Creativity loosely refers to activities in the visual arts, music, design, film and performance that are primarily intended to produce forms of affect and social meaning. Yet, over the last few decades, creativity has also been explicitly mobilized by governments around the world as a 'resource' for achieving economic growth. The creative economy discourse emphasizes individuality, innovation, self-fulfillment, career advancement and the idea of leading exciting lives as remedies to social alienation. This book critically assesses that discourse, and explores how political shifts and new theoretical frameworks are affecting the creative economy in various parts of the world at a time when creative industries are becoming increasingly 'industrialized.' Further, it highlights how work inequalities, oligopolistic strategies, competitive logics and unsustainable models are inherent weaknesses of the industrial model of creativity. The interdisciplinary contributions presented here address the operationalization of creative practices in a variety of geographical contexts, ranging from the UK, France and Russia, to Greece, Argentina and Italy, and examine issues concerning art biennials, museums, DIY cultures, technologies, creative writing, copyright laws, ideological formations, craft production and creative co-ops.

This book studies the motivation of crowdworkers to find out how to attract more people and reach a higher quality of outcomes. The book first proposes a taxonomy for studying the motivation of crowdworkers including the potential influencing factors, different types of motivation, and possible consequences and outcomes related to the motivation. Next, the CWMS questionnaire, an instrument for measuring the underlying motivation of crowdworkers is developed. It considers different dimensions of motivation suggested by the Self-Determination Theory of motivation which is a well-established and empirically validated psychological theory used in various domains. This instrument can be used to study the effect of platform and user characteristics on the general motivation of crowdworkers. Later, the task-specific motivation of crowdworkers is studied in detail: Influencing factors are investigated, subjective methods for measuring them are evaluated, a model for predicting worker's decision on taking a task is proposed, the relative importance of different factors for two populations of crowdworkers is studied, and finally, a model for predicting the expected workload (as one of the major influencing factors) given the task design is proposed.

This book investigates individual companies' and industries' supply chain risk management approaches to identify risk drivers and verify effective risk-reduction measures and business continuity plans. Typically, supply chain risk assessments focus on normative guidelines based on single best practice examples or vulnerability events, and there has been little work exploring how the concepts of supply chain risk management and resilience are related. However, since this relationship has implications for developing integrated response strategies, a clear understanding of the possible consequences is a fundamental step in building socio-economic resilience along the supply chain. Against this background, the book addresses three main topics: firstly, it defines the conceptual and sectoral domains of supply chain risk management and resilience by examining the welfare effects of extreme weather events and other economic shocks on selected global supply chains. It then presents an in-depth analysis of the scope of public-private partnerships to tackle the risks, by empirically exploring supply chain risk effects and information management. Thirdly, it proposes a regional cooperation framework in the context of major supply chain vulnerability events such as disasters and global financial crises.

Reliability is one of the fundamental criteria in engineering systems. Design and maintenance serve to support it throughout the systems life. As such, maintenance acts in parallel to production and can have a great impact on the availability and capacity of production and the quality of the products. The authors describe current and innovative methods useful to industry and society.

Over the past decade, the author has met with directors of R&D departments in large industrial firms, who are frustrated by the lack of coherent and consistent methodologies in R&D projects. As a direct result the author was asked to design and present a seminar to provide R&D engineers and scientists a standard methodology for conducting coherent, rigorous, comprehensible, and consistent R&D projects. The author also realized that this training should be included in engineering and science curricula in universities and colleges. To this end, he designed and presented a pilot course for his department that was received enthusiastically by students who participated. This course has now become a required course for all doctoral students in the author's department.
This book has been designed to provide professional engineers, scientists, and students with a consistent and practical framework for the rigorous conduct and communication of complex research and development projects. Although courses and training in research methods are common and generally required of social science professionals, a vast majority of physical scientists and engineers have had no formal classroom training or on-the-job mentoring on proper procedures for research methods. Getting It Right emphasizes the comprehensive analysis of project problems, requirements, and objectives; the use of standard and consistent terminology and procedures; the design of rigorous and reproducible experiments; the appropriate reduction and interpretation of project results; and the effective communication of project design, methods, results, and conclusions.
Presents a standard methodology for conducting coherent, rigorous, comprehensible, and consistent R&D projects
Thoroughly researched to appeal to the needs of R&D engineers and scientists in industry
Will also appeal to students of engineering and science

For undergraduate and graduate courses in technology strategy, management of innovation and technology, technology entrepreneurship, and engineering management. This book emphasizes how the future manager or entrepreneur can use strategic management of innovation and technology to enhance firm performance. It helps students to understand the process of technological change; the ways that firms come up with innovations; the strategies that firms use to benefit from innovation; and the process of formulating technology strategy.

Managing people is a tricky business—and managers and small business owners need a clear understanding of the essentials of human resources to survive.

The original edition of The Manager’s Guide to HR gives you an introduction to the regulations, rights, and responsibilities related to hiring and firing, benefits, compensation, documentation, performance evaluations, training, and more. However, much has changed since then.

Extensively revised, this second edition covers all the key areas of the original edition and brings you up to speed on current developments in employment law, including:

• How social media is changing the recruitment landscape
• Shifting labor standards regarding compensation and benefits
• The National Labor Relations Board’s stance on work-related employee speech on social media
• The Employee Retirement Income Security Act
• New record-keeping requirements
• Amendments to the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act

Featuring step-by-step guidance on everything from COBRA compliance to privacy issues, The Manager’s Guide to HR is now once again the most up-to-date, invaluable resource any manager of personnel could have.

Presenting a scientific exploration of personal branding and digital communication, this ground-breaking book aims to fill a gap between theory and practice. Describing how social media can increase brand profiles online, it explains basic terms before investigating the cultural context for online personal branding. With a special focus on YouTube, the author provides a comparative analysis of two countries (USA and Poland) to open further avenues for research into this growing area. An essential read for management and marketing scholars, this study outlines and explores the evolution of media in the digital age from a business perspective, and offers a thought-provoking analysis for those interested in social media.

For undergraduate and graduate courses in organisational behaviour and human resources. An applied approach to developing and practicing interpersonal skills. By developing and practicing the material in Training in Interpersonal Skills, students can learn how to build productive relationships for any situation. This text also helps students master the skills necessary for personal and organisational effectiveness such as self-management, communication, teaming, and problem solving. The sixth edition includes several new pedagogical tools-such as self-assessment quizzes, exercises, cases, etc.-and information on the importance and usage of social networking.

This book provides an overview of the aviation sector by focusing on all major aspects embedded in the environment (subsystems) and the market of aviation. The book explains the linkages between subsystems politics, society, technology, economy, environment, and regulation, and how these subsystems influence each other and the market. The book starts by describing the aviation system, then focuses on the supply side and the demand side of the system and in a final part focuses on steering and controlling the system of aviation from a managerial, economic, and regulatory perspective. Examples and case studies of airports, airlines, and the production industry in each chapter support the application-oriented approach. The summary and review questions help the reader to understand the focus and main messages of each chapter. Students and researchers in business administration with a focus on aviation, as well as professionals in the industry looking to refresh or broaden their knowledge in the field will benefit from this book.

This book discusses various aspects of blockchains in economic systems and investment strategies in crypto markets. It first addresses the topic from a conceptual and theoretical point of view, and then analyzes it from an assessment and investment angle. Further, it examines the opportunities and limitations of the taxation of crypto currency, as well as the political implications, such as regulation of speculation with crypto currencies. The book is intended for academicians and students in the fields of economics and finance.

From modest beginnings in the early 1990's, a reform movement in the regulation of public procurement has mushroomed into a global imperative. Two fundamental values of international free trade policy--value for money and the deterrence of corruption--have brought intense scrutiny to bear on public procurement practices in nearly every country. Now international standards (notably those of the WTO and the EU) must be met if a trading nation is to take its place in the global markets. This collection of essays offers fifteen distinct views on the current status and trends in public procurement and its various aspects. From general discussion of setup, overcoming obstacles, ensuring transparency, and compliance with international rules to specific issues raised in economies as diverse as Kosovo, China, and the United States, "Public Procurement: The Continuing Revolution provides a great wealth of insight and information. Although the emphasis throughout is on legal issues, the contributors include not only lawyers but also economists and specialists in purchasing practice. In addition, this is the first book to note the relatively recent trend, in developed countries, toward a less prescriptive, more flexible approach to regulation in which a degree of transparency is sacrificed. The question of how this trend will affect international procurement regimes is perhaps the most viral and interesting aspect of current theory and practice in the field. "Public Procurement: The Continuing Revolution is of inestimable value not only to public procurement specialists, whatever their profession, but to a much wider audience who will recognise the decisive influence of this important economicactivity on the entire area embracing trade and even international relations. Most of these essays were originally presented as papers at an international conference hosted by the Public Procurement Research Group at the University of Nottingham in September 2001.

For upper-division undergraduate and MBA students as well as business professionals. Seeing the economic realities of the modern corporation through an integrated approach. Titman/Martin presents an integrated approach to both project and enterprise valuation, showing readers the economic realities that today's modern corporations face. This text also goes beyond standard DCF analysis by including additional valuation methods that are commonly used in practice, such as comparables, simulations, and real options. The second edition includes an increased emphasis on enterprise valuation, a new chapter on financial forecasting, and enhanced examples and illustrations.

Strategy management has always been a crucial business aspect that a company must understand to remain successful in the business world. However, there are a number of different approaches that a company can employ in order to differentiate themselves from thecompetition. Knowledge Management for Competitive Advantage During Economic Crisis brings together the various approaches that affect the superiority of a company's organizational performance and the gains they can make over their competitors. By focusing on concepts such as organizational learning and intellectual capital, this book is an indispensable reference source for researchers, practitioners, graduate students, and business managers interested in understanding what approaches are necessary to ensure superior organizational performance.

This authoritative guide--the only in-depth survey of dividend policy--challenges the belief that corporate executives and financial analysts should dismiss dividend policy as irrelevant to shareholder wealth. Dividend policy does matter, say the authors, as they cite many classic and contemporary examples to show how dividend policy decisions play out in the marketplace. A carefully planned and executed policy is critical to maximizing shareholder wealth. This accessible, practical book covers every aspect of sound dividend planning and implementation. It includes a brief history of the evolution of dividends, statistics on dividends relative to profits and capital investments, their importance as a component of investor total returns, the relationship of dividends to share price, how management makes dividend decisions, and the impact of different tax regulations on dividend policies. The book focuses less on mathematics and more on the intuition of share valuation as a function of dividend policy. While the authors acknowledge the irrelevance of dividend policy in a world with perfect capital markets, they stress how market imperfections such as taxes, imperfect information, and agency issues can alter the dividend irrelevance conclusion. The book devotes special chapters to international dividend policy and to share repurchases as an alternative to dividend payouts. It concludes with the authors' recommendations on how managers should incorporate market imperfections most relevant to their firms in setting dividend policy. Dividend Policy is a must-have resource for all managers, executives, and institutional investors.

This unique book reveals how Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) can be used to achieve resilience to change and external shocks. COINs, which consist of 'cyberteams' of motivated individuals, are self-organizing emergent social systems for coping with external change. The book describes how COINs enable resilience in healthcare, e.g. through teams of patients, family members, doctors and researchers to support patients with chronic diseases, or by reducing infant mortality by forming groups of mothers, social workers, doctors, and policymakers. It also examines COINs within large corporations and how they build resilience by forming, spontaneously and without intervention on the part of the management, to creatively respond to new risks and external threats. The expert contributions also discuss how COINs can benefit startups, offering new self-organizing forms of leadership in which all stakeholders collaborate to develop new products.

Interviewing is one of the most effective ways to identify and attract employees who will be successful enough to stay. But few managers are adept at the skill. This book helps eliminate expensive errors of judgment by presenting readers with a set of behaviorally based interviewing strategies. Written by the faculty of the prestigious University of Michigan Executive Education Center--and based on one of their most popular courses--its seven-step "Strategic Interviewing Approach" helps interviewers define the competencies candidates need to possess and make hiring decisions based on accurate predictions of the candidates' performance.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the leader-member exchange relationship. Employees who share a high-quality relationship with their leader are more likely to earn a higher salary, climb the ranks more quickly, and report higher life satisfaction levels than their peers who have a less copasetic leader-member relationship. While Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX) research addresses the impact that the leader-member relationship has on the individual employee experience, much of this scholarship overlooks or obscures the vital role that communication plays in the development and maintenance of workgroup relationships. Much of extant literature also glosses over the role that communication plays in workgroup collaboration. Using a communicative lens, this text illustrates the complex theoretical underpinnings of LMX theory, such as the importance of social interaction and relationship building and maintenance necessary to achieve organizational goals. We explore how an employee's relationship with their leader also shapes their peer relationships and their overall standing within their workgroup. Further, the text examines the potential dark side of LMX theory, such as the tendency towards demographic and trait and state similarity. Employing a communicative perspective emphasizes the extent of position and personal power both leaders and members have in engineering the quality of the relationship they desire. Integrating and applying once disparate lines of academic literature, this book offers employees, students, and teacher-scholars pragmatic yet research-based insights into developing and maintaining successful, healthy workplace relationships.

This book focuses on the discussion and analysis of theory and behavior in organizations in all industries and sectors worldwide. It analyzes the subject of business administration and highlights its evolution, which is closely linked to the frequent and far-reaching changes in the social, economic and technological settings in which it operates. By way of introduction, a historical outline shows how technological progress has sparked profound changes in the economic, social and technological context, making organizations constantly evolving structures. On this basis, the book addresses knowledge management and organizational theories that consider knowledge and training to be companies' most important resources for facing the substantial challenges posed by the current international context. The book broadens readers' understanding of the operating principles of business management and their awareness of the structure and implementation of various organizational models. As such, it will be of interest to scholars and professionals in the fields of strategic management and organizational behavior.

Professionals in multinational companies may face several challenges related to the multi-linguistic, multi-faceted aspects of supply chain management in developing and developed economies. Under-developed infrastructures, archaic technology and lack of knowledge of indigenous supply chain management systems have hampered the growth of markets and indigenous businesses in emerging economies. Cases on Supply Chain and Distribution Management: Issues and Principles introduces readers to a wide selection of case studies covering a multitude of supply chains in different economies of the world and examines major issues related to supply chain management. Concerned with the complete management of the flow of goods, information, and finances, the discipline of supply chain management merits an in-depth analysis. This book presents the latest knowledge on different types of supply chains that exist within the world business environment and acts as catalyst for incumbent global corporations to understand and work around inefficient supply chains, particularly in emerging economies.

This book provides hands-on techniques for writing engineering procedures to achieve ISO 9000 compliance. It is designed for individuals responsible for writing these procedures in any industry. Readers will find actual examples of clearly written, compliant engineering procedures, ready to adapt to your own industry and your own particular needs and use immediately. It answers virtually all your procedure writing questions. Procedure writers will gain a general understanding of engineering documentation principles and how to apply them to their own situations. Simple diagrams and other graphics illustrate key ideas, giving a bird's-eye view of what is coming next. The intent of the book is to familiarize the reader with the essential elements and concepts of engineering procedure development and management and show how to apply these concepts to their own specific applications. The author emphasizes engineering principles and tools that are common to all engineering disciplines, with examples for their use.Step-by-step procedures shown for each document format enable readers to apply each format to their own engineering documentation programs quickly and easily. The book provides a fingertip reference that covers the entire engineering procedure process, using the latest technology for engineering documentation systems.

This book provides a theoretical basis for understanding the phenomenon of renegotiations in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). It analyzes the case of transport projects, and provides empirical evidence from a variety of real-world projects. What drives renegotiations? Why are some projects more likely to be renegotiated than others? What are the outcomes? How can we improve the performance of renegotiation processes? These questions form the core of discussion in this book. PPPs are a procurement model for the delivery of infrastructure and public services that have experienced significant growth over the last three decades, particularly in terms of the development of transportation projects. The empirical evidence suggests that most PPP projects are inevitably renegotiated, i.e., the original contract needs to be adapted to new and unforeseen circumstances. The impacts of these changes on the welfare of the respective stakeholders are frequently asymmetric. Most academic research and professional guidelines are focused on PPP contract design and preparation of the procurement process, and very little has been published on the management and, mainly, the process of renegotiating that will - in all likelihood - occur. This book fills this gap in the academic discussion. Several country-based analyses and case studies from Europe and the Americas provide the reader with practical applications of the theory.