Benchmarking is considered a must for modern management. This book presents an approach to benchmarking that has a solid mathematical basis and is easy to understand and apply. The book focuses on three main topics. It shows how to formalize the representation of benchmarking objects. Furthermore, it presents different methods from decision making and voting and their application to benchmarking. Finally, it discusses suitable features for different benchmarking objects. The objects considered are taken from IT management, but can be easily transferred to other business areas, which makes the book interesting for all practitioners in the management field.

Davanti Nella Gara, an Italian bicycle company, makes the best racing bikes in the world. But after decades of market dominance, competitors have brought the industry leader back to the Peloton. The company's second-generation owner longs for retirement, but a tired product lineup is pushing down profits and the firm's market value will never support his ride into the sunset. The flawed but beloved owner seeks out the counsel of an old friend and successful businessman, who steers him toward a fast and remarkable transformation, one fueled by a relentless focus on innovation excellence. An engaging business novel, Winning Innovation dives into the art and science of innovation; the thrills of the European bike-racing circuit; the vibrant landscape and cuisine of Italy; and a cast of intriguing characters who work to put Davanti on the road to sustained prosperity. The company's leader isn't afraid to learn and apply new ideas to reenergize his company, and finds he cares more about his employees than he could ever imagine. A young innovator struggles to see a product idea to fruition as well as rise into management - and he falls in love along the way. A newly promoted R&D director brings teamwork and transparency to product development and aligns the entire company around innovation. With the help of a seasoned and persistent change agent, in just a year, Davanti deploys a well-defined and -sequenced transformation - a complete and seamless process that can be replicated and scaled by most companies. The leader engages associates in pursuit of the right vision and strategy, candidly supporting them all as they unleash their creative sparks, work through personality conflicts, and take on real-world challenges faced by companies every day. They learn and apply traditional R&D principles in new ways (e.g., cost of delay, sprints, fail fast, late start) and successfully leverage emerging innovation and change-management principles (e.g., idea-creation events, knowledge management, workplace humility, visual management, lean project management). And an aligned, three-phase innovation process - from idea creation to technology development and product design - provides the innovation infrastructure the company needs for revenue creation and success beyond racing bikes. From a top-heavy organization dominated by power struggles and finger-pointing emerges a new Davanti Nella Gara - a flattened, innovative company with: Clear vision and endorsed goals and strategy Speed, responsiveness, and agility Widespread, successful creativity Collaboration and teamwork Superior risk management Respect for people Unquestionable ethics Changed leadership and associate behaviors Project management excellence Rapid problem-solving and experimentation Not just the story of an R&D transformation, Winning Innovation illustrates a companywide transformation of a magnitude that only superior R&D can make possible. It may well be the first book to chronologically introduce the principles for a complete innovation excellence transformation along with the parallel people transformation that is necessary for real change to occur. The end result for Davanti Nella Gara is a dominant new culture based on respect and humility, highly efficient processes that will deliver a wealth of innovations, sales, and profits for many years to come, and an owner who leaves a bright future for the people and company he's known and loved his entire life.

1. Comprehensive coverage on how to create an inclusive workplace and managing workplace diversity; 2. A practical guide with 'road-tested' cases and exercise on how to bridge the gap of cross cultural communication; 3. Addresses the urgent need on how to communicate effectively to an increasingly digital, remote workforce; 4. Focuses on how diversity, ethics, workplace wellbeing and health play a part in interpersonal relationships and communication at work and how to navigate the complexities that inevitably arise

This book offers an accessible reference and roadmap for the practical application of cross-cultural competence (3C) for leaders dedicated to leading with diversity, inclusion and personal development in mind. Developing Cross-Cultural Competence for Leaders takes readers from ideational to real, asking them to step out of their comfort zone and learn to navigate cultural differences. The authors invite readers to join them on a journey of discovery of themselves, their personal and professional peers and ultimately the cultural landscape they inhabit both knowingly and oftentimes unknowingly all in the hopes of opening doors to empathetic and effective communication. The skillset required for 3C is developed throughout the book beginning with a discussion of relevant concepts, leading the readers through narratives of extreme environments and ending with a roadmap for use in leadership positions. Each chapter discusses a foundational idea contextualized with sample narratives and ending with thought questions. The authors summon readers to embrace dissimilarities, shift perspectives, dare to engage and navigate in new and even adverse social and cultural contexts. Developing Cross-Cultural Competence is an essential reading for students of leadership development, as well as military and non-military professionals.

This book offers an accessible reference and roadmap for the practical application of cross-cultural competence (3C) for leaders dedicated to leading with diversity, inclusion and personal development in mind. Developing Cross-Cultural Competence for Leaders takes readers from ideational to real, asking them to step out of their comfort zone and learn to navigate cultural differences. The authors invite readers to join them on a journey of discovery of themselves, their personal and professional peers and ultimately the cultural landscape they inhabit both knowingly and oftentimes unknowingly all in the hopes of opening doors to empathetic and effective communication. The skillset required for 3C is developed throughout the book beginning with a discussion of relevant concepts, leading the readers through narratives of extreme environments and ending with a roadmap for use in leadership positions. Each chapter discusses a foundational idea contextualized with sample narratives and ending with thought questions. The authors summon readers to embrace dissimilarities, shift perspectives, dare to engage and navigate in new and even adverse social and cultural contexts. Developing Cross-Cultural Competence is an essential reading for students of leadership development, as well as military and non-military professionals.

As modern societies become more diverse and multicultural, the call for greater inclusion within organizations is getting louder. In response, many organizations have rushed to diversify, without fully understanding the implicit and explicit levels of diversity, the complexity of social identities, and the hidden and often unintended ways differences between members of in-groups and out-groups can lead to social exclusion. By providing a thorough overview of the concept of diversity, distinguishing between competing definitions and types of cultural and cognitive differences, Diversity and Organizational Development helps current and future leaders develop their diversity competency. Concepts of diversity management are explained as value-added activities that increase creativity and innovation, improve problem-solving and organizational flexibility, and aid in the recruitment and retention of top talent. Drawing upon interdisciplinary perspectives from business, economics, psychology, and sociology, this work offers a comprehensive approach to inclusive organizational development through which diversity and inclusion initiatives are supported by all facets of organizational operations and culture. Readers are shown how organizations can move toward the integrating stage of organizational development, during which members of all cultural and identity groups feel included, valued, and empowered through their contributions to organizational success. Making a case for inclusive development through organizational culture, this book further demonstrates how rituals, symbols, and language can create shared meaning among members of diverse organizations, powerfully influencing their effectiveness and strategic performance, while ultimately creating more satisfying workplaces.

This volume focuses on the ways in which corporations exercise political power, and how changes in the political-legal arrangements in which corporations are embedded affect their organizational behavior. Drawing from a range of theoretical perspectives, the articles in this collection further our understanding of political capitalism, the utilization of political outlets to attain conditions of stability, predictability, and security in the economy and to preserve the social relations in capitalist society. Corporations exercise political and economic power to establish public policies that facilitate rationalization of the economy: creating the political, economic and ideological conditions that are intended to advance their capital accumulation agendas. By examining the historical and dialectical relationship between the corporation and the state, the authors identify conditions within which capitalists mobilize politically to define and redefine the institutional arrangement in which they are embedded. However, the capitalist class and corporate management do not always have a coherent conception of the relationships between their economic goals and the means necessary to achieve those goals. Thus, in addition to the intended consequences of corporate political mobilization, these articles show that rationalization is a historical process that is characterized by contradictions and unintended consequences.

This important and timely book provides a systematic treatment of temporary organizations - an increasingly prevalent organizational form in which organizations work together on a joint task - for example, a movie production, a rescue operation, development of a new product - for an ex ante limited period of time. Demonstrating that temporary organizations are increasingly common, the book provides insights on how they differ from the classical organization and contributes to our understanding of what makes temporary organizations effective. Contributions by reputed organization scholars focus on the impact that this limited duration has on the way that temporary organizations structure their activities, organize work, use resources and achieve outcomes. Moreover, the tenability of various organizational concepts and theories for temporary contexts is examined and some unique phenomena inherent to temporariness are explored. Researchers interested in organizational design and project management scholars will warmly welcome this book, as will graduate students in organization studies, management studies, public policy studies, leisure studies, public administration and students of project management.

This 26th volume of Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations is a selection of papers from the 27th Annual Conference of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics with the theme 'Who's watching? Surveillance, big data and applied ethics in the digital age.' The papers in this volume critically engage with contemporary issues surrounding big data and surveillance, particularly in relation to large institutions, including corporations and government agencies. Special focus is put on the ethical issues concerning the collection and use of big data sets. Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations (REIO) is a double-blind, peer-reviewed series that publishes rigorous academic research into organizational ethics from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives.

This book takes a new approach to ethics by focusing on the kinds of dilemmas that confront people almost daily on the job. The author's unique contribution is to meld philosophy with everyday decisionmaking, offering the reader a common sense approach to making ethical decisions. Mary Guy introduces ten core values which surround ethical dilemmas, demonstrating the way in which personnel can sensitize themselves to the values involved in a problem and reach a solution which maximizes the important values. Real-life case examples illustrate ethical dilemmas that involve personnel practices, organizing strategies, reporting functions, supervisory practices, whistleblowing, and more. Throughout, the author emphasizes the kinds of concerns which confront the vast majority of employees--from ambitious entry-level personnel to top executives. Realistic in tone, the discussion acknowledges the inevitable need to make compromises, showing how to optimize ethical values situations that arise on the job and for which no formal rules exist.

In her introductory chapter, Guy defines ethics, clarifies the relationship between ethical behavior and morality, and presents the ten guiding values that serve as the foundation for ethical decisions. Turning to a focus on decisionmaking, she explores such issues as the theoretical framework for rational decisionmaking, rational decisionmaking in real life, the application of ethical analysis to decisionmaking, and the definition of ethical decisionmaking. The four subsequent chapters present case studies of problems that personnel commonly encounter. In each case, Guy examines the ethical issues involved, applies various scenarios for reaching an ethical decision, and demonstrates the tension that exists among ethical decisionmaking, coping with daily exigencies, and accommodating the preferences of stakeholders. The concluding chapter summarizes the relationship between ethics and decisionmaking and offers a prescription for ensuring ethical decisionmaking throughout the organization. Must reading for managers in business, government, and not-for-profit organizations, this book is also an excellent supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in business and public administration.

Value-creation in Middle Market Private Equity by John A. Lanier holistically examines the ecosystem relationships between middle market private equity firms and their portfolio companies. Small business is the job creating engine in the US economy, and consequently is a prime target market for private equity investment. Indeed, private equity backs over six of each 100 private sector jobs. Both the small businesses in which private equity firms invest, and the private equity firms making the investments, face inter- and intra-company fiduciary leadership challenges while implementing formulated strategy. The architecture of each private equity firm-portfolio company relationship must be uniquely crafted to capitalize on the projected return on investment that is memorialized in the investment thesis. Given the leveraged capital structure of portfolio companies, the cost of a misstep is problematic. Individual private equity professionals are typically members of multiple investment teams for the firm. Not only may each investment team have its own unique leadership style, but its diverse members have to assimilate styles for each team in which they participate relative to a specific portfolio company. Acquisitions and their subsequent integrations add exponential complexity for both private equity investment and portfolio company leadership teams; indeed, cultural integration ranks among the most chronic acquisition obstacles. Accordingly, the stakeholders of private equity transactions do well to embrace leadership best practices in applying value-creation toolbox best practices. The perspectives of both the private equity investment team and the portfolio company leadership team are within the scope of these chapters.

Greenwashing is an emerging trend that seeks to overemphasize the sustainability practices by companies to their customers. In a comprehensive analysis of this widespread marketing and corporate communication practice, Agostino Vollero examines the understanding of greenwashing, provides a systematic review of available literature review, and reflects on theoretical approaches and research trends. Additionally explored are specific case studies that offer lessons in avoiding the greenwashing trap and a build a look to the future in this context. Greenwashing: Foundations and Emerging Research on Corporate Sustainability and Deceptive Communication showcases fascinating insights and new perspectives in this field, which will be of great interest to scholars of Management, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communication, Accounting and Business Ethics.

This book argues that human factor development is the key to organizational success. The author describes the human factor as the diverse personality characteristics that allow employees within the social institutions to function and remain operational over time. A lack of appreciation for the significance of personality traits in performance has resulted in organizational inefficiency, but Adjibolosoo proposes a framework that analyzes spiritual capital, moral capital, human capital, aesthetic capital, human ability and human potential and addresses any human factor deficiencies. Further, case studies show that employee effectiveness and profitability of organizations can be attained through effective human factor engineering programs. The contents of this book will serve as powerful eye-openers to scholars in HRM as well as leaders and managers looking to achieve and sustain higher levels of productivity, growth, and profitability at work.

The first of two volumes bringing together researchers from an array of disciplines including sociology, organization theory, strategy, and organizational behaviour, Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives addresses the question of how entrepreneurship has transformed from an organizing activity into an ideology that is changing society. The authors investigate the transformation of entrepreneurship into a social phenomenon, leading to an understanding of how entrepreneurship is shaping the acceptance of inequality, new employment relationships, changed understandings of social outcomes, altered policies, and social precarity. Examining the role of organizations in society, Entrepreneurialism and Society invigorates academic research by developing new perspectives on how entrepreneurs and their organizations shape our social world.

Businesses in the Asia-Pacific communities provide enormous opportunities for local entrepreneurs to develop and collectively collaborate with other economies. However, several challenges and success factors exist for effective business operations in the region. Innovative Management and Business Practices in Asia is a collection of innovative research that enhances understanding and collaboration in business, management, and technology in Asia for the present and in the future. While highlighting topics including corporate culture, international trade, and business administration, this book is ideally designed for managers, executives, CEOs, board members, corporate professionals, managing directors, deans, decision makers, professors, researchers, policymakers, industry practitioners, and students.

This book reviews the field of Knowledge Management, taking a holistic approach that includes both "soft" and "hard" aspects. It provides a broad perspective on the field, rather than one based on a single viewpoints from Computer Science or Organizational Learning, offering a comprehensive and integrated conception of Knowledge Management. The chapters represent the best Knowledge Management articles published in the 21st century in Knowledge Management Research & Practice and the European Journal of Information Systems, with contributors including Ikujiro Nonaka, Frada Burstein, and David Schwartz. Most of the chapters contribute significantly to practise as well as theory. The OR Essentials series presents a unique cross-section of high quality research work fundamental to understanding contemporary issues and research across a range of Operational Research topics. It brings together some of the best research papers from the highly respected journals of the Operational Research Society, also published by Palgrave Macmillan.

* Rather than teaching about racism or the need to become anti-racist, it offers action steps for fighting racism. * Readers will learn concrete ways to dismantle racism in their communities, workplaces, and organizations and transform these entities into forces for justice. * Most books discuss racism in a social context, whereas this book discusses racism in community, professional, and organizational contexts.

Unlike other books available on the market, this combines rigorous academic theory with practical insights, making it both suitable for students and practitioners at the intersection between digital transformation, marketing and strategy implementation; Provides insights from contributors from GE, Volvo, Adobe, Siemens, DHL, Thales and other companies known for their exceptional abilities to drive profits via digital transformation; Practical steps to drive profits via digital strategy implementation both internally as well as externally (via-a-vis customers).

In a modern world in which one can observe managerial and investors' behaviors characterized by high risk, short term orientation, moral hazard and speculation, there is a need to form a new ethical paradigm to drive a more ethical oriented education and a substantial change to norms regulating markets and business behavior to sensitize investors and financial practitioners, so that humanity can evolve in a sustainable way. Therefore the main question we are striving to answer throughout the book Organizational Social Irresponsibility: individual behaviors and organizational practices is the following: Do individual behaviors influence organizational socially irresponsible practices? Each separate chapter aims to find an answer to the above question. The book is divided into three parts: first: "The dark side of organizational behaviors", second: "Individual skills and the workplace" and third: "Organizational politics, practices and tools. This book is authored by a range of authors from all over the world. They provide us with several theoretical and practical contributions into the topic of organizational social irresponsibility and individual behavior, facing different aspects (e.g. workplace wellness, decision?making, diversity management). We hope it will be useful for both business and academia and it will help to shape reflective, socially responsible managers of the future.

There has, in recent times, been an increasing interest in history, broadly defined, among management scholars. But what specifically a historical approach or perspective can contribute to research on organizational fields, organizations, strategy etc. and how exactly such historical research should be carried out remain questions that have been answered only partially, if at all. Building on the authors' prior and ongoing work, History in Management and Organization Studies: From Margins to Mainstream is unique in presenting a comprehensive and integrated view of how history has informed management research with a focus on organization theory and strategy. More specifically, the volume provides an overview of how the relationship been history and management scholarship has evolved from the 19th century until today, focusing mainly on the post-World War II period; and systematically surveys the kind of research programs within organization theory and strategy that have used historical data and/or history as a theoretical construct, while also identifying the remaining "blind spots". As a whole, it offers a kind of roadmap for management scholars and historians to situate their research and, hopefully, find new roads for others to travel. The book is intended for anybody conducting or planning to conduct historical research within management and organization studies, and aims, in particular, at becoming a standard feature of research methods courses in business schools and departments of management.

Remarkable features of revenue management (RM) problems in the cargo, manufacturing and broadcasting industries are so-called flexible products. "Flexibility" means that the actual mode of production is not defined at the time of purchase, but can be chosen later on by the service provider. This book is among the first to analyze RM problems with flexible products and RM in broadcasting companies. The implications of flexibility are explicitly taken into account in the models and methods presented. As an aside, the book contains descriptions of algorithms to generate stochastic demand data streams for general RM problems. An implementation as a Microsoft Windows executable file is available, which can directly be used both by theoreticians and practitioners in their own simulation studies. This book will be of great value for researchers, managers and students interested in RM with flexible products in general and broadcasting companies in particular.

This edited book brings together humanities and social sciences scholars from the various disciplines at the nexus of discourse studies and ethnography to reflect on questions of institutional practices and their political concerns. Institutional order plays an important role in structuring power relations in society. Yet, contrary to common understandings of structure, institutional orders are far from fixed or stable. They constantly change, and they are resisted and reimagined by social actors. The 20 studies collected in this edited volume develop the notion of institutionality as an overarching perspective to explore how institutional actors and institutional practices order and reorder power in societies across the globe. Thereby the chapters pay special attention to the fluidity, volatility, fragility, and ambiguity of order, and consequently to its claims to authority. Employing a broad range of discourse analytic and ethnographic methodologies, the studies show how institutions are discursively and materially constructed, defined, represented and how they are made relevant and become powerful - or how they are resisted, transformed or lose significance - in interaction. Readers will obtain nuanced insights into ways in which differently positioned social actors engage in struggles about how institutions can be imagined and enacted across several domains, such as workplace interactions, architecture, mass-media representations or organisational publicity. This book will be of interest to readers in Applied Linguistics, Discourse and Society, Critical Discourse Analysis, Political Theory and Communication Studies.

Quarter examines business owners who use their firms as laboratories for social innovation. After providing an introduction to this phenomenon in an historical perspective and discussing the 19th-century British industrialist Robert Owen, he provides ll case studies of contemporary innovators from six countries-the UK, US, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and New Zealand.

The case studies fall into two broad groups. The first involves business people who promote innovative ownership and decision-making strategies such as donating their shares to a trust and thereby creating a company without shareholders so that employees can assume greater control; creating a worker co-operative; and transferring ownership to employees through an employee stock ownership plan. The second group of case studies involves innovative efforts at changing the relationship to the surrounding community through creating socially and environmentally responsible businesses. Quarter concludes by looking at the potential and limitations of this phenomenon for building a social movement. A provocative look at the social organization of work that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of industrial organization and to business leaders examining innovative ownership arrangements.

This book explores the experiences of caregiving fathers in the UK. Conceptions of fatherhood, childcare, and work have altered over the last few decades, with many fathers taking a more active role in caregiving than before and seeking to alter their working patterns accordingly. However, such a wider involvement in caregiving for fathers can clash with traditional values about masculinity and work, which still hold sway over public opinion and workplace policies. Using quantitative and qualitative data, collected through the use of surveys, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with managers and working parents, the book explores perceptions and experiences of fathers who amend their working patterns due to caregiving responsibilities. It highlights the specific challenges faced by caregiving fathers when they attempt to take an active role in the parenting of their children which is identified as the 'fatherhood forfeit'. This impactful new book proposes actions to address such mistreatment and improve equality in the workplace, which includes changes to policy, increases in training and the importance of workplace role modelling. It will be of interest to academics studying human resource management, gender, masculinity, organisational studies, and the home-life balance, as well as policymakers.