The Palgrave Handbook of Research Design in Business and Management uses a new state-of-the-art research design typology model to guide researchers in creating the blueprints for their experiments. By focusing on theory and cutting-edge empirical best-practices, this handbook utilizes visual techniques to appease all learning styles.

A volume in I.S.C.E Book Series: Managing the Complex Series Editors Kurt Richardson and Michael Lissack, ISCE Research It seems as if attempts to use knowledge to understand and manage social networks are everywhere. Millions, if not billions, of dollars are being spent in an attempt to derail terrorist networks, with much of it being invested in making sense of massive data streams. There is growing concern that much of this money is being squandered on approaches that will never deliver on their promises. Our armed forces are being prepared to combat terrorist threats by the introduction of "network centric approaches" and "digital battlefields" - basically attempts to provide warfighters with a complete picture of the battlespace. However, the experience of practitioners suggests that the "data smog" this creates is actually counterproductive. From the arena of politics, the recent invigorating battle between senators Clinton and Obama has thrown the spotlight on the deficiencies in political polling (Economist, 2008b). Changes in the structure of the situation (e.g. high turnouts) have thrown the whole industry into chaos. Complexity is being discounted and the results are stark. The conclusion formed in the media was that the situation was wildly unpredictable (so anyone's to win), and ended up having real consequences for the Democratic challenger in November 2008 (Baldwin, 2008). Turning to business, we find that Societe Generale recently lost $7.2bn as the result of a single rogue trader making a series of bogus transactions amid turbulent markets in 2007 and 2008. There has been much speculation on what was known, when it was known, and who knew it. In other words, we have speculation that this is an example of the role of knowledge in the mismanagement of social networks - with spectacular effect. At a glance, the problems highlighted above seem positively overwhelming. Where do you start? But start we must. Simple "causal and effect" thinking doesn't seem to be able to cut the mustard. There is broad agreement that even if the Kyoto targets were fully met, on schedule, by 2100 it would only delay the warming of the planet by six years (Parry et al., 1998). We need to utilize knowledge in new ways...or maybe uncover insights from old ways. It is hard to think of something more worthy of attention that the role of knowledge in the management of complex systems. In Volume 4 of the Managing the Complex Series we have brought together seventeen essays from authors around the globe to explore the complex systems view of knowledge and its role in social networks. Contributors explore such topics as: the limitations to our knowledge of complex systems, the transfer of knowledge from local to global levels, collaborative knowledge generation, decision making in complex multi-stakeholder situations, organizational learning and innovation, all through the lens of the emerging field of complexity science. The editors hope that this volume will give theorists further avenues to explore in their attempts to understand knowledge creation, maintenance and distribution, and also provide practitioners with new tools to apply in the complex and messy real world.

This contributed volume presents state-of-the-art advances in logistics theory in various fields as well as case studies. The book reports on a number of recently conducted studies in the Dinalog and the EffizienzCluster LogistikRuhr, thus bridging the gap between different perspectives of theoretical and applied research. A selection of theoretical topics, practical examples, case studies and project reports is presented in this volume. The editors carefully selected contributions from a wide variety of projects, which were carried out in both the Dinalog cluster and the Effizienzcluster LogistikRuhr. The contributions are grouped in five main sections, each representing key domains in the evolution of logistics and supply chain management: sustainability, urban logistics, value chain management, IT-based innovation, knowledge management. This book is intended for both researchers and practitioners in the field of logistics and supply chain management, to serve as an important source of information for further research as well as to stimulate further innovation.

The maths, the formulas, and the problems associated with corporate finance can be daunting to the uninitiated, but help is at hand. Corporate Finance For Dummies, UK Edition covers all the basics of corporate finance, including: accounting statements; cash flow; raising and managing capital; choosing investments; managing risk; determining dividends; mergers and acquisitions; and valuation. It also serves as an excellent resource to supplement corporate finance coursework and as a primer for exams. Inside you ll discover: * The tools and expert advice you need to understand corporate finance principles and strategies * Introductions to the practices of determining an operating budget, calculating future cash flow, and scenario analysis - in plain English * Information on the risks and rewards associated with corporate finance and lending * Easy to understand explanations and examples * Help to pass your corporate finance exam!

Utilising technologies, processes, and applications to analyse internal and structured data, business intelligence is a key aspect in the ability of an organization to gather knowledge and develop new opportunities for growth. Principles and Applications of Business Intelligence Research provides the latest ideas and research on the practices and management of business intelligence. Including original research, case studies, and analysis, this comprehensive collection aims to advance the understanding and implementation of business intelligence.

This book describes approaches, opinions, and concepts for new and emerging solutions and technologies that could be successfully applied in the configuration, optimization and management of supply networks in the highly volatile environment of today's global economy. It features numerous case studies and quantitative research from different sectors and different countries. The authors, which include academics and managers alike, present tips on technical, organizational, financial and social aspects of implementing the new SMART solution. Dynamic and changing market conditions have made it necessary for companies to act in networks to maintain their competitive position. Accordingly, they have to adapt their own actions to those of other market players, which requires a SMART attitude: today's supply networks need to be Sustainable, Modern, Adaptive, Robust and innovative Technology-oriented. For example, this concerns making decisions about the extent to which a business model should be green or lean. In turn, these decisions impact logistics, IT, environmental issues and co-operation between suppliers, customers, competitors, and complementors.

Emerged from the Lewinian tradition of research into organizational behavior, motivation, and change, here is a conceptual but practical way for HR professionals and others in today's organizations to understand better, more quickly and reliably, what the underlying human problems in their organizations are. Cunningham proceeds from the conviction that the key to solving organizational problems is in the hands of people, and that when people talk about the problems they experience they are reflecting their values and beliefs. The way to get people to do that is through a style of inquiry called indirect questioning--the Echo approach. This approach, which managers and executives in all types of organizations will find helpful and extensively useful is the subject of CunninghaM's examination.

The Echo approach is designed to bring to the surface and measure the values and beliefs held by a group of people and the organizations they comprise. Cunningham illustrates how this approach works, how to design interviews, surveys, and observations that actually echo peoples' values and beliefs--the obvious ones and those they keep hidden. Readable, well illustrated with cases and examples, this book will help executives at all levels understand better what people in these organizations are actually thinking and saying. In doing so it will help organizations become more productive and be more desirable places to work.

In this volume, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology provides managers with the practical guidance they need to make decisions about the crucial process of employee selection in today's changing business environment. An outstanding group of contributors--each with direct experience creating effective selection programs for contemporary organizations--makes applicable proven strategies for the design and management of the selection process. They examine selection management in its organizational, social, and legal contexts and help human resource professionals forge links between selection and other critical HR functions such as training, development, recruitment, and resourcing.

Identifying, measuring, and valuing knowledge-based intangible assets: new perspectives highlights the importance of intangible resources in business management, the need for a strategic analysis that enables them to be identified and assessed, and solutions to these challenges. Aimed at executives, practitioners, academics and students, this book demonstrates new models and methods that allow progress to be made on the task of intangibles management, which is the fundamental source of wealth in the knowledge economy.

Although maintaining assets is now recognized as a significant engineering function, attention has usually been focused, particularly in the developing countries, on the acquisition of assets. "Maintenance Standardization for Capital AssetS" explores maintenance management systems, stressing the need for manufacturers and maintenance engineers to develop a maintenance policy and systems as early as the design stage, and suggests ways to approach this need. Also included are strategies for developing countries and their donors to organize systems which can minimize failures and predict maintenance problems.

The Lean Product Lifecycle is a playbook that provides frameworks, methods and tools to develop innovative new products and business models, while managing your core portfolio.

Follow the 6 key phases of a product’s life - idea, explore, validate, grow, sustain and retire – and discover how to develop products according to their life stage and ensure the right investment for each. For each stage there is a step-by-step guide of product development best practices using examples and case studies from several companies and start-ups.

Using the tools and templates in this book, you’ll be able to:

- Take a new product from idea to scale within a market.

- Understand the difference between executing on products that are already successful in the market and searching for profitable business models for new products.

- Use the right tools and methods for validating new products ideas and business models.

- Understand how to manage mature products and retire old products using lean innovation principles.

Discover how lessons from lean start-ups can transform your business.

These proceedings gather selected peer-reviewed papers from the 11th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM), which was held in Jiuzhaigou, China, on 25-28 July, 2016. These proceedings cover a wide range of topics in engineering asset management, including: * strategic asset management; * condition monitoring and diagnostics; * integrated intelligent maintenance; * sensors and devices; * information quality and management; * sustainability in asset management; * asset performance and knowledge management; * data mining and AI techni ques in asset management; * engineering standards; and * education in engineering asset management. The breadth and depth of these state-of-the-art, comprehensive proceedings make them an excellent resource for asset management practitioners, researchers and academics, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This proceedings volume explores the socio-economic dimension of the heritage sector from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective. Featuring contributions from the 2016 ALECTOR International Conference held in Istanbul, Turkey, this book presents current theoretical and empirical research related to such topics as: R&D and ICT in tourism; heritage products and services; climate change; finance and tourism; cultural communication; anthropological cultural heritage; and heritage management. Collectively, the papers presented in this book provides methodologies, strategies and applications to measure the socio-economic dimension of the heritage sector and also good practices in the heritage sector that drive regional, cultural and economic development and sustainability. The EU Neighbourhood Info Centre (ENPI) Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) Black Sea project "Collaborative Networks of Multilevel Actors to Advance Quality Standards for Heritage Tourism at Cross Border Level", or ALECTOR, focuses on different types of heritage assets as a means to invest in human capital and tourism innovation in order to achieve socio-economic development and cooperation with social partners in the Black Sea region. Featuring collaborations from Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey, the project proposes a cognitive and educational framework for using a region's assets, which would guide final beneficiaries (regions, communities, SMEs) to identify, signify, valorize and manage their natural and cultural resources, in order to use heritage potential as a vehicle for tourism. Presenting case studies of successful initiatives, the enclosed papers are divided into two parts: * Part I: Economics of Heritage features innovative research results on the heritage and tourism topics from countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Russia, and Romania * Part II: Best Practices features best practices, experiences, and promotion plans for cultural heritage through tourism from countries such as Bulgaria, Republic of Moldova, Turkey, Russia, and Romania

Ubiquitous Developments in Knowledge Management: Integrations and Trends depicts new technologies, approaches, issues, solutions, and cases that can help an organization implement a knowledge management initiative or provide a knowledge base for the practitioner/academic researcher. This foundational reference contributes to existing knowledge management literature by providing new insight into the continual evolution of the discipline in modern organizations.

This book is devoted to the customization design of product/service system (PSS), making use of a systematic design process and a number of methods, especially Industrial Customer Activity Cycle Analysis, Service Quality Function Deployment, Service Function and Attribute Analysis, Modified Service Blueprint, Multi-Objective Optimization and Multi-Criteria Recommendation Method. The book is especially valuable in manipulating the problems of PSS requirements analysis, design conflict, design reuse and proactively response to customer. The methods in the book facilitate modular design of customized solutions and enhance PSS design efficiency. Presenting case studies, this book helps researchers and practitioners to understand the customization process and methods in the early development of PSS.

This book clarifies the common misconception that there are no systematic instruments to support ideation, heuristics and creativity. Using a collection of articles from professionals practicing the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), this book presents an overview of current trends and enhancements within TRIZ in an international context, and shows its different roles in enhancing creativity for innovation in research and practice. Since its first introduction by Genrikh Saulovich Altshuller in 1956 in the USSR, the TRIZ method has been widely used by inventors, design engineers and has become a standard element of innovation support tools in many Fortune 500 companies. However, TRIZ has only recently entered the domain of scientific publications and discussion. This collection of articles is meant as a record of scientific discussion on TRIZ that reflects the most interesting talking points, research interests, results and expectations. Topics such as Creative and Inventive Design, Patent Mining, and Knowledge Harvesting are also covered in this book.

The term organizational advocacy offers a new way to look at the interaction between people and their organizations. What each of us thinks, says, does in the workplace, and the things we appreciate and the things that displease us-- according to organizational advocacy--really matter. Organizational advocacy puts responsibility and accountability for achievement where it should be, not with some distant manager but on us as individuals. Seiling's book is an easily understood tour of this challenging new concept and how it works from the ground up. Seldom has it been made so clear, as Seiling does here, that we and our organizations really are one.

Seiling begins by introducing organizational advocacy and its foundation upon task performance and partnering relationships. Seiling agrees that readers will have questions and concerns, and that barriers to just understanding OA, let alone using it, do exist. She maintains that the activities contributing to or among high performance systems have been ignored in the past. Management simply assumed that the people they hired were automatically contributive and automatically capable of productive relationships. This serious misreading leads to misunderstood expectations of people, disconnection from the organization, and eventually to deteriorated productivity. Seiling summarizes all this in six subsets, making clear that personal responsibility, distributed accountability, and shared leadership are vital to an organization's health and performance. Using cases drawn from some of the nation's most respected companies and public organizations, Seiling makes an important contribution to the practice of human resource management, and to executive understanding of how to make organizations more productive.

Combining what economists know about productivity with the findings of organization theorists about worker motivation, the author describes a strategy to improve the quality of work life, with major benefits for both employers and employees.

With an emphasis on building success in today's multicultural workplace, Fine describes the truly multicultural organization, one that values the cultural differences among its employees and knows how to create policies and practices that encourage the full productivity of all employees. Fine maintains that just to remain competitive as the U.S. workforce becomes culturally diverse, organizations must not only recognize the inherent multiculturalism within their walls, but must actively transform themselves into such organizations. Her book thus explains how cultural differences affect workplace behavior and provides ways for management to work with them, not against them. A practical, challenging, research-based discussion for human resource professionals and management in public and private organizations.

After reviewing the changing demographics of the workforce and discussing how present practices are exclusionary, Fine provides detailed descriptions of the values, norms, beliefs, and behaviors of various ethnic groups and women and the dysfunctional interactions among groups. Nine case studies document diversity initiatives in public, private, and not-for-profit organizations, and lead to numerous concrete ways to train employees in multicultural understanding and create policies and practices that acknowledge, value, and incorporate cultural differences into the organization itself. Fine offers no quick fixes, however; instead, she makes clear that building a successful multicultural organization is a difficult, unceasing process of creating and recreating organizational life. The result is an analytical, research-based discussion for scholars, researchers, and others in the academic community -- and a practical guide to the complexities posed by multiculturalism for organization management at all levels in both the public and private sectors.

This book comprehensively describes social responsibility and sustainable development, with contributions from scientists and representatives from industry working in the field. The papers are innovative, cross-cutting and many share practice-based experiences, some of which may be replicable elsewhere. Prepared by the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) and the World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre (WSD-RTC), it reiterates the current need to promote social responsibility. Social responsibility and sustainable development are two different concepts, whose integration over the years has led to significant advances in the way enterprises see and perceive their operations. It is not only about policies or steps taken to meet legal requirements, but is also about social equality and environmental accountability, also bearing in mind the links with eco-efficiency, innovation, and the health and wellbeing of workers. According to ISO 26000, social responsibility is the responsibility of an organisation for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and the environment, through transparent and ethical behaviour that: a) contributes to sustainable development, including health and the welfare of society b) takes into account the expectations of stakeholders c) is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behaviour d) is integrated throughout the organisation and practised in its relationships. But even though the relations between social responsibility and sustainability are strong, it is still necessary to encourage organisations to adhere to, or at least follow the principles of sustainable development in their operations, giving something back to the community. As such, there is a need for a better understanding of how social responsibility is related to sustainable development, and of the identification of processes, methods and tools that may help the integration of these two important elements. There is also a real need to showcase successful examples of how to structure behaviour and institutional practice in line with the sustainability challenges we face today. Chapter [Reviewing the Stakeholder Value Creation Literature: Towards a Sustainability Approach] is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

A fascinating and well-researched look at the British motor industry which will appeal to both academic readers and practitioners alike. Why are there now no major car manufacturers in Britain? Whisler considers this and the surrounding issues, making valuable comparisons with overseas manufacturers operating both in the UK and abroad, which provide us with additional interest and insight. Based upon careful use of company archives, this book covers in particular the issues of product development, quality, design, and range, ensuring that The British Motor Industry is destined to make a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the performance of UK manufacturers.

This book examines the characteristics of sustainable remote health workforces and how management practices influence workforce sustainability in remote regions. It introduces the Integrated Human Resource Management (HRM) Framework for sustainable remote health workforces, providing a contemporary approach to remote health workforce sustainability. The book particularly focuses on the influence of localised management practices on workforce sustainability. For geographically remote managers, the book offers evidence-based information for developing effective management practices drawn from three separate, yet related research studies. This book will be of interest to managers and aspiring managers, working or planning to work in geographically remote regions across the globe. The book provides insight into the human resource management challenges for remote managers, and provides resources and practical management tools as well as suggestions about how managers can create their own localised management practices.

Not many people are satisfied with the leaders we have in the public and private sectors. We are suffering from a severe lack of good leadership-even though billions of dollars per year are spent on leadership training and development.

The root cause of this leadership vacuum is that leadership gurus firmly believe, teach, and preach that anyone can be "made" into a leader with the right training, personal desire, and commitment. With this premise, they've approached leadership as a commonplace and elementary skill that anyone can learn. There's just one problem: they're wrong.

In this guidebook on leadership, you'll learn about all aspects of leadership, including:

how to look past personality profiles, leadership models, and traditional assessment tools to grasp what makes a great leader;

how to identify and select natural born leaders to achieve your objectives;

how to deal with poor leaders who hurt you and your organization.

"Leadership DNA" examines the false premise that anyone can be a leader and provides insights and tools that lead to a better system of identifying, selecting, and developing born leaders.