How do executives make decisions? Are their decisions conscious or unconscious? Can they explain each decision they make? What tools can they use to improve their decision-making process? These are some of the questions this book addresses. During the past 35 years, as an entrepreneur and senior executive of several medium-sized Canadian hi-tech businesses, the author noticed that his decision-making processes were often based either on experience or on advice received from colleagues. Seldom were the decisions based on formal or informal academic-based methods. There is no substitute for years of experience in any human endeavor. However, tapping into some of the methods and lessons learned from personal experience can result in useful principles for others to follow. These principles are very useful, especially for entrepreneurs interested in building their businesses or executives looking for some additional help in acquiring a better decision-making mousetrap.

Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of managing the operations of a system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in efficiently moving products or services from suppliers to customers. SCM can effectively conduct the movements of physical items, knowledge, and information from the original supplier to the final end-user. In this book, we explore the systemic analysis of SCM and its effect on business development performance. We identify the structural problems in the supply chain, clarify how they influence the functioning of business development, and suggest elaboration of strategic approaches to address those problems. The author includes professional perspectives and insights from experts including various SCM sources.

The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to mechanisms useful for detection and avoidance of money-laundering activities (MLAs) and terrorist financing as well as suggest improvements to existing anti-MLA methods and procedures where appropriate. Money laundering occurs in every country. The significant factor is to diagnose illegal MLAs and apply regulations to mitigate them. To meet this objective, managers of financial institutions need to train their employees about anti-money-laundering processes and how to diagnose and prevent them. Anti-money-laundering activities can also affect financial systems of a country. MLAs can create a big gap between income classes. Money laundering can also decrease bank's and financial institution's credibility. This book will be of special interest to financial managers in the private and public sector and will also be a useful guide for those involved in international financial transactions.

Measuring shareholder value has become crucial in the current economic environment, especially following the consistent pressure from institutional shareholders on companies to create shareholder value in an adverse economic environment. Maximizing the company's value will make the company less appealing to hostile takeovers. Takeovers are a capital market mechanism designed to control the conflicts of interest between shareholders and managers of the company. In this study, we will examine the best methods used in measuring shareholder value, and furthermore explore the process of shareholder value creation in the years prior and following the creeping takeover of Ivanhoe Mines by Rio Tinto Plc. We have based our study on data and ratio analytics from ThomsonONE (Reuters), information that is publicly available through press releases, analyst coverage, and financial news. Our study includes an in-depth analysis of the creeping takeover of Ivanhoe Mines by Rio Tinto Plc.

How do executives make decisions? Based on what? Are their decisions conscious or unconscious? Can they explain each decision they make? What tools can they use to improve their decision-making process? What rules of thumb (heuristics) can they use when faced with decision-making challenges? These are some of the questions this book is about. During the past 30 years, as an entrepreneur and senior executive of several medium-sized Canadian hi-tech businesses, the author observed his decision-making processes to be based either on experience or on advice received from colleagues. Seldom were decisions based on formal or informal academic-based methods. Discussing decision-making methods with other executives of comparable business backgrounds confirms they rely on similar methods when looking for solutions to challenging business problems. There is no substitute for years of experience in any human endeavour. However, tapping into some of the methods and lessons learned from personal experience can result in useful principles for others to follow. These principles might be useful especially for entrepreneurs interested in building their businesses or executives looking for some additional help in acquiring a better decision-making mouse-trap.

This book is intended to provide project management office (PMO) executives' practical information to promote enterprise Agile for business value compatibility within their organization. The primary benefit of this book is to promote a sense of common purpose and collaboration between the project delivery and the organization. Agile project delivery methods are adaptable to the emergence of unknown requirements identified in the later part of the project delivery lifecycle. The key success factor is direct business participation and collaboration to ensure that a business focus determines the output. Agile promotes innovation and creates synergies through a business focus viewing technology deployments as a catalyst for change rather than the final objective. Technology investments implemented through Agile processes result in improved market leadership, organizational alignment, and resource efficiency delivering competitive advantage.

This book, based on case studies in the healthcare sector, reveals a working strategy that explores a well-kept secret of top management: that a more balanced gender distribution on the boards of healthcare organizations results in an improvement of the organization's overall performance. Organizational success for healthcare institutions depends in part on insuring that an organization's management team possesses and reflects key characteristics that can predict that success. By further linking these characteristics to gender, the research suggests that it is reasonable to assume that an increased if not dominant presence of females on boards will lead to improved performance. In this evolving world environment of an aging population coupled with funding constraints that are applied to healthcare organizations based on performance, healthcare organizations' top management and researchers will find this book a must read. A new perspective emerges as a practical solution for the healthcare organization's survival.

Business executives face the challenge of making every day better business decisions. They make those decisions using gut feel, common sense, intuition, experience, and, often without knowing it, various forms of heuristics or rules of thumb. Over the past 25 years, as a senior executive of several Canadian hi-tech businesses, I noticed that the decision-making process I have applied was often based on personal experience. This book explores the heuristics personal experience is based on. The research this book is built on confirms the use of heuristics in business decision-making, presents some common business heuristics, and proposes methods of making the application of heuristics more useful for better decision-making in various business situations. Two main conclusions resulting from this research are: executives apply extensively various forms of business heuristics when solving business problems, and the heuristics they use are both tacit and explicit. Finally the book suggests a set of what-how rules that can assist in converting tacit business heuristics into explicit ones by expanding their information content.

Topics in Logic: This book introduces the reader to some basic concepts in mathematical logic and propositional calculus. Topics in formal theories are briefly analyzed. First-order predicate calculus is described including some of its interpretations in arithmetic and set theory. Axiomatic set theories are covered. Some examples of axiomatic set theories are also illustrated. Relations are defined along with basic concepts of homomorphism and congruence. Finally universal algebras are defined and some of their properties discussed.