such standards, presenting a series of recommendations that represent the first codification of the manner in which studies should be executed.

The Strategic Decision Challenge edited by David Hussey A sound base in analysis and method is a cornerstone to achieving a successful business strategy. With the benefit of hindsight is it possible to see that for decades many organizations have not achieved the degree of success which they sought in their strategic moves. This book seeks to give insights into this important area and to build bridges to other sources of information. The historical evidence for the success and failure of strategic decisions over the last thirty years is examined, along with consideration for why so many strategic moves are subsequently reversed. Possible causes are explored, and a close examination is made of issues of misperceptions of the business environment, poor analysis and lack of creative thinking. Many aspects of improving strategic decisions are also dealt with. A glossary of techniques for strategic analysis is also included. Following on from previous volumes in the series, this book brings together international contributions to identify the third 'pillar' of creating a successful business strategy, namely, the strategic decision challenge. The Strategic Decision Challenge is the third volume in the Wiley Series in Contemporary Strategic Concerns. Previously published in the series are The Implementation Challenge and The Innovation Challenge.

Performing Governance sets out a new framework to assess the performance of partnerships and examines what these actually deliver. This is applied to three areas of New Labour's welfare policy; child safeguarding, urban regeneration and the modernisation of health and social care. This book contributes to understanding governance under New Labour.

In recent years there has been considerable interest in emotional intelligence. Drawing upon a rich theoretical and philosophical tradition, the author explains the concept and process of emotional production and how this works in gratifying, aversive and hierarchical situations as well as irreversible situations and situations of failure and success. This will provide a powerful framework for understanding the importance of emotional logic in relation to decision making and self-management and includes a number of compelling case studies.

Includes 10 handy do's and don'ts of strategy development

* Need powerful decision-making tools at your fingertips?

* Want to get the most out of strategic thinking models like Porter's Five Forces?

* Only want what you need to know, rather than reams of theory?

With the critical strategy tools required to drive your business forward, this book tells you what you need to know, fast.

ICT-Driven Economic and Financial Development: Analyses of European Countries demonstrates the effects of ICT diffusion on economic, social and financial development by examining their impact on the structure and dynamics of national economies. It provides the insight into shifts observed in labour markets, international trade activities productivity factors, education and use of innovative financial products. It combines empirical analyses and data sources stretching back to 1990 make it an important contribution to understanding the effects of ICT diffusion on economic and financial development. The book answers questions such as how will national and regional economies react to upcoming ICT developments and growing usage, and what is the magnitude of impact of new information and communication technologies on various aspects of social and economic life.

Praise for The Risk Management Process

"True to its claim, The Risk Management Process is a rigorous yet lucid and broadly accessible account of how the timeless principles of corporate finance apply to the management of risk. Written by an experienced consultant with impeccable academic credentials and incisive analytical thinking, this book is a must-read for the senior manager and corporate treasurer who aspire to integrate risk management with corporate financial management and business strategy."–George M. Constantinides, Leo Melamed Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

"Christopher Culp’s The Risk Management Process: Business Strategy and Tactics is a comprehensive treatment of the issues that face risk managers today. His book constructs a bridge to connect the theory and the practice of risk management, and Culp leads readers over that bridge with great care."–Peter Tufano, Sylvan C. Coleman Professor of Financial Management, Harvard Business School

"An unusually simple and lucid analysis of the risk management process. This book will be valuable for anyone trying to manage financial risk."–Ken French, NTU Professor of Finance, Sloan School of Management, MIT

"As opposed to offering us another dry, one-size-fits-all, mathematical approach to measuring or managing one risk or another, this book provides a general management approach to this important facet of managing any business in the twenty-first century, yet doesn’t shy away from sharing with the reader the underlying and necessary quantitative thinking that is required to perform the role of financial risk management. Culp easily switches between a statistical approach to risk measurement and a real-world approach to the particular exposure(s). In addition, it was refreshing to see the amount of time he spent on drawing the distinction between managing risk on Wall Street and managing the same risk within a corporation, which may have very different goals and success benchmarks."–Brent Callinicos, CPA, Treasurer, Microsoft Corporation

"The Risk Management Process is at the same time scholarly and comprehensive, yet readable, realistic, and insightful. Unquestionably, this is the right book at the right time, destined to become the standard reference work in the field."–Steve H. Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics, Johns Hopkins University, and Chairman, The Friedberg Mercantile Group, Inc.

This book provides a new point of view on the subject of the management of uncertainty. It covers a wide variety of both theoretical and practical issues involving the analysis and management of uncertainty in the fields of finance, management and marketing. Audience: Researchers and professionals from operations research, management science and economics.

The book introduces readers to some of the latest advances in and approaches to decision-making methods based on thermodynamic characters and hesitant fuzzy linguistic preference relations. By investigating the decision-making methods with thermodynamic parameters based on different information representatives, the book offers readers a novel perspective for solving problems under uncertainty. By exploring the consistency and consensus of hesitant fuzzy linguistic preference relations, the book gives readers efficient ways for preference analysis under uncertainty, chiefly intended for researchers and practitioners working in operations research, multi-attribute decision making, preference analysis, etc. The book can also be used as supplementary material for postgraduate and senior-year undergraduate students of the relevant professional institutions.

"It has been said that in theory, theory translates into practice, but in practice it never does. This breakthrough book defies this conventional wisdom in a unique way. It is a must read for anyone interested in structuring derivatives products." — Dr Peter Carr, Principal, Banc of America Securities

"Harry Kat has done a masterful job explaining the world of exotic options and the role that these options play in building structured securities. Dr Kat conveys the essence of these products from the perspective of a very experienced financial engineer but in a fashion that the less experienced reader can easily follow and understand. In this, Dr Kat has shown himself to be a marvellous teacher. I'm confident that this book will prove to be one of the classics to be read by future generations of financial engineers." — John F. Marshall, Principal, Marshall, Tucker & Associates, and Founding Executive Director, International Association of Financial Engineers

"This is a refreshingly new and different book about putting together structured equity products. It is not a book about deriving formulas but a book about applying formulas. The emphasis on hedging costs and alternative ways of reducing those costs by modifying the structure will be appreciated both by those who actually manufacture and sell these products and those who buy them." — Don Chance, First Union Professor, Virginia Tech

"This book is about applications, about solving real business problems with derivatives.... Contrary to many other books in the field, the approach is managerial rather than abstractly mathematical, aimed at practitioners instead of applied mathematicians. Professor Kat's book contains all the mathematics required. However, the mathematical aspects play a purely supportive role, not the starring role. Bravo!"
— Anthony F. Herbst, University of Texas at El Paso, Founding Editor, The Journal of Financial Engineering

"It is certainly a unique book, much more useful that most new books on derivatives. In a nutshell, this book is very creatively done and a great resource for professionals."
— Mark Rubinstein, Paul Stephens Professor of Applied Investment Analysis, University of California at Berkeley

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

This book pulls together robust practices in Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) from other disciplines and shows how they can be used in the area of Banking and Finance. In terms of empirical analysis techniques, Banking and Finance is a conservative discipline. As such, this book will raise awareness of the potential of PLS-SEM for application in various contexts. PLS-SEM is a non-parametric approach designed to maximize explained variance in latent constructs. Latent constructs are directly unobservable phenomena such as customer service quality and managerial competence. Explained variance refers to the extent we can predict, say, customer service quality, by examining other theoretically related latent constructs such as conduct of staff and communication skills. Examples of latent constructs at the microeconomic level include customer service quality, managerial effectiveness, perception of market leadership, etc.; macroeconomic-level latent constructs would be found in contagion of systemic risk from one financial sector to another, herd behavior among fund managers, risk tolerance in financial markets, etc. Behavioral Finance is bound to provide a wealth of opportunities for applying PLS-SEM. The book is designed to expose robust processes in application of PLS-SEM, including use of various software packages and codes, including R. PLS-SEM is already a popular tool in marketing and management information systems used to explain latent constructs. Until now, PLS-SEM has not enjoyed a wide acceptance in Banking and Finance. Based on recent research developments, this book represents the first collection of PLS-SEM applications in Banking and Finance. This book will serve as a reference book for those researchers keen on adopting PLS-SEM to explain latent constructs in Banking and Finance.

This book presents state-of-the-art research on responsible operations practices. The book identifies the challenges and opportunities arising from the shift towards responsible business operations and examines these issues through the lenses of operations management, emphasizing the supply chain transformations associated with these changes. Developing a responsible business model presents a great opportunity for firms to differentiate in the marketplace through innovative models and insights around responsible operations and supply chain management. To do so, companies in many industries are changing their practices around sourcing materials, supplier compliance around processes and labor, scientific and sustainable approaches to farming in emerging countries, managing counterfeiting risks, and public health management. Responsible Business Operations: Challenges and Opportunities is divided into three sections. Section 1 focuses on environmental responsibility for companies. It also explores alternative energy solutions for both the developed and developing world, as well as worldwide carbon footprint reduction efforts. Section 2 is dedicated to social responsibility, with chapters covering topics including improving agricultural food chains and humanitarian challenges for businesses. Finally Section 3 promotes ethical responsibility, analyzing ways to improve supplier compliance to product, process and ethical standards.