Digital technology has transformed business and management methodology in the modern era. As technologies continue to evolve and change, designing a platform for business architecture requires flexibility and practicality. Organizational Leadership for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides the latest research on the approaches to dealing successfully with newly emerging digital technologies and the dynamic complexity leaders are facing now and in the future. While highlighting topics, such as business architecture, interactive planning, and strategic capital, this book explores the implications of technologies on business and leadership as well as the development of leadership methods and applications. This book is an important resource for professionals, practitioners, upper-level students, and managers seeking current research on leadership and business advancement in the digital era.

For the late Russell Ackoff, the important principles and qualities on which his work was based - clear-sightedness, looking at the bigger picture, working backwards to dissolve problems, radicalism - crossed over into most, if not all, other aspects of his life. Ackoff's Memories tell of his experiences of serving in the US Army during World War II; of bringing up a young family; of encountering different cultures whilst working abroad. From analyzing birth rates in India, to a fireside chat with the Queen of Iran, to introducing theme parks to the US, the stories collected in 'Memories' lay bare the workings of a number of well-known businesses and other organizations - and the people who run them. They describe common attitudes, behaviors and assumptions, which, if left unchallenged, can destabilize or even destroy an organization. This book shows how thinking systemically leads to real organizational improvements in a variety of academic and workplace settings and - just as important - how failure to do so can be both personally embarrassing and damaging to the organization. Each story is used to illustrate a belief, principle or conclusion central to Ackoff's theories of Systems Thinking and Design Thinking. And each of them is told with his customary generosity, wit and wisdom. With a Foreword by Peter Senge.

Russell Ackoff's long and distinguished career as the doyen of Design and Systems Thinking was built around a collection of deceptively simple-but often overlooked-principles and observations. In Differences That Make a Difference-the last of his many books-Ackoff determined to distill the wisdom of a lifetime into a "glossary" that would be easily accessible to managers, employees, students, and academics alike. His aim was to dissolve (not solve or resolve) some of the many disputes in professional and private life that revolve around meaning and (mis)understanding. For example, development and growth do not mean the same thing. A cemetery or rubbish heap can grow without developing, whereas a person continues to develop long after he or she has stopped growing. Ackoff understood that getting to the bottom of differences like this one could have far-reaching practical consequences for improving our organizational health. In Differences That Make a Difference, he has succeeded magnificently in creating what Charles Handy in his Foreword calls "a manual for clear thinking." And if the world ever needed clear thinking...