Contents:
1. Research Skills and How to Acquire Them 2. What is Research? 3. Ways of Knowing 4. Problem Fields 5. Problem Identification 6. Research Ethics 7. Research Strategies: The Experiment and Survey 8. Research Strategies: The Case-Study, Ethnography and Action Research 9. Data Construction by Asking Questions 10. Data Construction by Making Observations 11. Data Construction by Using Documents and Records 12. Data Analysis and Interpretation 13. Writing and Publication

This title offers a fast track route to mastering global operations. It covers the key areas of international marketing and distribution, logistics, import/export compliance and government regulations. It includes examples and lessons from some of the world's most successful businesses, including Nortel Networks, Terranova Forest Products and Ampro Electronics, and ideas from the smartest thinkers, including Adrian Wooldridge, Christopher Bartlett, Sumantra Ghoshal and John Micklethwait. It also includes a glossary of key concepts and a comprehensive resources guide.

As the world's third-ranking economic power, Japan's style of management, such as the lifetime employment system, the seniority system, and an enterprise union, has been well studied. However, little else is known about the Japanese management control systems (MCSs) and management accounting systems, which are significantly different from other economic powers. This book sheds light on Japanese MCSs and the differences with those of the United States, illustrated with examples from Mitsubishi Electric, Kao, and more. This book aids not only researchers in management accounting, but also provides more useful insight for international investors and management accountants that can prove useful in business management.

While return-on-investment measurement programs have gained wide accep tance and popularity over the last few years, two key components to su ccessful program evaluation are often neglected: learning and performa nce evaluation. This book provides a step-by-step approach for develo ping learning and performance measures and a method for analyzing and reporting results. The easy to use format serves as a quick referencey featuring the necessary checklists to evaluate the situation and tools for immediate application in a number of organizational settingsysale s, leadership, and technical. It will prove an invaluable resource for anyone involved in training, HRD, human resource measurement and eval uation, and performance improvement.

The importance of automation in the various industries has increased dramatically in recent years; business process automation serves to enhance product quality, improve process safety and plant availability, and efficiently utilize resources and lower emissions. With almost every industry facing sweeping and unprecedented change, Process Automation Strategy in Services, Manufacturing and Construction responds to a rapid pace of transformation that is both a major challenge and a fantastic opportunity. Customers' expectations grow higher, economic pressures require them to do more with less, and each day new competitors appear. Examining case studies and examples of robotic process automation (RPA) across a range of industries and sectors, the authors explore the links between customer satisfaction and organizational performance, and how automation improves service for the end user. Appealing to business researchers, academics and practitioners, Process Automation Strategy in Services, Manufacturing and Construction brings to life the current trends in process automation and considers what the future holds.

This book covers the issues related to optimization of engineering and management problems using soft computing techniques with an industrial outlook. It covers a broad area related to real life complex decision making problems using a heuristics approach. It also explores a wide perspective and future directions in industrial engineering research on a global platform/scenario. The book highlights the concept of optimization, presents various soft computing techniques, offers sample problems, and discusses related software programs complete with illustrations. Features Explains the concept of optimization and relevance to soft computing techniques towards optimal solution in engineering and management Presents various soft computing techniques Offers problems and their optimization using various soft computing techniques Discusses related software programs, with illustrations Provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to handle relevant software for obtaining the optimal solution to various engineering problems

With contributions from some of the world's leading practitioners in the field, this volume draws together contemporary experience in the application of technology to distributed learning. It offers an appraisal of the strategies and processes for managing change in open and distance learning and presents a progressive vision for all those involved in this widespread discipline. It can be used as a guide for those implementing Web-based learning.

Series Information:
Routledge Studies in Human Resource Development

This book examines the implications of new trends of globalisation in corporate research and development. It looks in particular at aspects of integration in developing countries and the impact this will have on the host countries.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203160533

Students with diverse backgrounds will face a multitude of decisions in a variety of engineering, scientific, industrial, and financial settings. They will need to know how to identify problems that the methods of operations research (OR) can solve, how to structure the problems into standard mathematical models, and finally how to apply or develop computational tools to solve the problems.

Perfect for any one-semester course in OR, Operations Research: A Practical Introduction answers all of these needs. In addition to providing a practical introduction and guide to using OR techniques, it includes a timely examination of innovative methods and practical issues related to the development and use of computer implementations. It provides a sound introduction to the mathematical models relevant to OR and illustrates the effective use of OR techniques with examples drawn from industrial, computing, engineering, and business applications

Many students will take only one course in the techniques of Operations Research. Operations Research: A Practical Introduction offers them the greatest benefit from that course through a broad survey of the techniques and tools available for quantitative decision making. It will also encourage other students to pursue more advanced studies and provides you a concise, well-structured, vehicle for delivering the best possible overview of the discipline.

There was much development of both education and industry in post-World War II Britain. There was, on the one hand, an extension of public education to the secondary school stage and the substantial financial help that was available, which meant that increasing numbers were going to university. On the other, there had been immense advances in scientific and technical knowledge and its application to industry. These advances in industry produced an increase in the demand for trained graduates. This book, first published in 1957, examines this correlation, and provides guidance for both graduates and hiring managers. This title will be of interest to students of human resource management and business studies.

A complete guide for turning a relocation plan into a reality
The Office Relocation Sourcebook provides relocation teams, at firms of all sizes, with the background information and practical guidance they need to pull off a relocation project cost-effectively and with a minimum of disruption to the employees being moved. Written by the head of the Human Factors Group at Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc., this valuable resource:
* Arms you with all the forms, checklists, surveys, and summaries guaranteed to make any office relocation project as painless and cost-efficient as possible
* Guides you step by step through the entire relocation process, from the initial planning stages to post-project evaluation
* Covers both the nuts-and-bolts issues and crucial human factors side of the relocation equation
* Features a computer disk packed with valuable relocation tools, including a comprehensive relocation template

Take the sting out of your next relocation project with The Office Relocation Sourcebook.
Office relocation is one of the most challenging aspects of a facility professional's job. This challenge and the thrill of meeting it are even greater for members of the relocation team who have had little or no prior relocation experience. To begin with, there are the thousand and one logistical details that go into the designing, planning, and implementation of a relocation project. Then, there is the seemingly impossible task of keeping affected employees happy and supplied with everything they need to perform their jobs--without running into massive cost overruns.
The Office Relocation Sourcebook takes the sting out of relocation. Written by an author with twenty-five years' experience in facility management and human factors design, this valuable resource provides all the background information and practical guidance needed to pull off a cost-effective relocation project with a minimum of disruption. These methods and techniques are appropriate for firms of any size, regardless of the number of employees being relocated.
Writing in a warm, conversational style, peppered with handy checklists, summaries, and survey tools, Dennis Attwood guides you step by step through the entire relocation process, from the initial planning stages to post-project evaluation. He provides coverage of nuts-and-bolts issues through the human factors side of the relocation equation. For instance, Attwood explores workers' reasons for resisting relocation and describes innovative communication techniques that can substantially reduce employee resistance and the common adverse side effects of disrupting the workplace. In his discussion of work system planning, he compares traditional design arrangements, such as the neighborhood and team concepts, with alternative workplace strategies, including reuse of existing office space, and the office outside of the company.
The enclosed disk supplies a variety of useful tools and, in addition to the forms and checklists found in the book, arms you with a valuable relocation template.
Make your next office relocation project a success with The Office Relocation Sourcebook.

Organizations increasingly use temporary designs. Many temporary organizations are assembled by "mixing and matching" building blocks from static, bureaucratic, parent organizations into a temporary configuration. At the same time, such "mixed and matched" temporary organizations often operate under difficult and dangerous circumstances. During operations, these temporary organizations can experience numerous internal problems: ranging from friendly fire in a military context to budget and time issues in construction projects and problematic coordination in a crisis management context. This book develops insight into the relationship between a "mixing and matching" temporary design strategy and operational problems. To so do, military and crisis management contexts are systematically studied from a sociotechnical design perspective that emphasizes self-organization to develop organizational controllability. Operating Under High-Risk Conditions in Temporary Organizations demonstrates that a "mixing and matching" design strategy can be related to system failure. Furthermore, it is shown that a process of self-design emerged in which operators attempted to create ad-hoc networks for meaningful, safe and controllable operations. The analyses result in a model that shows mechanisms between characteristics of organizational design and controllability of operations. Not only does this model have relevance to the military and crisis management contexts, relevance is also demonstrated for a broader family of temporary organizations and application of sociotechnical network design theory.

Even though the fractal approach to sustainability and organizational change management is not new, no authors so far seem to have truly attempted to use fractals as a mathematical means to map and measure organizational sustainability. Several sustainability maturity models and change management models and frameworks, concepts and computer generated systems came to the fore during the past two decades. They provided a set of useful tools for managers, academics and students to refer to, or on which to base their own actions and plans. However, one issue remains: most of those models and frameworks share a rather similar linear 'skeleton'; the main difference between them is the quantitative variety of steps within each phase, stage, and parameter and how in depth each of these is presented. The authors' work addresses a clear gap in the literature and in applied research, as it emphasizes the relevance of using a complex mathematically-based but user-friendly fractal approach. Readers are able to better understand, implement, map and measure change management processes leading to a sustainability-focused mindset. Subsequent chapters guide you through the steps towards creating committed sustainability-based strategies, attitudes, actions and practices across all levels in the broad organizational context. This text is essential reading for students researching business and management and who are interested in the Fractal Sustainability concept.

No matter how many resources we consume we never seem to have enough. The Economics of Abundance is a balanced book in which Wolfgang Hoeschele challenges why this is so. He claims that our current capitalist economy can exist only on the basis of manufactured scarcity created by 'scarcity-generating institutions', and these institutions manipulate both demand and supply of commodities. Therefore demand consistently exceeds supply, and profits and economic growth can continue - at the cost of individual freedom, social equity, and ecological sustainability. The fact that continual increases in demand are so vital to our economy leads to an impasse: many people see no alternative to the generation of ever more demand, but at the same time recognize that it is clearly unsustainable ecologically and socially. So, can demand only be reduced by curtailing freedom and is this acceptable? This book argues that, by analyzing how scarcity-generating institutions work and then reforming or dismantling them, we can enhance individual freedom and support entrepreneurial initiative, and at the same time make progress toward social justice and environmental sustainability by reducing demands on vital resources. This vision would enable activists in many fields (social justice, civil liberties, and environmental protection), as well as many entrepreneurs and other members of civil society to work together much more effectively, make it more difficult to portray all these groups as contradictory special interests, and thereby help generate momentum for positive change. Meanwhile, for academics in many fields of study, the concept of the creation of scarcity or abundance may be a highly useful analytical tool.

This volume introduces the latest popular methods for conducting business research. The goal of each chapter author--a leading authority in a particular subject area--is to provide an understanding of each method with a minimum of mathematical derivations. The chapters are organized within three general interrelated topics--Measurement, Decision Analysis, and Modeling.
The chapters on measurement discuss generalizability theory, latent trait and latent class models, and multi-faceted Rasch modeling. The chapters on decision analysis feature applied location theory models, data envelopment analysis, and heuristic search procedures. The chapters on modeling examine exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, dynamic factor analysis, partial least squares and structural equation modeling, multilevel data analysis, modeling of longitudinal data by latent growth curve methods and structures, and configural models of longitudinal categorical data.

This volume introduces the latest popular methods for conducting business research. The goal of each chapter author--a leading authority in a particular subject area--is to provide an understanding of each method with a minimum of mathematical derivations. The chapters are organized within three general interrelated topics--Measurement, Decision Analysis, and Modeling.
The chapters on measurement discuss generalizability theory, latent trait and latent class models, and multi-faceted Rasch modeling. The chapters on decision analysis feature applied location theory models, data envelopment analysis, and heuristic search procedures. The chapters on modeling examine exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, dynamic factor analysis, partial least squares and structural equation modeling, multilevel data analysis, modeling of longitudinal data by latent growth curve methods and structures, and configural models of longitudinal categorical data.

In all periods of time, there is a perceived shortage of qualified, credible, and robust leadership skills. At the same time, what is regarded as skilled leadership is contingent on economic, political, institutional, and cultural conditions specific for a period of time or a local setting. Leadership in the era of managerial capitalism was focused on planning and administration, and was seated in large-scale, divisionalized corporations. In the 1970s, this economic model started to wane and leadership was advanced as the solution to a series of economic and social concerns, now being a matter of meaning-making in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity. With the expansion of the finance industry and the deregulation of finance markets in the 1990s and in the new millennium, yet another leadership model increasingly prioritized economic value creation. In parallel to the economic, political and institutional changes, the idea of leadership has been strongly informed by new ideas about individualism and masculinity, adding to the understanding of leadership as what is anchored in widespread social beliefs about for example healthy life styles, the virtues of physical exercise, and novel gender relations. Aimed at scholars, researchers, students and policy makers in the fields of Leadership, Management History and Organizational Theory; Leadership Varieties examines predominant ideas about the qualities and virtues of leadership in a historical and cultural perspective.

Workspaces and their design have a vast impact on the comfort and productivity of employees. Therefore, the structure of a workspace can be used to determine the socio-economic characteristics and elements that will appear in the employees that utilize them. Co-Manufacturing and New Economic Paradigms provides innovative insights into shared workspaces as independent socio-economic environments. The content within this publication explores the ideas of knowledge sharing, work culture, and economic planning. It is a vital reference source for entrepreneurs, business professionals, and researchers, and it covers topics centered on the importance of workspace design and organization.

First published in 1993. This book is intended for managers and occupational psychologists involved in the selection and assessment of the workforce. It details the history and development of the use of biographical data for both recruitment and promotion of employees. Grounded in relevant research literature, it offers a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of biodata in different contexts. It also includes examples of applications and recommendations for use, as well as examples of questionnaires. Written by experts, it represents a wide-ranging review of the contemporary research in the field. This work will be of interest to students of business and psychology.

First published in 1971, this collection of fourteen contemporaneous European research studies on managerial backgrounds and on the patterns, roles, and evolution of managerial careers examine managerial motivations in a broader context than the traditional analysis of psychological qualities. Most of the studies suggest or demonstrate the usefulness of a typology of industrial leaders - whether constructed from individual characteristics, the characteristics of the firm or the characteristics of the economy as a whole - that avoids isolating industrial executives from outside factors. This book will be of interest to students of business, sociology and industrial history.

This book explores the underlying causes of the pervasive dominance of 'unethics' in contemporary affairs in economics, business, and society. It is argued that the state of unethics is related to the overexpansion of market and market values in all spheres of social life and human activities. A correlate of this development is the emergence of an extremely individualistic, materialistic and narcissistic mind-set that dictates the decisions and behavior of people and organizations. The author argues that art can help to overcome the dominant market metaphysics of our age, as genuine art creates models of 'poetic dwelling,' which can generate non-linear, progressive change that opens up a larger playing field for ethics. Aesthetics and ethics go hand in hand. Ethical action is not just right for its own sake, but makes the world a richer, livable and more beautiful place. Ethics, Meaning, and Market Society will be of interest to students at an advanced level, academics, researchers and professionals. It addresses the topics with regard to ethics in economics, business, and society in a contemporary context.

Global Business Intelligence refers to an organization's ability to gather, process and analyze pertinent international information in order to make optimal business decisions in a timely manner. With a challenging economic and geopolitical environment, companies and executives need to be adept at information gathering in order to manage emerging challenges and gain competitive advantages. This book Global Business Intelligence assembles a cast of international experts and thought leaders and explores the implications of business intelligence on contemporary management. Global Business Intelligence will be a key resource for researchers, academics, students and policy makers alike in the fields of International Business & Management, Business Strategy, and Geopolitics as well as related disciplines like Political Science, Economics, and Geography.

In recent decades, the rapid expansion of trade and investment among developing countries has resulted in a scenario wherein firms from developing countries account for an increasing share of capital, goods, and wealth in the global economy. Industry leaders from developing countries have observed that firms in developing countries need to identify and develop key supply chain capabilities in order to succeed in emerging markets. It is argued that customers in emerging markets are likely to have different needs and supply chain expectations as compared to customers in developed economies. Reaching into these emerging markets, understanding the customer diversity, and translating it into effective segmentation schemes are critical for the efficient design of supply chain operations. Leadership Strategies for Global Supply Chain Management in Emerging Markets is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on creating efficient supply chain operations in emerging markets. While highlighting topics such as consumer behavior, global operations, and information transparency, this publication investigates the needs of consumers in emerging markets as well as the methods of designing effective operations. This book is ideally designed for supply chain managers, logistics managers, operations and warehousing professionals, industry practitioners, academicians, students, and researchers.

Making decisions is a critical part of every executive's job. However we know so little about the often subliminal processes that shape the decisions we make. The Secret Life of Decisions exposes the unchallenged myths and distortions that impact our reasoning ability, raising our awareness of the many traps we can fall into. Meena Thuraisingham and her collaborator, Wolfgang Lehmacher, have drawn from decades of work with leaders showing that even the most talented leaders and teams can end up making sub-optimal decisions. This is rarely because they had poor critical thinking faculties but rather because they did not pay enough attention to the often invisible traps hardwired into our thinking processes, letting through only information that conforms with our current beliefs, mental models and expectations. This leaves many leaders and businesses exposed. Rather than being the rational output of our reasoning abilities, the authors show decision making to be a highly imprecise process. As decision makers we come to the table armed with our own perspectives, preferences, filters, heuristics and biases, influenced by a broad range of social influences many operating subliminally. The Secret Life of Decisions is an essential read for developing and seasoned executives who have to work through increasingly complex and high stakes decisions. It treats choosing wisely and the thinking involved as a skill, which as with many other skills, can be improved with the guided practice and supporting tools provided here. The journey however starts with awareness that comes from outing the 'secret forces that can sabotage the quality of our decisions.