This book is meant to provide a glimpse into differing facets of organizational management that allows for continued success through refinement of skills promoting operational awareness in today's rapidly evolving world of business.

"Advances in Business and Management Forecasting" is a blind refereed serial publication published on an annual basis. The objective of this research annual is to present state-of-the-art studies in the application of forecasting methodologies to such areas as sales, marketing, and strategic decision making (an accurate, robust forecast is critical to effective decision making). It is the hope and direction of the research annual to become an applications and practitioner-oriented publication. The topics of this title will normally include sales and marketing, forecasting, new product forecasting, judgmentally-based forecasting, the application of surveys to forecasting, forecasting for strategic business decisions, improvements in forecasting accuracy, and sales response models. It is both the hope and direction of the editorial board to stimulate the interest of the practitioners of forecasting to methods and techniques that are relevant. In Volume 7, there are sections devoted to financial applications of forecasting, as well as marketing demand applications. There are, also, sections on forecasting methodologies and evaluation, as well as on other application areas of forecasting.

From the author of Expecting Better and The Family Firm, an economist's guide to the early years of parenting. "Both refreshing and useful. With so many parenting theories driving us all a bit batty, this is the type of book that we need to help calm things down." -LA Times "The book is jampacked with information, but it's also a delightful read because Oster is such a good writer." -NPR With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even greater challenge: decision-making in the early years of parenting. As any new parent knows, there is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and strangers on the internet. From the earliest days, parents get the message that they must make certain choices around feeding, sleep, and schedule or all will be lost. There's a rule-or three-for everything. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the trade-offs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision? Armed with the data, Oster finds that the conventional wisdom doesn't always hold up. She debunks myths around breastfeeding (not a panacea), sleep training (not so bad!), potty training (wait until they're ready or possibly bribe with M&Ms), language acquisition (early talkers aren't necessarily geniuses), and many other topics. She also shows parents how to think through freighted questions like if and how to go back to work, how to think about toddler discipline, and how to have a relationship and parent at the same time. Economics is the science of decision-making, and Cribsheet is a thinking parent's guide to the chaos and frequent misinformation of the early years. Emily Oster is a trained expert-and mom of two-who can empower us to make better, less fraught decisions-and stay sane in the years before preschool.

Artificial Intelligence is a seemingly neutral technology, but it is increasingly used to manage workforces and make decisions to hire and fire employees. Its proliferation in the workplace gives the impression of a fairer, more efficient system of management. A machine can't discriminate, after all. Augmented Exploitation explores the reality of the impact of AI on workers' lives. While the consensus is that AI is a completely new way of managing a workplace, the authors show that, on the contrary, AI is used as most technologies are used under capitalism: as a smokescreen that hides the deep exploitation of workers. Going beyond platform work and the gig economy, the authors explore emerging forms of algorithmic governance and AI-augmented apps that have been developed to utilise innovative ways to collect data about workers and consumers, as well as to keep wages and worker representation under control. They also show that workers are not taking this lying down, providing case studies of new and exciting form of resistance that are springing up across the globe.

This book presents various methods for sustainability assessment of energy systems, under various different conditions and scenarios. It answers the questions of how to measure the sustainability of energy systems by adopting appropriate metrics and methods. This book provides readers with a comprehensive view of the frontiers of sustainability assessment methods for energy system analysis. It presents various methodologies, allowing readers to understand: the complete metrics for sustainability assessment; life cycle thinking for sustainability assessment of energy systems; and the advanced sustainability assessment methods for energy systems. This book is of interest to researchers, engineers, decision makers, and postgraduate students within the field of energy systems, sustainability, and decision analysis.

Ideal for inspiring marketers, artists, teachers, and anyone who needs fresh ideas for work and home, Jump Start Your Brain helps readers crank up both their cranium and career. Featuring smart and creative methods for providing better leadership, igniting sales and marketing, and realizing dreams with breakthrough innovations, this book teaches time-tested practices that generate creativity and innovation. Relying on the latest research, the author pinpoints which methods and techniques work best in today's high-stress world so readers can get a leg-up on the competition.

Engineering Effective Decision Support Technologies: New Models and Applications presents a collection of the latest research in DMSS and applies those theoretical considerations to best practices in the field. This reference includes empirical case studies and an analysis of new models and perspectives in knowledge management, promoting discussion of DMSS strategies among managers, researchers, and students of information science.

This volume brings together both political and educational scientists. While educational research literature has so far not systematically addressed the tool of simulations of decision-making, political scientists have hardly used insights from research on assessment or on motivation and interest of students. Almost all political science publications on simulations merely discuss how to implement the tool in class and fall short of providing evidence of the effects on student outcomes such as increased interest and performance. Combining the two disciplines is mutually enriching. Political science benefits from state of the art educational science measuring and testing of the claims made by the proponents of simulations, while educational sciences adds the systematic analysis of simulations of decision-making to their list of empirical objects, which also adds insights to the theories on the affective component of student learning. It is the explicit aim of the volume to address how simulating decision-making environments fosters learning. Implications for research and practice regarding student learning are addressed in all chapters.

Bring your company into the digital era without compromising your core business In The Digital Transformer's Dilemma: How to Energize Your Core Business While Building Disruptive Products and Services, the authors show companies how to go digital while also advancing their core business. The book emphasizes how to strike a difficult balance between establishing a new (digital) business and re-vitalizing - and digitizing - the legacy business. The core of the book is focused on the actual implementation of the digital transformation across both businesses, providing concrete tips, tricks, tools and action plans across six key dimensions: Crafting a flexible organization Using technology as a driver Designing the necessary processes Building transformational leaders "Right-skilling" the workforce of the future Galvanizing cultural change The Digital Transformer's Dilemma is a very visual book, filled with dozens of engaging illustrations that bring the contained concepts to life on the page. Based on 100+ interviews with senior executives at leading companies (such as Nestle, Novartis, Volkswagen, BNP Paribas, BASF and Michelin) and smaller hidden champions, numerous illuminating case studies, and the authors' own experience from working in international management consulting and years of academic experience, the book highlights the fundamental principles required for executives and businesspeople to transform legacy organizations into digitally empowered companies.

How do companies use location intelligence to achieve competitive advantage and business success? We live in a digital, global economy, and businesses need to know where to source, operate, and market to grow their customer base. Through location analytics and location intelligence, a business can make better-informed decisions and ultimately add value to their organization, their customers, and society. But how do businesses integrate location analytics into their business development, marketing, and operations? Spatial Business: Competing and Leading with Location Analytics examines how location is a key factor in intelligent business decisions and achieving success. Through varied, in-depth, real-world examples, readers learn how location analytics solutions can be designed, deployed, and managed from strategic and operational perspectives. Each chapter of Spatial Business examines how real companies have integrated location into their business intelligence and decision-making. Some key concepts include: The fundamentals of spatial business and the technologies and methods by which businesses can understand the location value chain The creation of spatial business architecture to facilitate location analytics in meeting business goals and needs The themes of spatial business and implications for practice Written by experts in spatial business and designed for managers, professionals, and students at all levels, Spatial Business provides a road map for realizing the potential of geospatial data across the entire business value chain.

The book develops manufacturing concepts and applications beyond physical production and towards a wider manufacturing value chain incorporating external stakeholders that include suppliers of raw materials and parts, customers, collaborating manufacturing companies, manufacturing service providers, and environmental organisations. The focal point of the value chain remains as a manufacturing system and its operations whiles flows of parts/materials and information and services across the supply/value chain tiers are taken into account. The book emphasises on the two innovative paradigms of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) and the 4th industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) along with their incorporated development. RMS, as a relatively new paradigm, has been introduced to meet the requirements of 'the factories of the future', which is aimed by Industry 4.0, though introducing greater responsiveness and customised flexibility into production systems, in which changes in product volumes and types occur regularly. Manufacturing responsiveness can be achieved by RMS through reconfiguring the production facilities according to changing demands of products and new market conditions. The book addresses challenges of mass-customisation and dynamic changes in the supply-chain environment by focusing on developing new techniques related to integrability, scalability and re-configurability at a system level and manufacturing readiness in terms of financial and technical feasibility of RMS. It demonstrate the expected impacts of an RMS design on operational performance and its supply/value chain in the current/future manufacturing environment facing dynamic changes in the internal/external circumstances. In order to establish a circular economy through the RMS value chain, an integrated data-based reconfiguration link is introduced to incorporate information sharing amongst the value chain stakeholders and facilitate grouping products into families with allocation of the product families to the corresponding system configurations with optimal product-process allocation. Decision support systems such as multi criteria decision making tools are developed and applied for the selection of product families and optimising product-process configuration. The proposed models are illustrated through real case studies in applicable manufacturing firms.

Finance is as fundamental to the IT world as it is to most other aspects of life. However, many IT professionals lack knowledge of the particular financial principles on which decisions about IT should be based - decisions that often have serious financial implications for their organisations. Assuming no prior knowledge, this new edition covers all aspects of finance relevant to IT professionals and is updated with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) terminology. It is ideal for IT decision makers - managers, practitioners, buyers, sellers, consultants and project managers - who wish to conquer their fear of finance or refresh existing knowledge. "It is written in plain language and contains many practical examples." --Kybernetes, volume 35 issue 9, 2007 (review of previous edition)

The tools needed to make a better, more informed decision.

Decision analysis (DA) is the logic of making a decision using quantitative models of the decider's factual and value judgments. DA is already widely used in business, government, medicine, economics, law, and science. However, most resources present only the logic and models rather than demonstrating how these methods can be effectively applied to the real world. This book offers an innovative approach to decision analysis by focusing on decision-making tools that can be utilized immediately to make better, more informed decisions. It uses no mathematics beyond arithmetic.

Examining how deciders think about their choices, this book provides problem-solving techniques that not only reflect sound modeling but also meet other essential requirements: they build on the thinking and knowledge that deciders already possess; they provide knowledge in a form that people are able and willing to provide; they produce results that the decider can use; and they are based on intimate and continuous interactions with the decider. The methods outlined in this text take into account such factors as the use, the user, the organization, available data, and subjective knowledge.

Replete with exercises, case studies, and observations from the author's own extensive consulting experience, the book quickly engages readers and enables them to master decision analysis by doing rather than by simply reading. Using familiar situations, it demonstrates how to handle knowledge as it unfolds in the real world. A term project is presented in the final chapter, in which readers can select an actual decision-making problem and apply their newfound tools to prepare a recommendation. A sample report is provided in the appendix.

Beginning with qualitative structuring, the text advances to sophisticated quantitative skills that can be applied in both public and private enterprise, including:

- Modeling decision-making under conditions of uncertainty or multiple objectives

- Risk analysis and assessment

- Communicating and justifying controversial decisions

- Personal life choices and political judgments

- Adapting decision aid to organizations

The book's broad applicability makes it an excellent resource for any organization or as a textbook for decision-making courses in a variety of fields, including public policy, business management, systems engineering and general education.

An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department (email [email protected]) or directly from [email protected].

"Environmental Finance provides a thorough, objective discussion of the environmental risk issues facing financial institutions and how to effectively manage both the challenges and opportunities they present. A very current, informative and comprehensive reference."
–James R. Evans, Manager, Environmental Risk Management
RBC Financial Group

Today, environmentally irresponsible companies run the risk of hurting their bottom line as well as their image. As a result, environmental risk is reshaping the way insurance companies underwrite to corporate clients, banks lend, investors invest, and companies operate. Banks and insurance companies are also developing new environmental financial products to help their corporate customers protect their bottom line against changes in environmental legislation and the impact of adverse weather and climate change.

Environmental Finance: A Guide to Environmental Risk Assessment and Financial Products is one of the first books to explore this emerging field. This comprehensive reference opens with a discussion of the concepts and tools used by financial institutions to develop environmental policies and products, and then details how recent changes in the financial services sector have affected the capacity of companies to respond to the environmental challenge. From here you’ll learn about innovative new products such as tradable pollution permits, weather derivatives, catastrophe bonds, and many other market-based solutions that are being created in response to every type of environmental problem–from hurricanes to asbestos.

The financial and social consequences of environmental risk will continue to grow. Learn how to hedge these risks and come out on top with Environmental Finance as your guide.

Best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein examines how to avoid worst-case scenarios The world is increasingly confronted with new challenges related to climate change, globalization, disease, and technology. Governments are faced with having to decide how much risk is worth taking, how much destruction and death can be tolerated, and how much money should be invested in the hopes of avoiding catastrophe. Lacking full information, should decision-makers focus on avoiding the most catastrophic outcomes? When should extreme measures be taken to prevent as much destruction as possible? Averting Catastrophe explores how governments ought to make decisions in times of imminent disaster. Cass R. Sunstein argues that using the "maximin rule," which calls for choosing the approach that eliminates the worst of the worst-case scenarios, may be necessary when public officials lack important information, and when the worst-case scenario is too disastrous to contemplate. He underscores this argument by emphasizing the reality of "Knightian uncertainty," found in circumstances in which it is not possible to assign probabilities to various outcomes. Sunstein brings foundational issues in decision theory in close contact with real problems in regulation, law, and daily life, and considers other potential future risks. At once an approachable introduction to decision-theory and a provocative argument for how governments ought to handle risk, Averting Catastrophe offers a definitive path forward in a world rife with uncertainty.

Offers a basic understanding of the issues and processes involved in decision-making Presents the tools involved in problem analysis Discusses the tools that enable developing alternatives and judgement criteria Covers tools used to normalize judgement criteria achievement so that they are comparable across measures with differing scales Explores the methods used for selecting a best alternative when multiple decision criteria are relevant requiring the elicitation of preferred information of the decision maker

Offers a basic understanding of the issues and processes involved in decision-making Presents the tools involved in problem analysis Discusses the tools that enable developing alternatives and judgement criteria Covers tools used to normalize judgement criteria achievement so that they are comparable across measures with differing scales Explores the methods used for selecting a best alternative when multiple decision criteria are relevant requiring the elicitation of preferred information of the decision maker

Global virtual teams (GVTs) have evolved as a common work structure in multinational corporations due to their efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The cultural differences can produce great benefits in terms of perspective, creativity, and innovation, but can also exacerbate interpersonal tensions, miscommunications, and clashing decision-making behaviors. This book outlines cultural competencies specific to GVTs and sheds light on management strategies for creating an optimal inter-cultural GVT environment. It covers theory, decision making strategies, and activities for cultural competence and problem resolution, all told through vignettes and lessons-learned.

Every believer is a person of influence. In the Maxwell Leadership Bible, leadership expert John C. Maxwell shows you the principles of leadership taught in God’s Word and how to use them. Whether you are an employee, a boss, a parent, or a neighbor, you are a person of influence in your part of the world. Throughout the pages of Scripture, John Maxwell has assembled the time-tested and irrefutable biblical principles of leadership to equip and encourage leaders with his signature approach, including the 21 Laws of Leadership, the 21 Qualities of a Leader, biographical profiles, and hundreds of notes.

Through an exclusive focus on public policy advocacy, Dalton and Butler offer practical guidance for determining the fundamental issues that make up a controversy and what expectations public audiences will have for advocacy based on the issues and the burdens of advocates challenging or defending the status quo. Through examples that span a wide range of advocacy situations and subjects of contemporary importance, the authors build a framework for public policy advocacy that is organic to the communication discipline, recover and refresh foundational lessons about the uses of evidence, and provide critical questions that can be used to develop and communicate policy proposals that are sensible and appealing. Written in an accessible, respectful, and motivational style, the book is suitable for students of debate, professionals who function as advocates, and people who wish to voice their opinion.

'Advances in Business and Management Forecasting' is a blind refereed serial publication published on an annual basis. The objective of this research annual is to present state-of-the-art studies in the application of forecasting methodologies to such areas as sales, marketing and strategic decision making.

The corporate university is a whole-organisation endeavour for today, tomorrow and for the future, raising questions about the size and shape of your business and where you aim to reach. This book introduces you to the major areas of corporate university performance and value management, examining the evolution of the corporate university alongside emergent business challenges. It provides the pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle for you to assemble using the key disciplines and skills within your organisation. Change is an integral part of business life, and it can seriously affect your company's value. Gaining a good understanding of how all business processes add value to your company is vital. The aim of this book is to help you to access new ways to create a widespread culture of people and organisational development. You will discover effective management practices that will help you and your colleagues to become the leading agents of continuous change and development in all parts of your organisation. With the help of the corporate university model, your company can develop business solutions to resolve the challenges ahead in a changing world.

This book shows, on numerous examples, how to make decisions in realistic situations when we have both uncertainty and constraints. In most these situations, the book's emphasis is on the why-question, i.e., on a theoretical explanation for empirical formulas and techniques. Such explanations are important: they help understand why these techniques work well in some cases and not so well in others, and thus, help practitioners decide whether a technique is appropriate for a given situation. Example of applications described in the book ranges from science (biosciences, geosciences, and physics) to electrical and civil engineering, education, psychology and decision making, and religion-and, of course, include computer science, AI (in particular, eXplainable AI), and machine learning. The book can be recommended to researchers and students in these application areas. Many of the examples use general techniques that can be used in other application areas as well, so it is also useful for practitioners and researchers in other areas who are looking for possible theoretical explanations of empirical formulas and techniques.