"Corporate and investor needs for profits are being met with painful cost cutting and a blind adoption of outsourcing. Our organizations look for successes and advantages onshore, offshore and, in fact, "anyshore." We struggle for change, success, and sustainability, but we persistently underestimate and misalign the resources, skills, and efforts needed. The changes based in the fundamentals of realignments and innovations have been lost, and as a result, so has our collective ability to sustain the initiatives. We've lost our innovative abilities.

"Innovative Relevance" is not just about increases in productivity, loss of domestic jobs, cultural differences, cash flow, and most recently the certification of our financial statements. It also addresses the focused utilization of multiple disciplines that are seldom practiced today--ethics, integrity, passion, and consistency.

"Innovative Relevance" represents the pragmatic prescription for globalized workforces and operations. It creates the sustainable, repeatable, and measurable roadmap for change. Without relevance, many an approach or set of facts will suffice."

Due to more individuals retiring at a later age, today's workforce consists of five generations of workers with various educational backgrounds, ages, experience levels, and skills. Managers and business owners are now faced with the challenge of providing a work space that encourages the new ideals of millennials while also balancing the needs and desires of older employees. As such, new methods and strategies of working and managing efficiency in the workplace need to be explored. Five Generations and Only One Workforce: How Successful Businesses Are Managing a Multigenerational Workforce examines pivotal issues surrounding generational differences and management in the workplace including challenges in employee engagement, project management, and training. Highlighting a range of topics such as generation gap, workforce diversity, and senior workers, this publication is an ideal reference source for business practitioners, managers, executives, professionals, human resources managers, and researchers who are seeking more information on managing a multigenerational workforce.

After decades of stability, power systems are currently undergoing a rapid transition - demand patterns are evolving, while supply sources are shifting to renewable energies at an accelerated pace. This book, written by an experienced energy professional, combines the various aspects of supply and demand developments to offer a unified perspective. It highlights the key changes that the world of electric utilities and power systems will face in the coming decade, as well as the major challenges that will emerge as a result. Supplemented by a wealth of global and local data, the book describes the major patterns that affect both supply and demand, and provides a quantified analysis of their impacts on power system grids and markets. Lastly, it explores the new technologies that can enable the success of these transformations.

The aim of this book is to present quantitative and qualitative aspects of logistics operations supporting recycling and reuse. In individual chapters, the authors address various issues related to reverse network configuration and the organization of collection, transportation, warehousing and reprocessing activities. Moreover a number of best practice examples from different countries and industries are provided. This book will be a valuable resource for both academics and practitioners who want to deepen their knowledge of logistics operations and management for recycling and reuse.

Building on the foundations of the first edition, this comprehensive textbook remains a vital tool for postgraduate students seeking to understand the principles of service operations management, and for undergraduate students specializing in hospitality, tourism and public sector management. With services accounting for 70 percent of employment and growth in our economy, this textbook explains what is needed to ensure the most efficient and effective service operations are delivered. Covering not-for-profit agencies, charities, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and utilities alongside finance, healthcare and commercial companies, this guide explores the essentials of service operations management with its innovative approach to delivering customers' imperatives in services. Written in a clear and accessible manner this updated second edition: takes an increased international perspective on service operations is updated to reflect the most significant changes in service operations management, and to provide enhanced coverage of areas touched on in the first edition includes new and updated international case studies in each chapter, ideal for use in the classroom, reflecting the increased globalisation of service operations, with internationalising updates to include content suitable for a global audience covers mobile technology and presents the author's own research embracing big data analytics and neurolinguistics in building customer service systems expands coverage of process-reengineering and service flows, business process assessments, and developing economies.

This book explores technological innovation in family firms, seeking to reconstruct the links between the heterogeneous dimensions of family businesses and their innovative behaviour. Building on and examining the traditional view of family firms as conservative, this book contributes to knowledge surrounding the puzzling role of family firms in technological innovation, with particular focus on the Italian pharmaceutical industry. The authors explore technological advances within the industry in connection with various features of family governance. This thought-provoking study is divided into two parts, the first part providing an overview of current literature on the topic, and the second part analysing the findings of empirical investigation in a specific industry setting. Practitioners and academics of business strategy will find this book extremely useful as it combines both solid theoretical reasoning and robust empirical analysis.

Business Processes: Operational Solutions for SAP Implementation deals with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems implementation, and also business operations/processes and information systems to support business operations/processes. There are a large number of books treating ERP implementation, operations management and information systems separately, but books dedicated to all three topics applied to practical issues of ERP implementation are scarce. However, teaching ERP merely as software does not work. Uniting these three topics in one book allows the reader to avoid the problems of teaching separate fields and then connecting them in one complex solution, providing the opportunity to better educate students.

Rising life expectancy has led to the growth of the 'Sandwich Generation' - men and women who are caregivers to their children of varying ages as well as for one or both parents whilst still managing their own household and work responsibilities. This book considers both the strains and benefits of this position. Tackling a myriad of issues such as gender, parents and parents-in-law, ethnic differences, residential status, and developing changes in the caregiving relationship such as Alzheimer's or dementia, this book highlights the complexities of the caregiving relationship. Key chapters also address potential benefits including improved relationships, skill set development and generously giving to another. Expert contributors use examples to illustrate the need for organizations to address increases in caregiving among their employees and develop supportive policies and initiatives. They further show that there is a need at the country level to integrate employees, communities, employers, businesses and levels of government to deal with this increasing trend. This timely book will prove an indispensible reference for academics and students interested in the sandwich generation, caregiving and health. Its practical approach will also benefit human resource management professionals, managers dealing with sandwiched employees and health administrators at various levels of government. Contributors include: R. Attieh, S. Austen, R. Burke, L. Calvano, C.E. Greaves, T. Jefferson, N.L. Jimmieson, A.H. Kim, S. LoboPrabhu, N. Mandell, A. Mitra, V. Molinari, A. Ollier-Malterre, R. Ong, S.L. Parker, A.H. Prokos, J. Reid Keene, C. Reinicke, C.W. Rudolph, R. Sharp, P. Ulmanen, S.I. White Means, T. Yamashita, H. Zacher

This book examines the environmental footprints of recycled polyesters, highlighting the benefits and impact of recycling polyester waste and preparing it to replace virgin polyester in the raw material stage. It also discusses the importance of recycled polyester as a sustainable raw material in textile production.

Supply chains are significant in improving business efficiency. Sustainable supply chains help industries enhance their ecological, monetary, and social performance. Innovative research frameworks as well as the modelling of sustainability issues are significant to different stakeholder's perspectives. This book guides researchers and practitioners through developing effective sustainable supply chains to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A new set of major changes is reshaping the economy and creating challenges that are testing the mettle and talents of organizations and their employees. Unless organizations and their employees develop the requisite skills they need to cope with these challenges, many will become casualties of their own deficiencies. "Keys to Employee Success in Coming Decades" seeks to prepare employees for future success in an increasingly demanding and competitive global environment. Sims, Veres, and their contributors are careful to focus on what employees at different levels in the organization will need to do to be successful in the twenty-first century.

Mastery of the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors discussed by the contributors in this book will lead to enhanced employee performance as the new decade approaches. The requirements for new employees or the redesigned employees is quickly changing. The organizations of tomorrow will expect employees who understand the importance of success; who welcome change and accept it, master it, and deliberately cause it. They are also employees who are proactive innovators, who confront constraints and the limitations on actions that they impose, who take risks and who continue to develop themselves professionally, technically, and personally. Written clearly, concisely, and with a minimum of academic jargon, the book will be important reading for specialists in human resource management, training and development, and others with critical responsibilities throughout the organization.

This book brings out the innovations in textile wet or chemical processing to alleviate the environmental impacts arising from this sector. The major challenge in the textiles and fashion sector is that it requires a massive sustainable innovation to mitigate the huge environmental impacts arising from chemical or wet processing. This book also discusses innovations in eco-friendly methods for textile wet processes and applications of enzymes in textiles.

The book reports on advanced topics in interactive robotics research and practice; in particular, it addresses non-technical obstacles to the broadest uptake of these technologies. It focuses on new technologies that can physically and cognitively interact with humans, including neural interfaces, soft wearable robots, and sensor and actuator technologies; further, it discusses important regulatory challenges, including but not limited to business models, standardization, education and ethical-legal-socioeconomic issues. Gathering the outcomes of the 1st INBOTS Conference (INBOTS2018), held on October 16-20, 2018 in Pisa, Italy, the book addresses the needs of a broad audience of academics and professionals working in government and industry, as well as end users. In addition to providing readers with detailed information and a source of inspiration for new projects and collaborations, it discusses representative case studies highlighting practical challenges in the implementation of interactive robots in a number of fields, as well as solutions to improve communication between different stakeholders. By merging engineering, medical, ethical and political perspectives, the book offers a multidisciplinary, timely snapshot of interactive robotics.

This transdisciplinary volume puts forward proposals for wiser, socially just and sustainable socio-economic systems in transition. There is growing support for the view that the end of capitalism is around the corner, but on which conceptual and ethical basis can we interpret these times? With investigations into feminist economics, post-growth environmentalism, socio-technical digital design, collaborative and commons economics, the editors create a dialogue between radical knowledge/practices and contemplative social sciences to transgress disciplinary boundaries and implement new visions of reality. This important book challenges our ways of thinking and outlines a pathway for new research. Chapter 13 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

Top businesses recognise risk management as a core feature of their project management process and approach to the governance of projects. However, a mature risk management process is required in order to realise its benefits; one that takes into account the design and implementation of the process and the skills, experience and culture of the people who use it. To be mature in the way you manage risk you need an accepted framework to assess your risk management maturity, allowing you to benchmark against a recognised standard. A structured pathway for improvement is also needed, not just telling you where you are now, but describing the steps required to reach the next level. The Project Risk Maturity Model detailed here provides such an assessment framework and development pathway. It can be used to benchmark your project risk processes and support the introduction of effective in-house project risk management. Using this model, implementation and improvement of project risk management can be managed effectively to ensure that the expected benefits are achieved in a way that is appropriate to the needs of each organisation. Martin Hopkinson has developed The Project Risk Maturity Model into a robust framework, and this book allows you to access and apply his insights and experience. A key feature is a downloadable resource containing a working copy of the QinetiQ Project Risk Maturity Model (RMM). This will enable you to undertake maturity assessments for as many projects as you choose. The RMM has been proven over a period of 10 years, with at least 250 maturity assessments on projects and programmes with a total value exceeding AGBP60 billion. A case study in the book demonstrates how it has been used to deliver significant and measurable benefits to the performance of major projects.

This book is intended as a guide to and manual on modeling complex problems in Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). It encourages practitioners to consider the practicalities of real-world scenarios when modeling, while at the same time providing tips and examples of how to incorporate these realities into the initial decision matrix. The goal is to help readers build a decision matrix that replicates reality as closely as possible. Once this matrix has been constructed, the Decision Maker (DM) can select from more than a hundred MCDM methods the one that best fits the requirements and conditions of the matrix. The book features cases taken from real-world scenarios, which deal with various fields, aspects, and characteristics, and are solved using the SIMUS (Sequential Interactive Modeling for Urban Systems) method. This book is a valuable tool for practitioners, researchers and students dealing with MCDM problems.

With nearly 48 percent of all U.S. undergraduates attending community and technical colleges, the two-year sector is an integral part of our nation's higher education system and a vital part of our nation's future. The need for effective faculty evaluation and professional development within two-year colleges stems partly from the size of this sector and also from the diversity of its program offerings and its student body. Miller and his co-authors bring timely, authoritative, and practical material to two audiences in this rapidly growing field of education: first, teachers who have permanent appointments but could use professional development and improvement; and, second, the already large and still growing number of part-time instructors who could use more evaluating and improving. This book is intended to be a direct assistance for these groups as well as to administrators who must make personal decisions.

This professional book is for human resource managers and staff development officers of two-year colleges. A greater emphasis needs to be placed on human resource management, according to Miller and his co-authors, that will result in better personnel decision making.

A number of dramatic changes are currently reshaping infrastructure, a sector that investors and asset managers have traditionally considered to be a safe harbor in the field of alternative investments. Understanding the future of infrastructure is indispensable to guaranteeing a sustainable future for our planet and the welfare of the world's population, and enhancing our knowledge of this asset class is one important step we can take toward reaching this crucial goal. This book collects a series of contributions by a group of Bocconi University researchers under the Antin IP Associate Professorship in Infrastructure Finance, which cover the key megatrends that are expected to reshape the way we think about infrastructure, and the implications for infrastructure investors and asset managers. Its goal is to improve and disseminate the culture of infrastructure among academics, professionals and policymakers. The main focus is on Europe and the European Union, and specifically on three key sectors: power and energy, transportation infrastructure, and telecoms / ICT.

This book promotes the creation of advanced knowledge-based economies driven by innovation networks and the continuous development of human capital and capability. It provides valuable insights into the growing emergence of knowledge-based industries of the Asia Pacific, and highlights research on: modes of creativity and innovation; intellectual property; the components of national innovation systems such as firms, education and training; knowledge and technical infrastructure; and public policy. The Asia Pacific region is currently in the process of transforming from being the manufacturing centre of the global economy to a centre of innovation for the knowledge economy, with the successful IPO of Alibaba in 2014 being a prime example of this shift. From a neo-Schumpeterian perspective, the region is increasingly engaged in shortening and intensifying cycles of innovation. The historic agreement at the Beijing APEC meeting between China and the US to radically reduce carbon emissions indicates that one imperative of this innovation is to contribute to sustainability. The fact that the US Government is moving away from this historic commitment, while the Chinese Government is endorsing the commitment, indicates an emerging opportunity for Asia to lead the world technologically in a vital industrial sector of the future.

Since the dawn of the digital era, the transfer of knowledge has shifted from analog to digital, local to global, and individual to social. Complex networked communities are a fundamental part of these new information-based societies. Emerging Pedagogies in the Networked Knowledge Society: Practices Integrating Social Media and Globalization examines the production, dissemination, and consumption of knowledge within networked communities in the wider global context of pervasive Web 2.0 and social media services. This book will offer insight for business stakeholders, researchers, scholars, and administrators by highlighting the important concepts and ideas of information- and knowledge-based economies.

This book explores the need to develop business strategies, organise and fund transformation projects and manage the transformation programme in order to further a circular economy. Circular Business Models outlines sustainable business models that can be used by companies to move transformation forward on a large scale. In addition to business models the book will cover and discuss a number of other factors necessary for a successful transformation, such as business and innovation strategy, entrepreneurship and change management. Including original interviews with circular economy practitioners, this book will be applicable to industries as diverse as manufacturing, food processing, transportation and mechanical engineering. Addressing the different challenges that meet circular economy visionaries, it outlines strategies and business models needed to gain momentum in these different sectors.

This book addresses reliability, maintenance, risk, and safety issues of industrial systems with applications of the latest decision-making techniques. Thus, this book presents chapters that apply advanced tools, techniques, and computing models for optimizing the performance of industrial and manufacturing systems, along with other complex engineering equipment. Computing techniques like data analytics, failure mode and effects analysis, fuzzy set theory, petri-net, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), and soft computing are used for solving problems of reliability, risk, and safety related issues.

The series seeks to illuminate, highlight, and spotlight (intercultural) communication in the world of business. This second volume focuses on China in an intercultural business context. Due to China's growing importance in today's world, it is imperative to obtain some insights into Chinese culture in order to begin to understand Chinese business practices. By examining the issue from a Western and a Chinese perspective, a more comprehensive view becomes possible. What appears baffling to Western managers may become understandable after a comparison with and contrast to the Chinese perspective. This is what this volume accomplishes: Shed light on misperceived aspects of intercultural business encounters.

Global markets and competition have forced companies to operate in a physically distributed environment to take the advantage of benefits of strategic alliances between partnering firms. With global operations in place, there is a need for suitable Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and E-Commerce (EC) for the integration of extended enterprises along the supply chain with the objective of achieving flexibility and responsiveness. Enterprise Information Systems and Advancing Business Solutions: Emerging Models is to provide comprehensive coverage and understanding of various enterprise information systems (EIS) such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and electronic commerce (EC) and their implications on supply chain management and organizational competitiveness. Design, development, and implementation issues of EIS including ERP and EC will be discussed. These include organizational, people, and technological issues of EIS. This title will also expand the knowledge on ERP and EC and in turn help researchers and practitioners to develop suitable strategies, tactics, and operational policies for EIS and for improving communication in organizations.