Here is a comprehensive guide to the incorporation of computer simulation in all levels of the planning function of an organization. Writing for managers of planning, planners, and programmers, the author enables readers to gain an overall understanding of the potential role of simulation in planning, to apply simulation to their own particular needs, and to translate planning concepts into computer instructions. Nersesian demonstrates that for manager, planner, and programmer alike, simulation is not difficult in concept nor complicated to put into practice. The author argues that simulation is a necessary activity in a planning environment characterized by uncertain futures and rapidly changing conditions.

The book is organized into separate chapters, each of which acts as a case study of an aspect in the use of simulation. The synopsis that begins every chapter provides the manager of a planning operation with an appreciation of the general application of simulation to one facet of planning. The chapters themselves focus on particular situations which might befall a planner within the general application of simulation to the planning process. Special appendices--designed to aid programmers who have not had much previous experience in setting up simulation programs--follow each chapter and provide descriptive material and the applicable simulation program. As a comprehensive yet easily understood guide to the benefits of utilizing simulation in the planning process, this book will be an invaluable resource for planners, corporate executives, and programmers.

As a manager or executive, you don't want to make mistakes. You want to make the right decisions that will help your career and business progress. However, no one is free from making mistakes, especially as the world and business becomes ever more complex. In fact, most managers and executives make their decisions without being aware of the clues that separate the right decisions from the wrong ones. This book unravels the mystery that lies between success and failure, focusing on management mistakes. It uncovers the reasons behind most decision errors and shows how to deal with them successfully. It proposes a better approach to goal setting, risk assessment, context analysis, information processing, number crunching and personnel management. It also gives the keys to overcoming the long list of cognitive biases that managers suffer from (whether they know it or not). The book is written from the diverse and rich experience of the author and is based on the examples of dozens of real business mistakes.

Deciding Where to Live: Information Studies on Where to Live in America explores major themes related to where to live in America, not only about the acquisition of a home but also the ways in which where one lives relates to one's cultural identity. It shows how changes in media and information technology are shaping both our housing choices and our understanding of the meaning of personal place. The work is written using widely accessible language but supported by a strong academic foundation from information studies and other humanities and social science disciplines. Chapters analyze everyday information behavior related to questions about where to live. The eleven major chapters are: Chapter 1: Where to live as an information problem: three contemporary examples Chapter 2: Turning in place: Real estate agents and the move from information custodians to information brokers Chapter 3: The Evolving Residential Real Estate Information Ecosystem: The Rise of Zillow Chapter 4: Privacy, Surveillance, and the "Smart Home" Chapter 5: This Old House, Fixer Upper, and Better Homes & Gardens: The Housing Crisis and Media Sources Chapter 6: A Community Responds to Growth: An Information Story About What Makes for a Good Place to Live." Chapter 7: The Valley Between Us: The meta-hodology of racial segregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Chapter 8: Modeling Hope: Boundary Objects and Design Patterns in a Heartland Heterotopia Chapter 9: Home buying in Everyday Life: How Emotion and Time Pressure Shape High Stakes Deciders' Information Behavior Chapter 10: In Search of Home: Examining Information Seeking and Sources That Help African Americans Determine Where to Live Chapter 11: Where to Live in Retirement: A Complex Information Problem While the book is partly about the goal-directed activity of individuals who want to buy a house, and the infrastructure that supports that activity, it is also about personal activities that are either not goal directed or are directed at other goals such as deciding in which geographic location to live, personal entertainment, cultural understanding, or identity formation.

Drawing on the innovative concept of Organizational IQ and a study of companies in seventeen countries, Survival of the Smartest charts a course for managers to follow into the twenty-first century.

At the heart of the book is the authors' tool for assessing an organization's future health, which they call Organizational IQ. It measures a company's ability to quickly process information and make effective decisions. As industry clock speeds accelerate everywhere, a high IQ has become a prerequisite for survival. Low IQ companies that the authors studied, on the other hand, have already vanished.

Case studies from Hewlett-Packard, British Petroleum, Sun Microsystems, and Chrysler, among others, illustrate how companies can improve their Organizational IQs. How did Hewlett-Packard become the dominant player in printing? How did British Petroleum transform itself from a stodgy behemoth into the most agile and competitive player in the oil industry? How did Chrysler rise from the brink of bankruptcy to become the auto industry's prized asset?

In these companies, technology by itself played only a secondary role: to be successful, the entire organization had to become smarter. The authors show how key strategic decisions turned around these companies' Organizational IQs—and with it, their fortunes. A detailed company case study takes you in slow motion through the different steps you can take to improve the IQ of your own organization.

Survival of the Smartest offers a rare blend of a coherent framework, in-depth company case studies, a sound research base, and a detailed, step-by-step implementation example. Based on a landmark study of 164 organizations worldwide, conducted as part of a partnership between Stanford University, McKinsey & Company, and the University of Augsburg, Organizational IQ is proving to be the acid test for the success or failure of companies around the world.

"Survival of the Smartest is a practical and action-oriented road map for managing in the Information Age. It can save you much pain by tapping into the experience of managers who have done it before."—Eric Benhamou, CEO, 3Com

"Most executives acknowledge that they need to prepare their organizations for the challenges of the 21st century. But how do you know where you stand and what are the most important levers for improvement? Survival of the Smartest is a must read for any manager who is looking for answers to these questions."—Guenter Mooshammer, Senior Vice President, Vishay Semiconductor

"Mendelson and Ziegler brilliantly capture the character of organizations smart enough to function successfully in a turbulent world. Loaded with powerful concepts and how companies have successfully applied them, Survival of the Smartest will teach you how to create a "High-IQ" company and avoid the traps that make good companies mediocre."—Jerry Porras, Lane Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford Business School, and coauthor, Built to Last.

"Professor Mendelson and Dr. Ziegler make it abundantly clear that if your organization is not on the path to becoming a high-IQ company, then it is probably on the road to extinction. This book packs a lot of wisdom that is eminently useful to companies large and small, hi-tech and low-tech. With a solid research base at Stanford Business School and loads of real-world experience, Survival of the Smartest captures essential truths for management in the Information Age."—Charles Fine, Professor, Sloan School of Management, MIT, and author of Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage.

"This book shows how winning information-age firms can turn speed from a potential problem into a weapon and turn a flood of information into a competitive advantage."—Scott Cook, cofounder, Intuit, Inc.

"Survival of the Smartest is a comprehensive set of tools for measuring the IQ of your organization and systematically improving an organization's ability to learn. I found the book to be both a pragmatic and practical way to hone the competitiveness of any company."—John McHugh, General Manager, Hewlett-Packard ProCurve Networking Business

The book discusses a new approach to the classification problem following the decision support orientation of multicriteria decision aid. The book reviews the existing research on the development of classification methods, investigating the corresponding model development procedures, and providing a thorough analysis of their performance both in experimental situations and real-world problems from the field of finance.
Audience: Researchers and professionals working in management science, decision analysis, operations research, financial/banking analysis, economics, statistics, computer science, as well as graduate students in management science and operations research.

The best leaders are born, not made. The best leaders are always in control. The best leaders are those with the highest IQs. But are they really? The thinking about what makes the greatest leaders is increasingly muddled by stereotypes, false promises and pseudo-science. The best leaders rely on fact, not fads. Myths of Leadership blasts away the fluff and confronts false legends head on. Jo Owen uses the most credible research to analyze each myth, using international business case studies, leadership theory and insightful interviews, to uncover the truth. This is a compelling examination of the most pervasive misconceptions about leadership that will help you elevate your own leadership abilities, better inspire your team and empower your organization by thinking differently. Entertaining and accessible Myths of Leadership throws out the management jargon and skewers over-hyped leadership trends to bring you the best practical tips you need to become a better leader. About the Business Myths series... The Business Myths series tackles the falsehoods that pervade the business world. From leadership and management to social media, strategy and the workplace, these accessible books overturn out-of-date assumptions, skewer stereotypes and put oft-repeated slogans to the test. Entertaining and rigorously researched, these books will equip you with the insight and no-nonsense wisdom you need to succeed.

Volume 12, Advances in Business and Management Forecasting, is a blind refereed serial publication. It presents state-of-the-art studies in the application of forecasting methodologies to such areas as supply chain, health care, prospecting for donations from university alumni, and the use of clustering and regression in forecasting. The orientation of this volume is for business applications for both the researcher and the practitioner of forecasting. Volume 12 is divided into three sections: Forecasting Applications, Predictive Analytics and Time Series. An interdisciplinary group of experts explore wide-ranging topics including multi-criteria scoring models, detecting rare events, the assessment of control charts for intermittent data, and fuzzy time series models.

With intensified global competition, institutional changes and reduced communication costs the propensity of firms to reconfigure their global value chain and separate their activities across national boundaries has increased markedly. It enables firms to combine the benefits arising from specialization and increased flexibility with location advantages. Consequently, large parts of manufacturing and other more standardized activities have been offshored to emerging countries. However, recent developments are challenging this traditional separation between advanced and emerging economies as host of knowledge- and production-intensive activities, respectively. Recent research has emphasized the role of intra-organizational relationships and links among the different parts of the value chain. Innovative and productive activities are affected by strong interdependencies and complementarities, and for some companies the co-location of R&D and manufacturing is critical for development and innovation. This volume will interest scholars in International Business, Economic Geography, Operations and Supply Chain Management, International Economics, and Political Science.

This book aims to assess what the changes of the Treaty of Lisbon envisaged and whether these ambitions have materialised since the Treaty entered into force. It offers analyses of the past, as well as what might be the future (because some provisions will only enter into effect in the years to come). To what extent has the current decision-making process been able to address the shortcomings and challenges of the past? What has been the impact of aspects of the Lisbon Treaty that clarified pre-existing norms and structures, in some cases formalizing them, rather than introducing new changes? The authors of this book look at the interaction between formal rules and informal practices, seeking to point to the interaction between the two. They find that informal practices to date typically still dominate formal rules. This book was published as a special issue of West European Politics.

Decision-makers at all levels are being confronted with novel complexities and uncertainties and face long-term challenges which require foresight about long-term future prospects, assumptions, and strategies. This book explores how foresight studies can be systematically undertaken and used in this context. It explicates why and how methods like horizon scanning, scenario planning, and roadmapping should be applied when dealing with high levels of uncertainty. The scope of the book moves beyond "narrow" technology foresight, towards addressing systemic interrelations between social, technological, economic, environmental, and political systems. Applications of foresight tools to such fields as energy, cities, health, transportation, education, and sustainability are considered as well as enabling technologies including nano-, bio-, and information technologies and cognitive sciences. The approaches will be illustrated with specific actual cases.

Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) is the study of methods and procedures by which concerns about multiple conflicting criteria can be formally incorporated into the management planning process. A key area of research in OR/MS, MCDM is now being applied in many new areas, including GIS systems, AI, and group decision making. Additionally, there has been very rapid growth in recent years in evolutionary Multiobjective optimization, stochastic analysis, robustness, and regression-based methods, and thus, the need for a look at the newest trends in the field.

This volume is in effect the third book in the Springer ISOR series by these editors, bringing the latest developments in MCDM into focus. It presents research from leaders in the field on such topics as Problem Structuring Methodologies; Measurement Theory and MCDA; Recent Developments in Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization; Habitual Domains and Dynamic MCDM in Changeable Spaces; Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis; and more.

Providing a comprehensive framework for building an effective fraud prevention model, "Fraud Risk Assessment: Building a Fraud Audit Program" presents a readable overview for developing fraud audit procedures and building controls that successfully minimize fraud. An invaluable reference for auditors, fraud examiners, investigators, CFOs, controllers, corporate attorneys, and accountants, this book helps business leaders respond to the risk of asset misappropriation fraud and uncover fraud in core business systems.

This book provides an overview of the nascent field of "information pooling and group judgmental accuracy." The contributors to this volume include mathematical psychologists, economists, social psychologists, political scientists, and statisticians. The book is organised around five review essays: one on information pooling from the perspective of models of individual judgment (Batchelder), one on information pooling and group judgment (Grofman and Owen), one on group judgment in applied settings (Hastie), and one on organisational design (Radner). Along with the review essays discussant comments are also provided which elaborate on points not covered in the essays. While the focus of these papers is largely theoretical and abstract, the subject of information pooling and optimal group judgment is clearly one of great practical importance and is directly relevant to issues of policy choice and organisational structure.

In recent years, there has been a growing debate, particularly in the UK and Europe, over the merits of using discrete-event simulation (DES) and system dynamics (SD); there are now instances where both methodologies were employed on the same problem. This book details each method, comparing each in terms of both theory and their application to various problem situations. It also provides a seamless treatment of various topics--theory, philosophy, detailed mechanics, practical implementation--providing a systematic treatment of the methodologies of DES and SD, which previously have been treated separately.

This book systematically examines and quantifies industrial problems by assessing the complexity and safety of large systems. It includes chapters on system performance management, software reliability assessment, testing, quality management, analysis using soft computing techniques, management analytics, and business analytics, with a clear focus on exploring real-world business issues. Through contributions from researchers working in the area of performance, management, and business analytics, it explores the development of new methods and approaches to improve business by gaining knowledge from bulk data. With system performance analytics, companies are now able to drive performance and provide actionable insights for each level and for every role using key indicators, generate mobile-enabled scorecards, time series-based analysis using charts, and dashboards. In the current dynamic environment, a viable tool known as multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is increasingly being adopted to deal with complex business decisions. MCDA is an important decision support tool for analyzing goals and providing optimal solutions and alternatives. It comprises several distinct techniques, which are implemented by specialized decision-making packages. This book addresses a number of important MCDA methods, such as DEMATEL, TOPSIS, AHP, MAUT, and Intuitionistic Fuzzy MCDM, which make it possible to derive maximum utility in the area of analytics. As such, it is a valuable resource for researchers and academicians, as well as practitioners and business experts.

Gary Gastineau and Mark Kritzman team up once again for the third edition of this classic reference tool designed for financial analysts and managers. Anyone involved in financial risk management must have a proper understanding of the words, terms, and phrases used in this fast paced field-and Dictionary of Financial Risk Management clearly provides that understanding. Risk management terminology is a part of almost any financial operation, including cash, forwards/futures, swaps, options-and is found in many disciplines: probability and statistics, tax and financial accounting, and law. The vocabulary of the risk manager continues to expand with the creation of new products and new concepts. This volume carefully defines and illustrates all the words and phrases that financial professionals need to know and understand. The Dictionary of Financial Risk Management includes listings of common acronyms, profit/loss diagrams of new financial instruments, and extensive coverage of derivatives and quantitative techniques. This invaluable reference guide provides comprehensive definitions of the key terms and concepts that many financial professionals need to know on a day-to-day basis.

"Energy Budgets at Risk" "(EBar)"(R) provides everyone from facility energy managers and financial managers to government policy-makers and electric utilities program planners with the background information required to understand energy cost, price, efficiency, and related issues important in developing a balanced approach to facility energy risk management. Throughout the book, respected energy economist Dr. Jerry Jackson clearly shows how to reduce energy costs and increase cash flows by using risk management concepts developed in the financial industry.

For courses in decision support systems, computerised decision-making tools, and management support systems. Market-leading guide to modern analytics, for better business decisions Analytics, Data Science, & Artificial Intelligence: Systems for Decision Support is the most comprehensive introduction to technologies collectively called analytics (or business analytics) and the fundamental methods, techniques, and software used to design and develop these systems. Students gain inspiration from examples of organisations that have employed analytics to make decisions. With six new chapters, the 11th edition marks a major reorganisation reflecting a new focus - analytics and its enabling technologies, including AI, machine-learning, robotics, chatbots, and IoT.

This book demonstrates the theoretical value and practical significance of systems science and its logic of thinking by presenting a rigorously developed foundation-a tool for intuitive reasoning, which is supported by both theory and empirical evidence, as well as practical applications in business decision making. Following a foundation of general systems theory, the book presents an applied method to intuitively learn system-sciences fundamentals. The third and final part examines applications of the yoyo model and the theoretical results developed earlier within the context of problems facing business decision makers by organically combining methods of traditional science, the first dimension of science, with those of systems science, the second dimension, as argued by George Klir in the 1990s. This text would benefit graduate students, researchers, or practitioners in the areas of mathematics, systems science or engineering, economics, and business decision science.

Large western companies are accelerating their expansion into emerging economies, while relying on oversimplified frameworks to make decisions and complex matrix organizations to make things happen. When critical events do happen (such as terrorist attacks or civil wars), senior executives and the companies they lead are often taken by surprise. As the world shifts to a less stable geopolitical structure, only firms that can acquire a better capability to foresee and prepare for change will prevail over the long term. Strategy and Geopolitics provides a strategic framework that can help senior business executives address the challenges of globalization in this evolving geopolitical landscape. This book underlines the need to go beyond a simplistic understanding of different countries and territories: it discusses the geopolitical issues that can be the cause of success or failure in different markets; and it explores strategies for dealing with global and local complexity, as well as introducing innovative ideas on recruitment and organization.

This is a book about the evaluation and choice of information sources by individuals and the design and management of information systems by organizations. The book studies the determinants of the value and cost of information, both to the individual and to the organization, provides technqiues for the assessment of the value of information and the comparison of informativeness among alternative sources, and presents principles for the optimal design and management of information systems. These topics are unified by the thesis that both information sources and information systems are valuable to the extent they contribute to better decision making. By providing students, researchers, and practitioners with a coherent notation and framework throughout, the book integrates the decision-theoretic approach to the evaluation of information with knowledge from information science and management information systems on the design, management, and cost of cooperative information systems, thereby demonstrating the multidisciplinary applicability of a unifying approach based on decision theory. Researchers and graduate students in economics, operations research, management information systems, and information science will find this book useful.

Decisions in businesses and organizations are too often based on fads, fashions and the success stories of famous CEOs. At the same time, traditional models and new cutting-edge solutions often fail to deliver on what they promise. This situation leaves managers, business leaders, consultants and policymakers with a profound challenge: how can we stay away from trends and quick fixes, and instead use valid and reliable evidence to support the organization? In response to this problem, evidence-based management has evolved with the goal of improving the quality of decision-making by using critically evaluated evidence from multiple sources - organizational data, professional expertise, stakeholder values and scientific literature. This book sets out and explains the specific skills needed to gather, understand and use evidence to make better-informed organizational decisions. Evidence-Based Management is a comprehensive guide that provides current and future managers, consultants and organizational leaders with the knowledge and practical skills to improve the quality and outcome of their decision-making. Online resources include case studies, exercises, lecture slides and further reading.

Decision-making has been one of the principal victims of 'modern' thinking. The 'analytical' approach has, of course, brought us vaccines, electricity and the internal combustion engine. But, in seeking to break things down into their component parts and improve the parts, governments and businesses continue to make some astonishingly bad decisions. What's more, many enterprises still pay close attention to 'decisions' and 'decision-making' whilst overlooking the bigger picture: the organizational system within which those decisions get made. This elegant book is a guide for any public, private, government or non-profit organization that needs a system for making better decisions. It sets out to change our 'analytical' habit and invites enterprises to consider the bigger picture. Author Vince Barabba presents an elegantly simple approach to making better decisions. He calls this approach 'The Decision Loom' and bases it on Systems Thinking, Design Thinking and Complexity Theory. He also describes the four core capabilities that any organization must put in place for this approach to work. What's more (because we're humans and prefer stories to instruction manuals) the tapestry of the book is embroidered with fascinating examples from the author's lifetime of experience at the head of American corporate and public decision-making.

This book is about how models can be developed to represent demand and supply on markets, where the emphasis is on demand models. Its primary focus is on models that can be used by managers to support marketing decisions. Modeling Markets presents a comprehensive overview of the tools and methodologies that managers can use in decision making. It has long been known that even simple models outperform judgments in predicting outcomes in a wide variety of contexts. More complex models potentially provide insights about structural relations not available from casual observations. In this book, the authors present a wealth of insights developed at the forefront of the field, covering all key aspects of specification, estimation, validation and use of models. The most current insights and innovations in quantitative marketing are presented, including in-depth discussion of Bayesian estimation methods. Throughout the book, the authors provide examples and illustrations. This book will be of interest to researchers, analysts, managers and students who want to understand, develop or use models of marketing phenomena.

In a world facing chronic and increasing shortages in food crops and natural resources, visionary leadership in agriculture becomes more and more critical for building and maintaining a sustainable future. It is of paramount importance that the dynamic and challenging evolution in agriculture over the last century and a half be met today with imaginative leadership in virtually all aspects of activities and organizations involved. Leadership in Agriculture: Case Studies for a New Generation focuses on key characteristics and elements of leadership. Using case studies from research, industry, education, administration, and extension services, the authors present real-world circumstances ranging from natural disasters to major restructuring that demanded problem solving, new initiatives, consensus, and organizational commitment. Drawing on their own experiences and covering topics as diverse as closing facilities, mounting a national research initiative, reinventing a major corporation, and dealing with invasive termites, the studies contain examples of both good and bad outcomes and tie back to the stated leadership principles and qualities.