This book presents practical approaches for facilitating the achievement of excellence in the management and leadership of organizational resources. It shows how the principles of creating shared value can be applied to ensure faster learning, training, business development, and social renewal. In particular, it presents novel methods and tools for tackling the complexity of management and learning in both business organizations and society. Discussing ontologies, intelligent management systems, methods for creating knowledge and value added, it offers novel insights into time management and operations optimization, as well as advanced methods for evaluating customers' satisfaction and conscious experience. Based on two conferences, the AHFE 2019 International Conference on Human Factors, Business Management and Society, and the AHFE 2019 International Conference on Human Factors in Management and Leadership, held in July 24-28, 2019, Washington D.C., USA, the book provides both researchers and professionals with new tools and inspiring ideas for achieving excellence in various business activities.

This volume contains a selection consisting of the best papers presented at the FUR XII conference, held at LUISS in Roma, Italy, in June 2006, organized by John Hey and Daniela Di Cagno. The objectives of the FUR (Foundations of Utility and Risk theory) conferences have always been to bring together leading academics from Economics, Psychology, Statistics, Operations Research, Finance, Applied Mat- matics, and other disciplines, to address the issues of decision-making from a g- uinely multi-disciplinary point of view. This twelfth conference in the series was no exception. The early FUR conferences - like FUR I (organized by Maurice Allais and Ole Hagen) and FUR III (organized by Bertrand Munier) - initiated the move away from the excessively rigid and descriptively-inadequate modelling of beh- iour under risk and uncertainty that was in vogue in conventional economics at that time. More than twenty years later, things have changed fundamentally, and now - novations arising from the FUR conferences, and manifesting themselves in the new behavioural economics, are readily accepted by the profession. Working with new models of ambiguity, and bounded rationality, for example, behavioural decision making is no longer considered a sign of mere non-standard intellectual diversi?- tion. FUR XII was organised with this new spirit. In the sense that the behavioural concerns initiated by the ?rst FUR conferences are now part of conventional e- nomics, and the design and organisation of FUR XII re?ects this integration, FUR XII represents a key turning point in the FUR conference series.

Research and development infrastructures are a critical success factor in the platform of science and technology. In turn, an R&D preliminary feasibility study is essential to establish fairness and social credibility of a plan, including expert review, information disclosure and alternative setting. Preliminary Feasibility for Public Research & Development Projects explains how to evaluate R&D business by exploring the five key features of policy implication, policy improvement, preliminary feasibility study, R&D evaluation, and R&D strategy. Presenting policy measures to ensure the sustainability of R&D projects, Preliminary Feasibility for Public Research & Development Projects will help develop strategic measures for R&D preliminary feasibility studies while proposing ways to enhance the effectiveness of these studies, promote efficiency in public investment projects, and enhance the financial efficiency of large investment projects.

We are now entering a new phase in the establishment of historical organization studies as a distinctive methodological paradigm within the broad field of organization studies. This book serves both as a landmark in the development of the field and as a key reference tool for researchers and students. For two decades, organization theorists have emphasized the need for more and better research recognizing the importance of the past in shaping the present and future. By historicizing organizational research, the contexts and forces bearing upon organizations will be more fully recognized, and analyses of organizational dynamics improved. But how, precisely, might a traditionally empirically oriented discipline such as history be incorporated into a theoretically oriented discipline such as organization studies? This book evaluates the current state of play, advances it and identifies the possibilities the new emergent field offers for the future. In addition to providing an important work of reference on the subject for researchers, the book can be used to introduce management and organizational history to a student audience at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The book is a valuable source for wider reading, providing rich reference material in tutorials across organizational studies, or as recommended or required reading on courses with a connection to business or management history.

"There is no strategic investment that has a higher return than investing in good pricing, and the text by Gallego and Topaloghu provides the best technical treatment of pricing strategy and tactics available." Preston McAfee, the J. Stanley Johnson Professor, California Institute of Technology and Chief Economist and Corp VP, Microsoft. "The book by Gallego and Topaloglu provides a fresh, up-to-date and in depth treatment of revenue management and pricing. It fills an important gap as it covers not only traditional revenue management topics also new and important topics such as revenue management under customer choice as well as pricing under competition and online learning. The book can be used for different audiences that range from advanced undergraduate students to masters and PhD students. It provides an in-depth treatment covering recent state of the art topics in an interesting and innovative way. I highly recommend it." Professor Georgia Perakis, the William F. Pounds Professor of Operations Research and Operations Management at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. "This book is an important and timely addition to the pricing analytics literature by two authors who have made major contributions to the field. It covers traditional revenue management as well as assortment optimization and dynamic pricing. The comprehensive treatment of choice models in each application is particularly welcome. It is mathematically rigorous but accessible to students at the advanced undergraduate or graduate levels with a rich set of exercises at the end of each chapter. This book is highly recommended for Masters or PhD level courses on the topic and is a necessity for researchers with an interest in the field." Robert L. Phillips, Director of Pricing Research at Amazon "At last, a serious and comprehensive treatment of modern revenue management and assortment optimization integrated with choice modeling. In this book, Gallego and Topaloglu provide the underlying model derivations together with a wide range of applications and examples; all of these facets will better equip students for handling real-world problems. For mathematically inclined researchers and practitioners, it will doubtless prove to be thought-provoking and an invaluable reference." Richard Ratliff, Research Scientist at Sabre "This book, written by two of the leading researchers in the area, brings together in one place most of the recent research on revenue management and pricing analytics. New industries (ride sharing, cloud computing, restaurants) and new developments in the airline and hotel industries make this book very timely and relevant, and will serve as a critical reference for researchers." Professor Kalyan Talluri, the Munjal Chair in Global Business and Operations, Imperial College, London, UK.

Multiple criteria decision aid (MCDA) methods are illustrated in this book through theoretical and computational techniques utilizing Python. Existing methods are presented in detail with a step by step learning approach. Theoretical background is given for TOPSIS, VIKOR, PROMETHEE, SIR, AHP, goal programming, and their variations. Comprehensive numerical examples are also discussed for each method in conjunction with easy to follow Python code. Extensions to multiple criteria decision making algorithms such as fuzzy number theory and group decision making are introduced and implemented through Python as well. Readers will learn how to implement and use each method based on the problem, the available data, the stakeholders involved, and the various requirements needed. Focusing on the practical aspects of the multiple criteria decision making methodologies, this book is designed for researchers, practitioners and advanced graduate students in the applied mathematics, information systems, operations research and business administration disciplines, as well as other engineers and scientists oriented in interdisciplinary research. Readers will greatly benefit from this book by learning and applying various MCDM/A methods. (Adiel Teixeira de Almeida, CDSID-Center for Decision System and Information Development, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil) Promoting the development and application of multicriteria decision aid is essential to ensure more ethical and sustainable decisions. This book is a great contribution to this objective. It is a perfect blend of theory and practice, providing potential users and researchers with the theoretical bases of some of the best-known methods as well as with the computing tools needed to practice, to compare and to put these methods to use. (Jean-Pierre Brans, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium) This book is intended for researchers, practitioners and students alike in decision support who wish to familiarize themselves quickly and efficiently with multicriteria decision aiding algorithms. The proposed approach is original, as it presents a selection of methods from the theory to the practical implementation in Python, including a detailed example. This will certainly facilitate the learning of these techniques, and contribute to their effective dissemination in applications. (Patrick Meyer, IMT Atlantique, Lab-STICC, Univ. Bretagne Loire, Brest, France)

An accessible introduction to optimization analysis using spreadsheets Updated and revised, Optimization Modeling with Spreadsheets, Third Edition emphasizes model building skills in optimization analysis. By emphasizing both spreadsheet modeling and optimization tools in the freely available Microsoft(R) Office Excel(R) Solver, the book illustrates how to find solutions to real-world optimization problems without needing additional specialized software. The Third Edition includes many practical applications of optimization models as well as a systematic framework that illuminates the common structures found in many successful models. With focused coverage on linear programming, nonlinear programming, integer programming, and heuristic programming, Optimization Modeling with Spreadsheets, Third Edition features: * An emphasis on model building using Excel Solver as well as appendices with additional instructions on more advanced packages such as Analytic Solver Platform and OpenSolver * Additional space devoted to formulation principles and model building as opposed to algorithms * New end-of-chapter homework exercises specifically for novice model builders * Presentation of the Sensitivity Toolkit for sensitivity analysis with Excel Solver * Classification of problem types to help readers see the broader possibilities for application * Specific chapters devoted to network models and data envelopment analysis * A companion website with interactive spreadsheets and supplementary homework exercises for additional practice Optimization Modeling with Spreadsheets, Third Edition is an excellent textbook for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses that include deterministic models, optimization, spreadsheet modeling, quantitative methods, engineering management, engineering modeling, operations research, and management science. The book is an ideal reference for readers wishing to advance their knowledge of Excel and modeling and is also a useful guide for MBA students and modeling practitioners in business and non-profit sectors interested in spreadsheet optimization.

This book focuses on the most well-regarded and recent nature-inspired algorithms capable of solving optimization problems with multiple objectives. Firstly, it provides preliminaries and essential definitions in multi-objective problems and different paradigms to solve them. It then presents an in-depth explanations of the theory, literature review, and applications of several widely-used algorithms, such as Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimizer, Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm and Multi-objective GreyWolf Optimizer Due to the simplicity of the techniques and flexibility, readers from any field of study can employ them for solving multi-objective optimization problem. The book provides the source codes for all the proposed algorithms on a dedicated webpage.

This book brings together studies broadly addressing human error from different disciplines and perspectives. It discusses topics such as human performance; human variability and reliability analysis; medical, driver and pilot error, as well as automation error; root cause analyses; and the cognitive modeling of human error. In addition, it highlights cutting-edge applications in safety management, defense, security, transportation, process controls, and medicine, as well as more traditional fields of application. Based on the AHFE 2019 International Conference on Human Error, Reliability, Resilience, and Performance, held on July 24-28, 2019, Washington D.C., USA, the book includes experimental papers, original reviews, and reports on case studies, as well as meta-analyses, technical guidelines, best practice and methodological papers. It offers a timely reference guide for researchers and practitioners dealing with human error in a diverse range of fields.

This book provides a concise introduction to convex duality in financial mathematics. Convex duality plays an essential role in dealing with financial problems and involves maximizing concave utility functions and minimizing convex risk measures. Recently, convex and generalized convex dualities have shown to be crucial in the process of the dynamic hedging of contingent claims. Common underlying principles and connections between different perspectives are developed; results are illustrated through graphs and explained heuristically. This book can be used as a reference and is aimed toward graduate students, researchers and practitioners in mathematics, finance, economics, and optimization. Topics include: Markowitz portfolio theory, growth portfolio theory, fundamental theorem of asset pricing emphasizing the duality between utility optimization and pricing by martingale measures, risk measures and its dual representation, hedging and super-hedging and its relationship with linear programming duality and the duality relationship in dynamic hedging of contingent claims

Consumer co-operatives provide a different approach to organizing business through their ideals of member ownership and democratic practice. Every co-operative member has an equal vote regardless of his or her own personal capital investment. The co-operative movement can also be an important force in promoting development and self-sufficiency in poorer areas, particularly in non-industrialised countries. This book explores in depth the fortunes of the Berkeley Consumer Co-operative, which became the largest consumer co-operative in the United States with 116,000 members in 1984 and viewed nationally as a leader in innovative retail practices and a champion of consumer rights. The Berkeley Consumer Co-operative is promoted by both supporters and opponents of the co-operative business model as a significant example of what can go wrong with the co-operatives. This book will provide the first in depth analysis of the history of the Berkeley Co-operative using its substantial but little used archives and oral histories to explore what the Berkeley experience means for the co-operative business model. The specific chapters relating to Berkeley will be organised around particular themes to highlight the issues relating to the co-operative business model and the local context of Berkeley. The themes relate to developments in Berkeley and the Bay Area in terms of the economy, politics and the retail environment; the management of the Berkeley co-operative, looking at governance, financial management and strategic decisions; relationship of management with members and employees; and finally, the relationship of the Berkeley Co-operative with the community. The core message of the book is that it is not inevitable that consumer co-operatives fail, but that the story of Berkeley story can provide insights that can strengthen the co-operative business model and minimise failures on the scale of Berkeley occurring in the future.

- Authoritative but highly accessible introduction to the underlying economics of airports, their role, regulation and implications. - Written for all aviation managers, relevant local authorities and regulators, as well as serving as teaching material for air transport Masters programmes. - The book uniquely offers economic analysis and presents facts in the context of economic reasoning with clear policy recommendations.

This book presents practical approaches for facilitating the achievement of excellence in the management and leadership of organizational resources. It shows how the principles of creating shared value can be applied to ensure faster learning, training, business development, and social renewal. In particular, it presents novel methods and tools for tackling the complexity of management and learning in both business organizations and society. Discussing ontologies, intelligent management systems, methods for creating knowledge and value added, it offers novel insights into time management and operations optimization, as well as advanced methods for evaluating customers' satisfaction and conscious experience. Based on two conferences, the AHFE 2018 International Conference on Human Factors, Business Management and Society, and the AHFE 2018 International Conference on Human Factors in Management and Leadership, held on July 21-25, 2018, in Orlando, Florida, USA, the book provides both researchers and professionals with new tools and inspiring ideas for achieving excellence in various business activities. Chapter "Convolutional Gravitational Models for Economic Exchanges: Mathematical Extensions for Dynamic Processes and Knowledge Flows" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book discusses reliability applications for power systems, renewable energy and smart grids and highlights trends in reliable communication, fault-tolerant systems, VLSI system design and embedded systems. Further, it includes chapters on software reliability and other computer engineering and software management-related disciplines, and also examines areas such as big data analytics and ubiquitous computing. Outlining novel, innovative concepts in applied areas of reliability in electrical, electronics and computer engineering disciplines, it is a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners of reliability theory in circuit-based engineering domains.

This book introduces the basic concepts of fuzzy collaborative forecasting and clustering, including its methodology, system architecture, and applications. It demonstrates how dealing with disparate data sources is becoming more and more popular due to the increasing spread of internet applications. The book proposes the concepts of collaborative computing intelligence and collaborative fuzzy modeling, and establishes several so-called fuzzy collaborative systems. It shows how technical constraints, security issues, and privacy considerations often limit access to some sources. This book is a valuable source of information for postgraduates, researchers and fuzzy control system developers, as it presents a very effective fuzzy approach that can deal with disparate data sources, big data, and multiple expert decision making.

This new edition provides an up-to-date coverage of important theoretical models in the scheduling literature as well as significant scheduling problems that occur in the real world. It again includes supplementary material in the form of slide-shows from industry and movies that show implementations of scheduling systems. The main structure of the book as per previous edition consists of three parts. The first part focuses on deterministic scheduling and the related combinatorial problems. The second part covers probabilistic scheduling models; in this part it is assumed that processing times and other problem data are random and not known in advance. The third part deals with scheduling in practice; it covers heuristics that are popular with practitioners and discusses system design and implementation issues. All three parts of this new edition have been revamped and streamlined. The references have been made completely up-to-date. Theoreticians and practitioners alike will find this book of interest. Graduate students in operations management, operations research, industrial engineering, and computer science will find the book an accessible and invaluable resource. Scheduling - Theory, Algorithms, and Systems will serve as an essential reference for professionals working on scheduling problems in manufacturing, services, and other environments.

This comprehensive textbook on combinatorial optimization places special emphasis on theoretical results and algorithms with provably good performance, in contrast to heuristics. It is based on numerous courses on combinatorial optimization and specialized topics, mostly at graduate level. This book reviews the fundamentals, covers the classical topics (paths, flows, matching, matroids, NP-completeness, approximation algorithms) in detail, and proceeds to advanced and recent topics, some of which have not appeared in a textbook before. Throughout, it contains complete but concise proofs, and also provides numerous exercises and references. This sixth edition has again been updated, revised, and significantly extended. Among other additions, there are new sections on shallow-light trees, submodular function maximization, smoothed analysis of the knapsack problem, the (ln 4+e)-approximation for Steiner trees, and the VPN theorem. Thus, this book continues to represent the state of the art of combinatorial optimization.

This book presents high-quality original contributions on the development of automatic traffic analysis systems that are able to not only anticipate traffic scenarios, but also understand the behavior of road users (vehicles, bikes, trucks, etc.) in order to provide better traffic management, prevent accidents and, potentially, identify criminal behaviors. Topics also include traffic surveillance and vehicle accident analysis using formal concept analysis, convolutional and recurrent neural networks, unsupervised learning and process mining. The content is based on papers presented at the 1st Italian Conference for the Traffic Police (TRAP), which was held in Rome in October 2017. This conference represents a targeted response to the challenges facing the police in connection with managing massive traffic data, finding patterns from historical datasets, and analyzing complex traffic phenomena in order to anticipate potential criminal behaviors. The book will appeal to researchers, practitioners and decision makers interested in traffic monitoring and analysis, traffic modeling and simulation, mobility and social data mining, as well as members of the police.

This is the first book to cover GRASP (Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedures), a metaheuristic that has enjoyed wide success in practice with a broad range of applications to real-world combinatorial optimization problems. The state-of-the-art coverage and carefully crafted pedagogical style lends this book highly accessible as an introductory text not only to GRASP, but also to combinatorial optimization, greedy algorithms, local search, and path-relinking, as well as to heuristics and metaheuristics, in general. The focus is on algorithmic and computational aspects of applied optimization with GRASP with emphasis given to the end-user, providing sufficient information on the broad spectrum of advances in applied optimization with GRASP. For the more advanced reader, chapters on hybridization with path-relinking and parallel and continuous GRASP present these topics in a clear and concise fashion. Additionally, the book offers a very complete annotated bibliography of GRASP and combinatorial optimization. For the practitioner who needs to solve combinatorial optimization problems, the book provides a chapter with four case studies and implementable templates for all algorithms covered in the text. This book, with its excellent overview of GRASP, will appeal to researchers and practitioners of combinatorial optimization who have a need to find optimal or near optimal solutions to hard combinatorial optimization problems.

How Do You Ensure that Employees Are Doing the Right Things?

Many of us ask, "What does it take to do a job well?" and stop there. But there's more to it than that.

What skills and knowledge are necessary for effectiveness in a certain job? Does the employee have the appropriate skills and knowledge, or is some kind of training necessary? Are these job expectations aligned with the culture and strategy of the organization as a whole?

These questions are essential to performance improvement efforts. And competency modeling is designed to help you find answers to questions such as these.

A competency model is . . . a descriptive tool that identifies the skills, knowledge, personal characteristics, and behaviors needed to effectively perform a role in the organization and help the business meet its strategic objectives.

From the authors of the best-selling book The Art and Science of 360? Feedback comes this guide to the design and implementation of competency models.

"The authors have taken competency modeling out of the domain of academics and social scientists by creating a practical 'how-to' work that clearly and simply explains the steps in developing and using competency models. I recommAnd this book to anyone whose job includes the pinpointing and sharpening of relevant competencies, for themselves or for others."
--Scott B. Parry, chairman, Training House

"Lucia and Lepsinger have demystified competency models and put in the hands of the reader a blueprint for developing meaningful recruiting, performance measurement, and succession planning systems. They succeed with a straightforward, pragmatic style, using actual examples that make the book an easy read."
--Frank Ashen, senior vice president, New York Stock Exchange

Get the Results You Expect!

Competency models are a means of ensuring that your investment in your employees will yield the expected results. The popularity of competency modeling is steadily increasing: human resource pro

You'll use this cutting-edge guide to:
• Clarify job and work expectations
• Hire the best available people
• Maximize productivity
• Enhance a 360? feedback process
• Align behavior with organizational strategies and values
• Adapt to change

This book surveys new algorithmic approaches and applications to natural and man-made disasters such as oil spills, hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires. Based on the "Third International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters" held in Kalamata, Greece, July 2017, this Work includes contributions in evacuation logistics, disaster communications between first responders, disaster relief, and a case study on humanitarian logistics. Multi-disciplinary theories, tools, techniques and methodologies are linked with disasters from mitigation and preparedness to response and recovery. The interdisciplinary approach to problems in economics, optimization, government, management, business, humanities, engineering, medicine, mathematics, computer science, behavioral studies, emergency services, and environmental studies will engage readers from a wide variety of fields and backgrounds.

This book considers and builds on the main propositions regarding body similarity and the principles of nature versus artifacts in science. It also explores the design (matrix) power of the human, Material/Machine, Money & Information (3M&I) body with respect to productivity/gross domestic product (GDP). The book begins in 2009 with Weiner's cybernetics and describes Matsui's theory and dynamism concerning the basic equation of W = ZL and artifact formulation using matrix methods, such as Matsui's matrix equation (Matsui's ME). In his book Fundamentals and Principles of Artifacts Science: 3M&I-Body System, published by Springer in 2016, the author championed the white-box approach for 3M&I artifacts in contrast to Simon's artificial approach from 1969. Two principles, the Sandwich (waist) and Balancing theories, and their fundamental problems, were identified. This book now proposes a third principle: the fractal/harmonic-like structure of the cosmos and life types in space and time. The book further elaborates on the complexity of the 3M&I system and management in terms of enterprises, economics, nature, and other applications. Also, the domain of nature versus artifacts is highlighted, demonstrating the possibility of a white-box cybernetics-type robot. This fosters the realization of humanized and harmonic worlds that combine increased happiness and social productivity in an age increasingly dominated by technology.

This book explores the updated version of the GLOBAL algorithm which contains improvements for a local search algorithm and new Java implementations. Efficiency comparisons to earlier versions and on the increased speed achieved by the parallelization, are detailed. Examples are provided for students as well as researchers and practitioners in optimization, operations research, and mathematics to compose their own scripts with ease. A GLOBAL manual is presented in the appendix to assist new users with modules and test functions. GLOBAL is a successful stochastic multistart global optimization algorithm that has passed several computational tests, and is efficient and reliable for small to medium dimensional global optimization problems. The algorithm uses clustering to ensure efficiency and is modular in regard to the two local search methods it starts with, but it can also easily apply other local techniques. The strength of this algorithm lies in its reliability and adaptive algorithm parameters. The GLOBAL algorithm is free to download also in the earlier Fortran, C, and MATLAB implementations.

Technological developments in recent years have been tremendous. This evolution is visible in companies through technological equipment, computerized procedures, and management practices associated with technologies. One of the management practices that is visible is related to business intelligence and analytics (BI&A). Concepts such as data warehousing, key performance indicators (KPIs), data mining, and dashboards are changing the business arena. This book aims to promote research related to these new trends that open up a new field of research in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) area. Features Focuses on the more recent research findings occurring in the fields of BI&A Conveys how companies in the developed world are facing today's technological challenges Shares knowledge and insights on an international scale Provides different options and strategies to manage competitive organizations Addresses several dimensions of BI&A in favor of SMEs

This book explores how enterprises adapt to challenges in their business environments. It focuses on the critical elements within organisations that every executive must address in order to remain competitive. It takes a pluralist approach in trying to broaden our knowledge on organisational adaptations. It also offers an exploratory delve into existing literature of organisational study. This is biased for content, context and process framework and processual analytic approach in order to identify, determine, understand the intricacies of adaptations going on in various business organisations. The book also includes a case study of how Kodak and Fujifilm responded to digitalisation of photographic film industry, which is an example of major adaptation change. Many global brands are often contending with similar issues and real life challenges. Simply put, today's business environment demands a new way of doing business that challenges brand's existing core business philosophy. Organisations are 'individual' entities in their own rights. Businesses have devised ways of surviving their environments. They do this by downsizing, merger and acquisition, business ecosystems, other forms of collaborations and strategic alliances. While this is true, current research works into generic predictors and/or concepts that enhance the transformation process are scarce. It is particularly important to align the theories and concepts of organisational adaptations with realities in the business environment. This book delves deep and explains adaptations in organisations, but also offers insight for how executives can adapt and thrive in their dynamic business environments.