Many brands have established an active social media presence that allows them to interact directly with consumers. Initially without a clear strategy, brands now employ sophisticated techniques for branding and use their posts for example to address important societal topics. This dissertation aims to better understand the role of owned social media for strategic branding decisions. More specifically, to provide managers with clear guidelines on how to use their social media communication to affect important business outcomes along the purchase funnel from social media engagement, earned social media, brand associations, and sales. The aim is to develop generalizable insights into the use and impact of owned social media across different brands, industries, platforms, or countries in all three essays. The research highlights which content proves more effective in driving results, with special attention given to content focusing on societal topics such as sustainability, community, and diversity. This dissertation also explores social media positioning challenges, highlighting not only the dangers of washing practices (e.g., greenwashing, diversity washing), but also the even higher risks associated with hushing communication approaches.

The global rise of streaming and social media platforms, and the influence of tech giants in increasingly more sectors of the economy including the media industry, have disrupted the status quo of the global media competitive landscape. This volume offers an insightful analysis of the profound changes in the competitive advantages in the media industry ushered in by digital convergence, and their ramifications. As Hollywood enters its second century, it faces novel challenges stemming from the digital revolution, which are greater, in magnitude and in impact, than any of those brought in by previous communication technology revolutions in the last century. These new challenges include the ascent of new competitors, leading conglomerates arising from the digital revolution, which as a result of the ever-expanding reach of digital convergence are successfully operating in the media sector as well. The new competitive dynamics are on display in the analysis of the streaming and social media landscapes. This book sheds light on the clash of two institutional logics within the new attention economy and its consequences on the competitive landscape. The legacy media institutional logics, represented by the legacy media conglomerates revolving around the Hollywood studios, which have established their primacy in the global mediascape for decades, now directly compete in the new landscape shaped by digital convergence with the digital media institutional logics identifying the tech giants emerging victorious from the digital revolution. The analysis utilizes the dichotomy between scripted and non-scripted media entertainment as a framework to assess the diverse competitive landscapes, business dynamics and their implications, of the different segments shaping the contours and boundaries of the media industry.

Accountability, good government and public trust are intricately linked. Supreme Audit Institutions fulfil an exceptional role in the public domain, checking if governments spend their money properly. They are like 'watchdogs' for citizens and parliaments with the purpose of auditing public expenditure and examining the effectiveness of policies. They aim to strengthen the trustworthiness of government institutions, all the more so in fragile democracies. They do so, for instance, in striving to disclose cases of corruption, not just in the highest echelons of government, but also in everyday petty bribery. And they can be found counting houses, roads and water taps, to see if government's promises are being kept. On the occasion of the retirement of Saskia J. Stuiveling as the president of the Netherlands Court of Audit, eight (former) heads of audit institutions talk candidly about their work and innovations in the area of public auditing, about how the financial crisis affected their profession, about the advent of open data and about the need for new skills to audit the oil industry. Each of them - Faiza Kefi (Tunisia), Josef Moser (Austria), Terence Nombembe (South Africa), Heidi Mendoza (Philippines), Alar Karis (Estonia), David Walker (USA), John Muwanga (Uganda) and Abdulbasit Turki Saeed (Iraq) - has made a difference in his or her country, often under difficult, adverse and sometimes outright dangerous circumstances.

This book explores the effects of the previously ignored factors of path dependence and product features on technology acceptance with a focus on robo-advice. A newly developed model introduces path dependence to technology acceptance research allowing to explain previously unaccountable effects. An empirical test of the model using data from Germany and the USA elicits that path dependence influences the attitudes towards and demand for robo-advice. A process consisting of a market survey, a choice-based conjoint analysis, and a test in a technology acceptance model allows the structured investigation of the effects of product features on the demand for robo-advice. The results show that selected product features have effects on the demand for robo-advice and that it is essential to establish these effects empirically.

This book provides a detailed account of the global hotel industry with a focus on managerial work and people management. A comprehensive understanding of the managers' work from a people management perspective is essential to the success of hotel operations; however, this is an area that has been under-researched. Based on existing literature and extensive research carried out by the authors over fifteen years, the book explores the different aspects of managerial work in global hotel industry settings and covers topics such as general management, leadership, education and training, skills and competencies, crisis management, and managing diversity. The book's findings suggest that hotel managers should adopt a people-centric management and leadership style while at the same time maintaining operational efficiency. A unique book in terms of scale and depth, it offers useful insights into both theoretical and practical perspectives.

This monograph introduces readers to core theories and applications in the chatbot AI context. Although AI is attracting significant attention, there is a literature gap and lack of practical guidelines on the key drivers of chatbot efficiency and agency capacity. There is a caveat between algorithmic explanations and actionable understanding, despite the acknowledged importance of inherently human-centric properties. Addressing these gaps, this state-of-the-art book offers a distinctive combination of content, theory, practice evaluation, and a holistic framework encompassing cognitive, emotional and social aspects, focusing on how to enhance AI agency and user experience. The framework aims to drive design, encouraging development of intelligent systems, techniques to evaluate chatbot with purposes, to appropriately meet user needs and market demand for responsible and explainable AI, XAI. Avenues for transforming business and life by implementing new generation AI systems are further discussed, as well as recommendations to overcome consumer resistance and advice for policy measures to reduce risks given the AI boost. While the community is still in an exploratory mode, we hope "The Rise of AI User Applications: Chatbots Integration Foundations and Trends" provides the needed understanding and will inspire researchers across disciplines to combine their efforts and work together on this very intriguing topic.

The metaverse is undergoing rapid and transformative changes, yet it has thus far lacked a comprehensive scholarly examination from a global and comparative standpoint. The publication addresses existing gaps by introducing fresh perspectives and frameworks across various domains within the metaverse, including law, economics, and finance. Drawing upon the expertise of an international cohort of scholars and practitioners, this volume illuminates emerging interdisciplinary insights with global relevance, facilitating a comparative analysis of diverse aspects of the metaverse. Timely and essential, this book contributes significantly to the metaverse literature, addressing urgent issues in this evolving landscape.

If you're looking for a comprehensive guide to help make your startup successful, this book is a must-read. It covers the unique challenges of technology and platform-driven entrepreneurship, providing entrepreneurs with the tools they need to sustain growth and relevance. Technology startups face the risk of failure even after finding a product-market fit. This is due to limitations in scaling. Platform-driven startups can scale rapidly. However, they carry a high risk of failure. This book helps entrepreneurs identify the factors that can sustain technology startup growth, make early decisions, and limit risk. It also offers guidance to platform startups to mitigate the risk of failure. Featuring examples of successful startups as well as others that failed, the book offers a holistic view of entrepreneurship that highlights its importance to the broader ecosystem. This book is ideal for entrepreneurs who want to take their startup to the next level and sustain its growth. With a focus on inclusive entrepreneurship and sustaining competitive advantage, it is equally relevant for family-run companies that prioritise sustained value over generations. If you want to succeed in today's highly competitive startup landscape, this book is a valuable resource.

This book addresses how people and organisations sometimes respond to uncertainty in making decisions. Those decisions are rooted in beliefs and behaviours that are not always rational, especially in response to perceived randomness, chaos and unexpected circumstances. The author uses a transdisciplinary approach to the study of superstition in the context of business and management, taking care to acknowledge that what is regarded as superstition to one person may well be constructed as a spiritual belief by another. Respect and sensitivity in explicating individual and social constructions of spirituality is a core value in structuring the narrative of the text. The work also explores the interwoven relationships amongst superstition, religion, spirituality and empiricism and how cultural, political, economic and environmental factors are likely to influence organisations and those who are employed by them. Further, it examines the influence of beliefs related to topics such as feng shui, astrology, phrenology and the I Ching in recruitment. This comprehensive treatment of the role of superstition in business will advance the scholarly conversation on uncertainty in decision making. It points to the power of belief that defies empirical validation and how it can be used in a variety of contexts, such as the marketing of products and images to manipulate unwary consumers or inhibit the implementation of health advice in times of COVID-19.  

In today's competitive marketplace, businesses must be entrepreneurial to succeed. This book argues that entrepreneurship allows businesses to adapt to changing economic conditions and societal needs. It focuses on entrepreneurial business venturing as a means of understanding how businesses innovate, take risks, and think futuristically. The text emphasizes the importance of understanding digitalization trends in these ventures to grasp digital innovation trends better. The book explores why an entrepreneurial perspective is crucial in business, explaining the role of the knowledge economy in society and the need for businesses to prioritize digital technology. It examines how the nature of work has evolved due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the rise of flexible work arrangements and remote work, with case studies from international companies. Furthermore, the book argues that digital forms of entrepreneurship are increasingly important in responding to crises and international developments. It highlights the need for scenario and forecast planning in developing new products and services to meet evolving customer needs. The book also provides examples of business model innovation, which underscores the importance for businesses to emphasize entrepreneurship not only in product development but also in their interactions with society. It discusses how businesses can achieve this through an entrepreneurial health audit, which focuses on entrepreneurial intensity, frequency, and ideas for start-ups and spinoffs. By examining examples and suggestions included in the book, businesses can learn about the role of entrepreneurial learning and failure in creating an entrepreneurial culture.

In this book, readers are taken on an illuminating journey into the world of trade shows from a unique perspective - the psychology of both exhibitors and attendees. This comprehensive guide delves deep into the intricacies of drawing visitors to your booth and forging meaningful connections. It offers a wealth of insights into the art of engaging potential clients effectively and understanding their behavior within the bustling trade show environment. The book covers a wide array of topics, including techniques for attracting visitors to your booth, effective communication strategies, and the psychology behind booth design. From the selection of color schemes and themes that resonate with your target audience to crafting compelling messages that leave a lasting impression, this book provides practical advice for achieving trade show success. It also explores the role of technology and digital marketing in modern trade show strategies, offering a blend of timeless principles and cutting-edge approaches. Moreover, the text delves into case studies and real-world examples from successful exhibitors, showcasing their innovative methods and success stories. Whether you're a seasoned trade show veteran or a newcomer looking to make a splash, this book equips you with the knowledge and strategies needed to thrive in the competitive world of trade shows. With its engaging and informative content, 'Trade Show Psychology' is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to maximize their impact and ROI at trade shows.

This open access book is a new study by the Institute for Contemporary China Studies at Tsinghua University, condensing the new achievements of the Institute's national policy research. Taking "common prosperity" as the theme, the book elaborates the historical background, ideological sources and theoretical connotation of common prosperity. It reviews the theoretical and practical innovations of common prosperity in three historical periods: the socialist revolution and construction period, the new period of reform and opening up and socialist modernization, and the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics. It discusses the development goals and practical approaches for China to build a society of common prosperity by 2035, analyzes the development basis and challenges China faces in promoting common prosperity, and puts forward the overall goals and quantitative indicator system for achieving common prosperity in the new era, as well as major tasks, policy logic and pathway for promoting common prosperity. The book also looks into the great significance and world significance of China's realization of common prosperity. Policy interpretation in the book is thorough, and the data is accurate, with authoritative, professional and forward-looking perspectives. This is an open access book.

This book showcases cutting-edge research on a variety of themes related to sustainable and impact investments. It sheds light, theoretically and empirically, on three particular contemporary challenges for sustainable finance: shifts in banking towards prioritizing sustainable growth, the rapid evolution of sustainable bonds, and the growing role of women in sustainable finance. The first section of the book explores the benefits for banks and the financial industry from integrating sustainable finance into their business processes, as well as the role banks play in allocating resources towards a decarbonized economy. Chapters discuss risk reduction and the reputational boost for banks, as well as assessing the impact of new regulation frameworks targeted at sustainable growth. The second part examines sustainable financial products, with a focus on green bonds, and discusses how they can be used for long-term financing for sustainable projects, encourage accountability and transparency, stimulate market growth, manage risk, and benefit the environment and society more broadly. The final section of the book takes an internal look at sustainable finance and addresses the significant role that women play, helping to develop more creative and practical solutions, serving as role models, and increasing involvement in the financial sector. Combining academic analysis with practical examples from the industry, this book will be useful to students and researchers working in sustainable finance, banking, and financial regulation.

This book explores how theories of cognition inform our theoretical understanding of business models and business model innovation. A business model can either be viewed as an objective description of an activity system, or as an abstract, conceptual, and perceptual construct, that is the result of cognition. From this second point of view, the business model becomes a schematic mental model that is created, shaped, and shared over time. In other words, managers hold in their mind perceptual constructs that constitute schemas of the business model. This book examines how the underlying processes of the creation, shaping, and sharing of business (mental) models take place at individual, organizational, and even inter-organizational levels. Theories of managerial and organizational cognition are explored to inform our understanding of business modelling and business model innovation. The reader is thus provided with an overview of existing literature and reflections on future avenues of research to explore the cognitive foundations of business modelling.    

This book delves into the psychological and behavioral impact of the advent of digital transformation (DX) on white-collar employees in the modern organizational context. It uncovers how DX-driven uncertainty affects these workers' professional identity, self-efficacy, and job performance from a communication-centered perfective. While effective leadership can serve as a buffer, the intricate dynamics of these relationships await further exploration. To unravel these complex issues, the book employs an array of theoretical frameworks that have been tested against large, time-separated, dyadic datasets collected in Japan. In so doing, the studies introduced in this book illuminate how employees make sense of and communicate the uncertainties they face. Furthermore, it highlights a vision-driven leadership style and scrutinizes its unique attributes and limitations for addressing team members' uncertainty. This book is indispensablefor executives and managers; it is a roadmap to steering digital transformation efforts without igniting resistance or conflict among frontline staff. For researchers, it's an invaluable resource for analyzing the mechanism of uncertainty management in today's fast-paced, tech-centric environments. Moreover, the book bridges the gap between interpersonal communication studies and other pivotal disciplines, such as leadership, management, organizational behavior, and social psychology in the context of stress and coping with uncertainty.

This book presents up-to-date descriptions of Smart Services Innovations in industry, supported by new scientific approaches. It summarizes the outcomes of the fifth Smart Services Summit, held in Zurich in October 2023, which primarily focused on the ability of Smart Service Systems to support resilience and build sustainability. As the evolution of Smart Services accelerates, new technologies can be leveraged to create new value propositions and business models that deliver tangible sustainability outcomes. This book addresses social, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability in connection with new technologies and includes papers on how these technologies can help achieve resilience and sustainability. In this context, topics such as sustainability and resilience in supply chains, X-as-a-Service, large language models for service automation, and location-based systems are discussed. Given its scope, the book represents an indispensable guide for practitioners and advanced students alike.

This edited volume provides a marketing perspective on maladaptive consumer behavior, especially behavior with dysfunctional consequences that does not have its origins in physical addiction. It brings together contributions of leading scholars who have expertise in various forms of maladaptive consumption. The chapters address specific manifestations of maladaptive consumption, such as those related to food, alcoholic beverages, online gaming, and media consumption, among others, with an emphasis on behaviors that are not traditionally regarded as arising from physical addiction. Further, the book includes chapters that focus more broadly of definitional and conceptual issues, methodological approaches, implications for intervention and regulation, and the value judgments inherent in the identification and classification of behaviors as "maladaptive." It examines numerous alternative theories of maladaptive consumption and places such behavior in a larger market context. Taken together, the contributions in this volume (1) describe the general phenomenon of maladaptive consumption, (2) describe specific manifestations of maladaptive consumption, (3) identify issues of research methodology and definition related to the study of maladaptive consumption, and (4) address relevant interventions, regulations, and public policy issues. It will appeal to scholars interested in maladaptive consumption behaviors and their treatments as well as consumer behavior more generally across multiple fields, including marketing, clinical psychology, social work, and public health.

This book delves into contemporary business analytics techniques across sectors for critical decision-making. It combines data, mathematical and statistical models, and information technology to present alternatives for decision evaluation. Offering systematic mechanisms, it explores business contexts, factors, and relationships to foster competitiveness. Beyond managerial perspectives, it includes contributions from professionals, academics, and scholars worldwide, delivering comprehensive knowledge and skills through diverse viewpoints, cases, and applications of analytical tools. As an international business science reference, it targets professionals, academics, researchers, doctoral scholars, postgraduate students, and research organizations seeking a nuanced understanding of modern business analytics.

Organizations are increasingly faced with the challenge of recruiting and retaining suitable personnel. It is crucial to have employees who are committed to their organization and actively support change. Such commitment is primarily present when employees find suitable framework conditions for themselves that result from the lived values that are anchored in the organizational culture. Accordingly, a culture must be based on an image of human man that is worthy of man.   An image of man worthy of man is reflected in Ikigai. Ikigai pursues a meaning-centered approach (purpose-driven) and - based on the original logotherapy of Viktor E. Frankl - assumes that the core motivation of human beings is the search for meaning.   The book lays the theoretical foundation for a comprehensive individual and organizational consideration of Ikigai by describing Ikigai as a Japanese philosophy of life and, on the basis of original logotherapy, opening up Ikigai for the non-Japanese cultural area. The necessity of a purpose driven view is explained and individual Ikigai is transferred to the organizational context as a blueprint. The four central levers of organizational Ikigai are described and the theoretical foundations for a transformation to a purpose-driven organization are presented.

This volume is a collection of papers on emerging concepts, significant insights, and novel approaches to Information Systems Development (ISD). It delves into the latest trends in ISD and examines how organizational goals, structure, and the business environment--including regulations and societal trends--can impact the creation and implementation of information systems. The book draws on invited papers selected from the proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Information Systems Development hosted by Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal, on August 30-September 1, 2023 (ISD2023).

This book shows how modern risk management in banks and insurance companies can be modeled in Excel and Matlab. Readers are provided with all the necessary knowledge and skills in a systematic and structured step-by-step manner. Apart from basic Excel knowledge, no previous knowledge is required. The textbook is divided into five parts. First, the reader learns the basics of analyzing and modeling market risks. Next, the authors introduce and explain the modeling of credit risks and operational risks are quantified by calibrating loss distributions based on expert estimates. Furthermore, individual risk measures are examined in more detail. In order to calculate a risk measure for an overall portfolio to determine the risk capital, the question of the aggregation method is discussed. There are various common concepts for this, which are examined in more detail in the last part of the book. The book is aimed at students of business administration with a focus on financial services. Accompanying the book, readers receive Excel spreadsheets as digital bonus material for practice and application.

Technology has affected almost all organisations in terms of process, procedures, and management and many organisations now seek technologically minded people to run their business at every level. It has also created new realms of employment, such as platform and virtual work, where HRM must play a part if employee wellbeing is to be preserved. This book sheds light on the current reality and future expectations of digital HRM and fills a gap in the existing literature of empirical studies into the forefront of HRM around the world. It will cover topics on algorithmics, artificial intelligence, and digitalisation of HRM practices and will be of great value to academics, international and domestic business organisations, policy makers, and undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Wirecard was the largest economic scandal in the history of Germany. Following the collapse of Wirecard, numerous lawsuits, both criminal and civil by equity and debt investors, were filed not only against Wirecard but also against the auditor Ernst & Young. This book demonstrates that a proper audit in accordance with the auditing standards would have uncovered the fraud much earlier, and details what went wrong. The book first deals with the fundamentals of auditing and examines the Wirecard business models from a legal and economic perspective. Then, the book deals with the fiduciary structure, which there has been often debated. When the fraud was uncovered, it became clear that 1.9 billion Euros that were supposed to be in escrow accounts were not. The book discusses the balance sheet mapping in detail, including the related audit requirements and examines in which balance sheet item the amounts (allegedly) in escrow accounts should have been reported, before examining and weighing the corresponding income statement items. In each chapter, not only are the accounting requirements presented, but the requirements for audit measures based on the respective Standards on Auditing are highlighted and explained in detail. The book places the requirements for reporting in the context of the Wirecard case, and will be of interest to accountants, auditors, market regulators, and credit risk analysts alongside students of accounting/auditing.  

This book argues that listening to constituents who reside outside organizational boundaries, but who are essential members of an organization's ecosystem, is a vital constitutive element of organizational communication. It also attempts to demonstrate that, by and large, the field of organizational communication has neglected such listening. The book goes on to introduce a conceptual and methodological framework organizations can use to assess listening practices and effectiveness. Through a combination of theory, research, and case illustrations, the book will be valuable to both scholars and practitioners in the fields of organizational communication, marketing, and public relations. It will provide insight and direction for theory-building, knowledge development, and implementation of best practices.

This book provides a practical, detailed, and well-documented guide that takes students and market researchers through all phases of developing and conducting global marketing research. This book not only accounts for the recent developments in the scope and extent of global marketing research, but also examines advances in both quantitative and qualitative research techniques, and the impact of the Internet on research in the global environment. It includes coverage of all phases involved in designing and executing global marketing research -- from analyzing the nature and scope of the research to the preliminary stages, gathering data, designing the questionnaires, sampling, and presenting the data. Numerous country-specific examples and case studies will add to the understanding of the concepts laid out in the book. This edition features updates related to leveraging the power of AI, Internet of Things, machine learning, blockchain, robotics, the metaverse, and otheremerging technologies that are impacting the way in which marketing research is performed. With an instructor's manual as well as PPT slides covering major topics within the chapters, in addition to numerous cases, this text provides the most current and relevant information about the global marketing research industry and outlines the necessary techniques that can guide researchers in their work.

This book is a call to adopt more ethical, sustainable, and consumer-focused approaches in the digital era. The focus on consumer perceptions and expectations in a digital context is particularly relevant, as it delves into the psychological and behavioral aspects of digital interactions. The chapters on digital consumption and risk, and memory in the digital world, are pivotal in understanding how digital mediums impact consumer choices and brand recall. Online persuasion, a key topic, explores ethical and effective strategies for influencing consumer behavior, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and trust. The discussion on social comparison and its implications in digital consumption underscores the psychological impact of digital platforms. The chapters on humanistic and sustainable marketing, and digital customer experience, reflect the growing importance of ethical, sustainable practices, and customer-centric approaches in building brand loyalty. The book is an essential guide for marketing professionals and students, offering a comprehensive understanding of the complex interplay between digital marketing strategies and consumer behavior.

How can we work towards ensuring that organisations are robust and highly productive and avoid issues such as tiredness, burnout, high employee turnover, motivational issues, or problems with the emotional climate? Bringing together the fields of process management and organisational behaviour for the first time, this book provides sorely needed practical guidance on how organisations can diagnose, anticipate, and address psychological issues in their workforces as well as process vulnerabilities in their operations. Advocating for a human-centred approach to process management, the authors help discover and prevent negative psychological issues related to emotional exhaustion. This book offers a step-by-step toolkit for burnout recognition and systematic prevention using established process management tools. Thus, the book offers a deep look into psychological aspects far beyond classical process management.

Over the last decade, Lean-Agile principles have become the standard methodology by which product and technology teams operate. However, Lean-Agile was written for small companies seeking new markets to buy their innovative software products, not for an average corporation with a catalogue of existing software products that must be maintained and rebuilt. The typical tech-enabled business isn't a lean startup; it's a chunky corporate. This book offers an alternative software development methodology perfectly suited for chunky corporate product management.     You'll quickly find out how individual players in the corporate organization impact business performance. You'll follow the story of Blake, a well-meaning but ultimately naive, CEO of a fictional company called Acme Tech. As he and Acme struggle to maintain business performance, it becomes apparent how embedded and complex his challenges are.  Lean-Agile principles are regularly misapplied in the corporate environment, causing tension, missed deadlines, and inefficient working practices.     You'll see that managing software transformation at a large, mature business requires a new set of tools. Popular development methodologies are not well-suited for the replatforming exercises that chunky corporates inevitably face. This book helps product and technology leaders navigate software development projects at organizations grappling with the constraints of investor ownership.    Chunky corporates have a lot going for them: The Lean-Agile Dilemma reveals that, when managed well, they have the potential to be safe havens in a relentlessly unstable world.   You will:  Understand how replatforming differs from new product development  Learn how to manage existing data when updating or building new software  Gain tools to prioritize items in your overstuffed product roadmap Who This Book is For Product managers, product owners, product leadership, tech leadership, and business leaders at mature tech-enabled businesses.    

This book, now in a thoroughly revised and updated second edition, takes a pragmatic and hype-free approach to explaining artificial intelligence and how it can be utilised by businesses today. At the book's core is a framework which describes, in nontechnical language, the nine core capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Each of these capabilities, ranging from image recognition, through prediction, to Generative AI, is explained using real-life examples and how they can be applied in a business environment. The advent of Large Language Models has put AI front and centre of Board discussions. AI has the ability to deliver step-change benefits to organisations and enables forward-thinking business leaders to rethink their business models or create completely new businesses. But most of the real value of AI is hidden behind marketing hyperbole, confusing terminology, inflated expectations and dire warnings of 'robot overlords'. Any business executive who wants to know how to exploit AI in their business today is left confused and frustrated. As an advisor in AI, Andrew Burgess regularly comes face-to-face with business executives who are struggling to cut through the AI and LLM hype. The knowledge and experience he has gained in advising them has provided him with the skills to help business executives understand what AI is and how they can exploit its many benefits. Through the distilled knowledge included in this book, business leaders will be able to take full advantage of this most disruptive of technologies and create substantial competitive advantage for their companies.

This open access book is your ticket to entrepreneurial success! Learn practical tips to think more like an entrepreneur, spot opportunities, build key relationships, tell compelling stories, and grow your venture. Discover the secrets to overcoming challenges, managing stress, and making decisions in the dynamic world of entrepreneurship. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, these straightforward tools will guide you to success in the complex entrepreneurial landscape. Say goodbye to overwhelming decisions and hello to a simplified path to building your entrepreneurial dream!

This dissertation [is] aimed at gaining a better understanding of how business gets impacted by, and simultaneously impacts its context of conflict. Through qualitative field studies on the Israeli-Palestinian IT industry – a growing industry that brings Israeli and Palestinian professionals together to work on software – and conceptual theorizing, the author provides a unique insight into how people experience business cooperation despite ongoing violence and how intergroup contact within firms could further aggravate or help reduce conflict. The field studies are based on a total of more than 80 in-depth interviews, more than 900 documents, and memos of personal reflections during data collection.

The book brings together the expertise of a unique team of researchers and methods from fields of futures studies, land use planning, social sustainability and wellbeing, architecture, spatial planning, design and real estate economics, and presents a novel understanding of the direct and indirect impacts of possible crises in the space and land use context. It goes on to discuss the concept of resilience and exemplifies potential solutions and offers a holistic and forward-looking approach for crisis management through a lens of social sustainability and wellbeing, making an important contribution to the promotion of wellbeing in the built environment, especially in terms of land and residential space and building use.

The pathways to economic development are changing. Environmental sustainability is no longer a choice but a necessity to maintain a competitive edge in the global economy. Just like in nature, where survival hinges on adaptation, this Element shows how nations adjust to -and take advantage of- the new dynamics of structural transformation induced by climate change. First, by analysing the uneven industrial geography of decarbonisation, the inadequate state of climate financing and rise of green protectionism, it demonstrates that the low-carbon economy stands to increase economic disparities between nations, unless action is taken. Then, by examining green industrial policies and their varied success, it explains how governments can still join the green industrialisation race. Finally, it examines how to adapt green industrial policy to different starting points, market sizes, productive structures, state-business relations dynamics, institutional layouts, and ecological contexts. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Why successful leaders must embrace simple strategies in an increasingly uncertain and complex world. Making decisions is one of the key tasks of managers, leaders, and professionals. In Smart Management, Jochen Reb, Shenghua Luan, and Gerd Gigerenzer demonstrate how business leaders can utilize heuristics-simple decision-making strategies adapted to the task at hand. In a world that has become increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), the authors make the case against complex analytical methods that quickly reach their limits. This against-the-grain approach leads to decisions that are not only faster but also more accurate, transparent, and easier to learn about, communicate, and teach. Smart Management offers an evidence-based yet practical discussion of how business leaders can use smart heuristics to make good decisions in a VUCA world. Building on the fast-and-frugal heuristics program, Smart Management demonstrates the efficacy of heuristic decision making in a twofold approach. First, it introduces the concept of ecological rationality, which prescribes the environmental conditions under which specific heuristics work well. Second, the book describes a repertoire of heuristics, referred to as the adaptive toolbox, that leaders, managers, and professionals can develop and rely on to make a variety of decisions, such as on business strategy, negotiation, and personnel selection. The toolbox not only showcases the practical usefulness of these heuristics but also inspires readers to discover and develop their own smart heuristics.

Business and Human Rights Law is a rapidly growing area of law, which has dramatically transformed many parts of international law. In this new volume in the Elements series, Robert McCorquodale explores how the responsibility for human rights abuses has transitioned from a purely state obligation to also being the responsibility of businesses. Business responsibility for human rights impacts have become subject both to legislation and to court decisions whenever their activities lead to human rights abuses anywhere in the world.This book shows the importance of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in these developments, and examines their influence on international, regional, and national law. It also analyses the changes on state obligations to protect human rights, on the corporate responsibility for human rights abuses, and on effective access to remedies for those adversely affected by business activities. Each of these shifts has consequences on core tenets of international law, such as sovereignty and jurisdiction, and has implications for crafting new international law in areas such as climate change and technology.Robert McCorquodale brings his decades of experience in scholarship and legal practice in business and human rights law, as well as his extensive engagement with businesses, governments, civil society, and international organisations, to bear on his understanding and analysis of this increasingly important field.

While current economic theory focuses on prices and games, this book models economic settings where harmony is established through one of the following societal conventions:

• A power relation according to which stronger agents are able to force weaker ones to do things against their will.
• A norm that categorizes actions as permissible or forbidden.
• A status relation over alternatives which limits each agent's choices.
• Systematic biases in agents' preferences.

These four conventions are analysed using simple and mathematically straightforward models, without any pretensions regarding direct applied usefulness. While we do not advocate for the adoption of any of these conventions specifically – we do advocate that when modelling an economic situation, alternative equilibrium notions should be considered, rather than automatically reaching for the familiar approaches of prices or games.

The book presents a multidimensional analysis of shareholders’ impact on company value creation. The authors chose the IT sector as the area of study; this sector, being one in which modern technologies are essential, acquires special significance for the global economy. The book features a review of notions and concepts related to the management of company value and methods of measuring it, the shareholder’s impact on the creation of company value, and factors affecting long- term value creation; an analysis of the places of occurrence, power and direction of a shareholder’s impact on building the long- term capacity of an IT sector company for creating the value thereof, as well as the conceptualisation and operationalisation of such impact; an analysis of the role of shareholders in IT sector companies, a profile of shareholder competence which makes the role of a shareholder unique to the company and fulfils the “value- creating owner” postulate; an analysis of the role of hired managers cooperating with the shareholders with an indication of the significance of mutual development and the supplementation of one’s own skills.

This open access book provides an overview of urban digital platforms such as Airbnb and Deliveroo, which, along with Amazon, Google, Facebook, and other IT companies, constitute by now the infrastructures for other businesses to operate on and for our social life to go on. These platforms serve as standards-based techno-economic systems that simultaneously capture cooperation through remote coordination and organize labor via algorithm management. Based on a three-years research project, this contributed book outlines a general theory of platform capitalism that conceives these platforms not only as technical devices, but as generative engines that operate at the interface of several aspects, such as digitalization of forms of social cooperation; algorithm-based management of labor and participation; and private and vertical appropriation of profits. These elements are somehow iconic of the capitalist evolution of the last decades, and they open up a reflection on new forms of "primitive accumulation" (in particular regarding data), on the mechanisms used to capture and extract social surplus value, and on the logistic-financial dimensions of capital. Finally, in light of the transformations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors examine how platforms can evolve into hegemonic organizational structures. Assuming we are all already living in the age of the platform, this book takes a multifaceted approach--combining sociology with urban studies, and political sciences with economics--to grasp the challenges our societies face in terms of ensuring fair economic growth, adequate social protections, and labor rights. It will appeal to anyone interested in digital platforms and how they are changing the organization of labor, urban spaces, and forms of governance.

This open access book examines how international trade agreements apply to domestic regulations on cross-border data flows and then proposes a multilayered framework to align international trade law with evolving norms and practices in global data governance. Digital trade and global data governance are at a unique crossroads, raising significant policy challenges. The book focuses on five policy areas at the interface of digital trade and global data governance: privacy, cybersecurity, governmental access to data, data divide, and competition. In five separate chapters, the book analyses how different types of domestic laws in each of these policy areas interface with existing provisions in international trade law. Thereafter, each of these chapters explores the challenges and possibilities for aligning international trade law with evolving norms, standards and best practices in that specific area of data regulation, both at the domestic and transnational level. Drawing upon these findings, the final chapter proposes a multilayered framework for aligning international trade law with evolving norms and practices in global data governance.

Contemporary film and television production is extraordinarily mobile. Filming large-scale studio productions in Atlanta, Budapest, London, Prague, or Australia's Gold Coast makes Hollywood jobs available to people and places far removed from Southern California--but it also requires individuals to uproot their lives as they travel around the world in pursuit of work. Drawing on interviews with a global contingent of film and television workers, Kevin Sanson weaves an analysis of the sheer scale and complexity of mobile production into a compelling account of the impact that mobility has had on job functions, working conditions, and personal lives. Mobile Hollywood captures how an expanded geography of production not only intensifies the often invisible pressures that production workers now face but also stretches the parameters of screen-media labor far beyond craftwork and creativity.

The greatest tool is the hardest to use. Machine learning is the world's most important general-purpose technology-but it's notoriously difficult to launch. Outside Big Tech and a handful of other leading companies, machine learning initiatives routinely fail to deploy, never realizing value. What's missing? A specialized business practice suitable for wide adoption. In The AI Playbook, bestselling author Eric Siegel presents the gold-standard, six-step practice for ushering machine learning projects from conception to deployment. He illustrates the practice with stories of success and of failure, including revealing case studies from UPS, FICO, and prominent dot-coms. This disciplined approach serves both sides- It empowers business professionals, and it establishes a sorely needed strategic framework for data professionals.

bThe world is encountering multiple crises - climate, droughts, floods, energy, food, and pandemics, to name a few. We have a problem, this is the solution./bCapitalism and Crises is about how capitalism can fix them - how it can solve not cause them. The reason why it has caused them is that we have misconceived the nature of our capitalist system. We have failed to understand the key institution at the heart of it - business - and as a result we have allowed it to cause as well as solve problems. This book describes why this has happened and what needs to change to address it: it will take you through how the capitalist system operates, where it fails and why, and it will demonstrate that at the core of the problem is the key driver of capitalism and that is profit - the way in which we resource and reward those who run the system. Currently, profit comes from causing as well as solving problems. It must not, if we are to prevent the problems. Drawing on history, philosophy, psychology, and biology as well economics, law, and finance, Mayer describes what has gone wrong, what needs to change, and how to fix it. He sets out the big challenges that capitalism must address and how it should set about doing that, and discusses how financial institutions should be at the heart of this, and how the public sector can work with the private on a common purpose of solving problems and creating shared prosperity. Capitalism and Crises provides an inspiring and motivational roadmap of how we as practitioners, policymakers, consumers, employees, communities, students, and citizens of the world can together tackle the challenges of the 21st century - to flourish and survive.

This book exposes two inspiring research categories: digitization and trust. Digitization is a phenomenon that dynamically modifies the modern world in almost every area. Modern technologies, artificial intelligence and humanoid robots are instruments with an increasingly significant impact on the shape of the management process of modern organizations, including the way people are managed. Trust is a subtle concept, with a very different interpretation, influencing the behaviour of employees in a multifaceted way. A superficial look at the combination of both categories seems to see them as irrational. Upon closer examination, however, it exposes many interesting fields of scientific exploration. Trust, as a research category, has been included in three significant dimensions: in relation to co-workers, superiors and information technology, dominated by digitization. Each draws attention to different problems of priority importance for the organization. Asserting the idea that trust in the conditions of digitization becomes a category of timeless importance in the interdisciplinary dimension, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners and advanced students in the fields of management of technology and innovation, organizational studies and leadership.

This book aims to provide sustainable solutions for better understanding and management of online education in different parts of the world. In this context, it explores the attitudes and perceptions of stakeholders, such as students, faculty, and other actors on issues related to online education. In particular, it examines the challenges they have faced over the years when online courses were introduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A model is proposed that includes five variables: specific communication issues in online education, the ability of professors to offer online courses, the quality of online education, students' perceived stress during online education, and the technical requirements of online education. The book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the new and future ways of teaching and learning. Chapter "When a Phenomenon-Based University Course Went Online: Students' Experiences and Reflections After Sauna Bathing" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Managing Technology from Laboratory to Marketplace outlines the process of getting innovative research out of the laboratory and into the market, a path which is often fraught with challenges. Many research projects meet their end as they attempt to cross this so-called "valley of death"--the period between the research phase of a project and the point when the new product or process emerging from that research becomes commercialized and enters the market.  Firstly, this book aims to better understand how and why projects succeed in entering the market while others falter. Second, it uses these insights to guide researchers to optimize their chances of successfully making that transition, and finding their place in the market.  The book primarily uses case studies from the field of advanced materials, but can be used by any researcher making the transition from laboratory to marketplace. 

Climate change is increasingly contested on financial terms. Different actors are advancing competing climate visions and interests by adopting financial positions. International institutions urge action by identifying financing gaps needed to meet climate targets. The finance sector claims it holds the key to unlocking money needed for climate investment. Activists expose greenwashing while using financial tactics to undermine fossil fuels. Vulnerable countries demand wealthy governments repay historical climate debts. This book offers an accessible and critical guide to the political economy and economic geography of climate finance. It identifies six competing "positions" of climate finance to make sense of the array of financial instruments, institutions and ideas that are remaking the relationship between capitalism and climate change. Using a wide range of case studies, from green bonds, to divestment, carbon offsetting, climate tech, central banks, and international climate funds, the authors show how climate finance is shaping our collective climate futures.

The Global Governance Forum and the Global Challenges Foundation collaborate in this collection in their concern that the UN Charter and the contemporary infrastructure for international cooperation are no longer fit for purpose and lack the instruments, resources and legitimacy to address the catastrophic risks threatening our future. Twenty-eight contributors offer thoughtful proposals for reforming existing international institutions and creating new ones to build a more peaceful, prosperous and just world, covering themes such as the management of weapons of mass destruction, collective security arrangements, justice and equity in economics, human rights, migration and refugees, climate mitigation, and food security, all bearing on the health of both people and planet. The vital project of this century is building institutions that will underpin global governance in coming decades, requiring imagination, persistence, empathy, and confidence that we will find a path to enhanced mechanisms of binding international law and the resources to make that happen. The volume is essential reading for scholars and researchers on international politics and public policy and indispensable for diplomats and government agencies.

This book offers new transdisciplinary perspectives on luxury, exploring the topical phenomenon of digitally retouched (censored) and blockchain-secured (sensored) luxury watches and outlining implications that emerge for the field of luxury studies and managerial practice. Based on a cross-disciplinary approach, the book integrates theoretical and empirical perspectives to advance the readers’ understanding of luxury. With a particular focus on the Swiss luxury watch context, the book thereby draws on qualitative, quantitative, and archival data to shed new light on recent luxury trends, integrating literature on aesthetics of labour, conspicuous consumption, Gestalt theory, ethical theory, functional theories of attitudes, and surveillance studies. Eight chapters take the readers through a range of topical challenges arising with the display and changing moral perceptions of luxury and shifts that the luxury watch sector is facing in light of the digital transformation impacting luxury goods and the luxury management environment. This unique book will be of value for academics, scholars, and upper-level students across management studies with a particular interest in the luxury and fashion industries, luxury management, brand management, business ethics, and digital transformation. With a foreword by Thomaï Serdari, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In this deeply archival work, Jennifer S. Clark explores the multiple ways in which women's labor in the American television industry of the 1970s furthered feminist ends. Carefully crafted around an impressive assemblage of interviews and primary sources (from television network memos to programming schedules, production notes to executive meeting agendas), Clark tells the story of how women organized in the workplace to form collectives, affect production labor, and develop reform-oriented policies and philosophies that reshaped television behind the screen. She urges us to consider how interventions, often at localized levels, can collectively shift the dynamics of a workplace and the cultural products created there.

This open access book addresses relationships that develop from the complex set of legislative, regulatory, and institutional arrangements that arise in the governance of high-hazard industries, especially those connected with safety. It analyses the difference in practices between high-hazard sectors such as nuclear power, chemical processing, and transport with those in the finance and healthcare sectors.   The relationship between regulating and regulated entities is important in ensuring that safety is not subordinated to other concerns and in maintaining public confidence. As a result, the brief addresses various pressures and trade-offs inherent in that relationship, trade-offs between such considerations as: cost of the oversight activity and its effectiveness; regulator independence and its level of competency and understanding of the risks involved; ability to provide advice on meeting regulatory goals and being able to criticize decisions made; and effectiveness and intrusion in operational activities.   The contributors show how, over time, a more horizontal or "decentred" approach to regulatory oversight has appeared, with a larger degree of delegation of certain decisions to industry and a greater role for a range of third parties such as certification bodies, auditors, insurers, industry associations and NGOs.   This book is of interest to academics working in the fields of safety science or organizational management and to practitioners, regulators and policy-makers concerned with health and safety and critical infrastructure.

This open access book addresses the idea that there are two ways to go about achieving a safe working environment. The text challenges the prevailing notion that compliance with a rule system, imposed from the top of an organization and designed to anticipate possible hazards in system operation, is really incompatible with the idea that the professional expertise of front-line workers is what promotes safe outcomes despite inevitable unanticipated perturbations. The contributors, drawn from academic and industrial backgrounds, demonstrate that rather than being at odds with each other, rules-compliance and proactivity are in fact complementary resources the coexistence of which increases safety. Furthermore, the implications of this approach extend beyond safety, being relevant to business performance, strategies for innovation and system resilience as well. The book steps back from an exclusive focus on front-line work to explore the way in which compliance and initiative are articulated at different levels within the hierarchy of a firm, right up to that of top management. Further, the contributors analyze the way in which safety authorities, the justice system, and the general public perceive and interpret such strategies, in particular in the aftermath of major events. This book deals with issues of interest to researchers and graduate students in safety science and organization studies and to members of expert bodies and experts in industry and consultancy concerned with similar subjects.

In 1948, Milton Friedman and L. J. Savage suggested that risk preferences explain the demand for insurance and gambling--a theory that is still almost universally accepted by economists today. If you were to ask almost any economist why people purchase insurance, they would say it is because most people are "risk averse," or equivalently, "prefer certainty of losses." If asked to explain why people gamble, they would say it is because some people are "risk seekers." In A Theory of Insurance and Gambling, John A. Nyman critiques this approach and proposes a new theory of the motivations for insurance and gambling. He argues that demand for insurance and gambling is best understood by focusing not on risk preferences, but on the income transfer, the states of the world that trigger the income transfer, and the value of the income in those states. In other words, insurance is motivated by a preference to transfer income to future states of the world where income is more valuable. Gambling, on the other hand, is motivated by a preference to transfer income to future states of the world where additional income is less costly to obtain. Nyman ultimately seeks to reorient how economists think about insurance and gambling by moving away from seeing uncertainty as a negative motivating factor to simply a mechanical feature that allows for the augmentation of income and consumption. He moves away from biased models that ignore income effects and state dependency when evaluating the benefits from insurance and gambling, and away from preferences regarding risk toward the desire to obtain additional future income. Presenting the case that risk preferences do not motivate demand for insurance or gambling, A Theory of Insurance and Gambling calls into question a fundamental tenet of economic thinking.

The contribution of Edgar H. Schein to the field of management, organisation studies and applied behavioural science is both extensive and deep. For almost 70 years, he has creatively and systematically shaped theory and practice in areas including organisation development and change, career dynamics, the cultural dynamics of complex systems, leadership, process consultation and the clinical inquiry/research paradigm. He has written extensively on the process of organisational change and framed the construct of the clinical approach to research. With such an extensive corpus over such a long period, Schein has been termed a “transcendent thought leader” and it is in this spirit that a volume exploring his work offers a contribution how scholars and practitioners can come to understand their engagement in organisations. This singular volume adopts a reflective perspective on the work of Edgar Schein as a social scientist and shows how he developed his craft as an engaged organisational scholar-practitioner through reflexive attention to his experience in working with managers and organisations and generating knowledge out of action. The intended contribution is both to present Schein’s work to students and scholars of organisation studies and to offer a reflexive methodological framework to engage scholar-practitioner in any field.

Unlock the future of global economics and business with New Topics in Emerging Markets. This captivating edited volume is your gateway to understanding the dynamic forces shaping economies on the rise. Delve into critical themes like financial resilience in times of crisis, the impact of technology in Sub-Saharan Africa, the evolving landscape of education in the metaverse, and much more. With diverse insights from leading minds, this book explores the intricacies of banking, innovation ecosystems, leadership in sports, and the ever-changing realm of e-commerce in a Web3 world. Gain a deeper understanding of emerging markets and their pivotal role in the global landscape. Whether you are a seasoned expert or just starting your journey in economics and business, this book offers a thought-provoking and accessible exploration of the challenges and opportunities that define the future. Don’t miss your chance to stay ahead of the curve – grab your copy today and embark on a journey into the heart of emerging markets.

Today, being authentic has become an aspiration and an imperative. The notion of authenticity shapes the consumption habits of individuals in the most diverse contexts such as food and drinks, clothing, music, tourism and the digital sphere, even leading to the resurgence of apparently obsolescent modes of production such as craft. It also significantly transforms urban areas, their local economies and development. The Hipster Economy analyses this complex set of related phenomena to argue that the quest for authenticity has been a driver of Western societies from the emersion of capitalism and industrial society to today. From this premise, the book advances multiple original contributions. First, it explains why and how authenticity has become a fundamental value orienting consumers' taste in late modern capitalism; second, it proposes a novel conceptualisation of the aesthetic regime of consumption; third, the book constitutes the first detailed analysis of the resurgence of the neo-craft industries, their entrepreneurs, and the economic imaginary of consumption underpinning them, and fourth, it analyses how the hipster economy is impacting the urban space, favouring new logic of urban development with contrasting outcomes.

This book contains practical tools to use in daily working life that analyse possible risks in the work environment when planning measures and actions for health promotion. These practical tools are derived from the four spheres for action and employability in the SwAge model. Developed by the author, the SwAge model (Sustainable Working Life for All Ages) is a theoretical, explanatory model that explains the complexity of creating a healthy and sustainable working life for all ages. By using the SwAge model as a comprehensible framework, the reader will be able to visualise the complexity of factors that affect and influence whether people are able to and want to participate in working life and in the work environment, thereby contributing to increased employability. Designing Sustainable Working Lives and Environments is an essential read for students, researchers, work environment engineers, ergonomics and human factor specialists, occupational health and safety practitioners, business managers, HR staff, leadership decision-makers and labour union professionals.

Amid a recent surge in arguments that the global economy has begun to "de-globalize," a question has emerged: will globalization survive? In One from the Many: The Global Economy since 1850, Christopher M. Meissner argues that based on the long-run of history, globalization will not be easily vanquished. This brief introduction to the economic history of the global economy and the process of globalization since 1850 tracks and explains changes in international trade, migration, and capital flows over time. All key indicators of globalization rose between 1850 and 1914 during the first wave of globalization. Between 1918 and 1939 the global economy stagnated, suffering a momentous collapse during the Great Depression of the 1930s. After World War II, the global economy re-emerged and integration deepened. A long-run view suggests that rising integration and growth of global economy can generate economic benefits and raise welfare. Given these lessons, the global economy will almost surely survive and integration will continue to grow. However, globalization can only survive if humanity continues to recognize its common interests and the untapped potential of further integration. At the same time, the potential adverse effects of greater integration must be acknowledged, mitigated, and minimized. Meissner's brief history of the global economy offers economics, political science, and history students a new perspective on the history of its subject matter, with an eye on a future where globalization has the potential to persist as an integrative force.

This open access book raises some central questions: Do we need moonshot policies to spur innovation and economic growth? What are the risks associated with such policies? Economic turbulence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and mounting environmental concerns have paved the way for a renaissance of targeted industrial policy. In particular, the idea that society should be organized around large missions is gaining momentum among high-income economies. However, the authors and editors of this volume contend that this shift has occurred without much critical examination, especially as the European Union has adopted these ideas, and Western economies are now increasingly organizing toward the achievement of large, state-formulated goals. Recognizing the urgent need for continued scholarly attention to question notions of the mission economy, more than 20 scholars discuss the dangers of top-down/vertical approaches to industrial policy and draw attention to the progress of independent enterprise, entrepreneurialism, and market solutions in a sound economy and society. By critically examining mission-oriented innovation policies, using theoretical perspectives and empirical investigations, the book highlights both the mechanisms behind failed missions and alternative approaches. This is a must-read for policy researchers and policymakers alike.  

This open access book presents a rich set of innovative solutions for artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing. The various chapters of the book provide a broad coverage of AI systems for state of the art flexible production lines including both cyber-physical production systems (Industry 4.0) and emerging  trustworthy and human-centered manufacturing systems (Industry 5.0). From a technology perspective, the book addresses a wide range of AI paradigms such as deep learning, reinforcement learning, active learning, agent-based systems, explainable AI, industrial robots, and AI-based digital twins. Emphasis is put on system architectures and technologies that foster human-AI collaboration based on trusted interactions between workers and AI systems. From a manufacturing applications perspective, the book illustrates the deployment of these AI paradigms in a variety of use cases spanning production planning, quality control, anomaly detection, metrology, workers' training, supply chain management, as well as various production optimization scenarios. This is an open access book.

This second book in the EFMD Management Education series explores business schools’ increasing focus on, and search for, meaningful societal and economic research impact. This involves, in particular, co-operation and collaboration in both knowledge creation and implementation of the findings of academic research in practice. Business schools have a critical role to play in ‘rewiring’ our missions for research relevance, impact and reach, and in recognising needs and addressing real issues of society and economy. With cases from a range of international business schools, the book doesn’t simply highlight the need for the dominant research model in business schools to evolve, but illustrates how this can happen in practice. In so doing, it opens the discussion on how the business school can contribute in very real ways to solving global and complex challenges such as climate change, rising inequalities, international isolationism, eroding democratic systems, and the spread of fake news. These are goals that the EFMD has championed since its inception, and this book will be of value and interest to policy makers and business leaders seeking insight into how management education will be shaped to support business and wider society, as well as those working in business schools and higher education leaders.

How do creative workers work? This book brings together insights from a range of relevant disciplines to help answer this significant research question. Featuring case studies from the European context, contributors tap into the experiences and practices from creative workers, demonstrating their attempts to navigate a changing environment which affects spaces, identities, and professional roles. As cross-disciplinary re-thinking of work, labour processes and management practices in the creative and cultural industries, the book offers perspectives on the importance of highlighting creative work as a phenomenon and practice beyond a particular industry, market, or public sector. Providing an opportunity to expand our conception of what creative work is, the book draws on studies of a range of activities, practices and sectors that are usually included in the cultural and creative industries as well as ones that are more untraditional. The result is a volume that will interest students, practictioners, and scholars with an interest in the creative industries.

In this thoughtful book, Penny Dick challenges orthodox views of gender inequality. Combining post-structuralist thinking with process ontology, the author presents a novel conceptual approach to rethinking gender inequalities in organizations and management settings. The author argues that current understandings of gender inequalities tend to focus too much on how to improve women's access to higher value roles and occupations rather than questioning why some roles and occupations are seen to be so valuable in the first instance. Positing that organizations tend to value people and roles that are seen to visibly contribute to bottom line outcomes such as profit and reputation, the book argues that the undervaluation of particular forms of work is related to its perceived lack of centrality to such outcomes. While this problem is certainly more often prevalent in the types of work typically performed by women, it is also one that affects many men. This accessible and provocative account of the application of social constructionism and post-structuralist thinking to the study of gender inequalities will be an important resource for academics, researchers, and students interested in gender and social justice, business and management, diversity and management, gender and management, and gender equality studies.

"Steven Rogelberg knows more about how to improve meetings than anyone on earth." - Adam Grant, PhD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife There are an estimated 200-500 million 1:1 meetings held each day around the world. In Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings Dr. Steven Rogelberg, author of The Surprising Science of Meetings, brings new and strategic insight to help us maximize the potential of these crucial conversations. 1:1s are arguably one of the most critical meeting types for the success of team members, managers, coaches, teams, and organizations. The best managers recognize that 1:1s are not an add-on to their role as a manager, conducting 1:1s successfully ARE foundational to being a manager. At the same time, these meetings fundamentally influence a direct report's experience at work, including how they engage and attach to their role, perceive the effectiveness of their manager, and envision their future at the organization.

This seminal compendium, available through open access, illuminates the forefront of digital collaboration in production. It introduces the visionary concept of the Internet of Production (IoP), an ambitious initiative by Germany's esteemed Cluster of Excellence at RWTH Aachen University. This handbook pioneers the integration of data, models, and knowledge across development, production, and user cycles, offering interdisciplinary insights into production technology's horizons with the overall objective to create a worldwide lab. The work is organized into seven key parts, each contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the IoP. Part I lays the foundation with interdisciplinary visions and concepts. Part II delves into IoP's infrastructure, encompassing digital shadows and actionable artificial intelligence. Part III examines materials within the digitalized production landscape. Part IV confronts the challenges and potentials of production processes under novel digitalization methods. Part V focuses on production management with data-driven decision support, while Part VI explores agile development processes. Finally, Part VII delves into the interplay between internal and external perspectives in the IoP, human-centered work design, and platform-based ecosystems. Supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), this compendium redefines manufacturing through the transformative IoP lens. Embrace this scholarly endeavor to embrace technological advancement. This is an open access book.

This open access book explores the various dimensions of women's empowerment in public policy in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, with a particular focus on Qatar, comparing the country to the other Gulf states. Through its rich compilation of empirical qualitative research, the text unpacks the various ways in which women's empowerment materializes in the GCC context, providing insights into public policy perspectives in high-income rentier states more broadly. The Arab world has long been part of the global dialogue on women's economic and political empowerment and the GCC has, over the past decade, situated women's empowerment amongst their respective national priorities and long-term strategies. In turn, the Gulf has seen gradual implementation of policies aimed at women, specifically, in looking to attract and retain them in the labour market, and in the public sector more broadly. The collection surveys and evaluates the progress made in recent decades, paying close attention to the cultural and policy constraints still limiting women's empowerment in the Gulf. With a key linkage to SDG5, this book is a timely text addressing the context and drivers behind policies centering on women in the Arab region, in its analysis of the interplay of international women's empowerment discourse and regional public policy decisions. It is relevant to researchers and policy makers focused on women and gender issues in relation to social, cultural, economic, and political empowerment in the Gulf specifically, but also in the Arab world and beyond. 

Having Too Much is the first academic volume devoted to limitarianism: the idea that the use of economic or ecosystem resources should not exceed certain limits. This concept has deep roots in economic and political thought. One can find similar statements of such limits in thinkers such as Plato, Aquinas, and Spinoza. But Having Too Much is the first time in contemporary political philosophy that limitarianism is explored at length and in detail. Bringing together in one place the best writing from key theorists of limitarianism, this book is an essential contribution to political philosophy in general, and theories of distributive justice in particular. Including some of the key published articles as well as new chapters, Having Too Much is necessary reading for scholars and students of political theory and philosophy, as well as anyone interested in questions of distributive justice.

This encyclopedia addresses critical issues lying at the foundation of collective living in a world where individualistic behavior has, in a growing number of instances, escalated into shortsighted and narrow-minded practices, much to the demise of large groups of living beings. Considering the many regressions our global society has endured in recent decades, induced by greed, racism, prejudices, egotism, social injustice, ethnocentrism, homophobia, and a wide range of destructive behavioral patterns, this work is intended to present learners and practitioners from myriad disciplines and performance areas an opportunity to tap into and find answers as well as inspiration toward doing the right thing.

This groundbreaking proceedings volume explores the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across key domains--healthcare, finance, education, robotics, industrial and other engineering applications --unveiling its transformative potential and practical implications. With a multidisciplinary lens, it transcends technical aspects, fostering a comprehensive understanding while bridging theory and practice.   Approaching the subject matter with depth, the book combines theoretical foundations with real-world case studies, empowering researchers, professionals, and enthusiasts with the knowledge and tools to effectively harness AI. Encompassing diverse AI topics--machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, data analytics and supervisory control -- the volume showcases state-of-the-art techniques propelling AI advancements.   Structured into four parts: Part 1: Artificial Intelligence (AI), explores evolving deep neural networks, reinforcement learning, and explainable AI, providing a deep dive into the technical foundations of AI advancements.   Part 2: Robotics and Control Systems, delves into the integration of AI in robotics and automatic control, addressing supervisory control, automated robotic movement coordination, anomaly detection, dynamic programming, and fault tolerance, offering insights into the evolving landscape of intelligent automation.   Part 3: AI and Society, examines the societal impact of AI through chapters on ethical considerations, economic growth, environmental engagements, and hazard management, providing a holistic perspective on AI's role in shaping society.   Part 4: PhD Symposium, presents the future of AI through cutting-edge research, covering legal and ethical dimensions, privacy considerations, and computationally efficient solutions, offering a glimpse into the next generation of AI advancements.   Catering to a diverse audience--from industry leaders to students--the volume consolidates the expertise of renowned professionals, serving as a comprehensive resource for navigating the ever-evolving AI landscape. An essential reference for those staying at the forefront of AI developments.  

Aimed at marketing students and practitioners, this book places less emphasis on theory but, instead, helps readers to understand why their customers are acting in a certain way or why their marketing activities or initiatives are not (or are) working out. The text examines the relevance of consumer behavior in such marketing topics as advertising and pricing, with topical chapters such as the sharing economy, luxury consumer behavior, and the ideological consumer. Each chapter includes boxes that highlight theory in greater depth; show how the concepts discuss “work” in actual practice; and the relevance of digital and social media marketing. This book will prove useful to those looking for a greater understanding of how consumer behavior provides greater insight about marketing activities.

Acquire the knowledge needed to work effectively in conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and understand the opportunities and threats it can potentially bring. This book will help you navigate from the traditional world of dialogue systems that revolve around hard coded scripts, to the world of large language models, prompt engineering, conversational AI platforms, multi-modality, and ultimately autonomous agents. In this new world, decisions are made by a system that may forever remain a 'black box' for most of us. This book aims to eliminate unnecessary noise and describe the fundamental components of conversational AI. Past experiences will prove invaluable in constructing seamless hybrid systems. This book will provide the most recommended solutions, recognizing that it is not always necessary to blindly pursue new tools. Written in unprecedented and turbulent times for conversational interfaces you'll see that despite previous waves of advancement in conversational technology, now conversational interfaces are gaining unparalleled popularity. Specifically, the release of ChatGPT in November 2022 by Open AI revolutionized the conversational paradigm and showed how easy and intuitive communication with a computer can be. Old professions are being disrupted, new professions are emerging, and even the most conservative corporations are changing their strategy and experimenting with large language models, allocating an unprecedented amount of budget to these projects. No one knows for sure the exact future of conversational AI, but everyone agrees that it's here to stay.  What You'll Learn See how large language models are constructed and used in conversational systems Review the risks and challenges of new technologies in conversational AI Examine techniques for prompt engineering Enable practitioners to keep abreast of recent developments in conversational AI Who This Book Is For Conversation designers, product owners, and product or project managers in conversational AI who wish to learn about new methods and challenges posed by the recent emergence in the public domain of ChatGPT. Data scientists, final year undergraduates and graduates of computer science

Conflicts within the owner circle  - or rather, within the "family of the family business"  - are often the main cause of existential crises for family businesses. The damaging effects of unchecked family conflicts affect two social systems: the family business and the business family itself. The impairment of the survival capability of the family business goes hand in hand with the reduced chance of constructive follow-up communication between family members. Once caught up in conflict communication, it is extremely difficult for business families to get out of it without the help of external knowledge. It is therefore surprising that the topic of conflict prevention in business families has so far been given relatively little attention.  Against this background, this book takes a closer look at the topic of "Conflicts in the Business Family" and deals with a number of topics that are essential to understanding the subject: the specific challenges and conflicts that business families typically face, as well as practically proven methods of conflict resolution at different levels. The content is based on the experiences that the two authors have gained in a variety of research projects, conflict moderation, and family strategic consulting projects over the past 18 years. The key findings from this wealth of experience are now made available to the general public.

Research in the area of intellectual property (IP) is increasingly relevant to the rapidly growing artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics industries, affecting the legal, business, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors. This contributed volume aims to develop our understanding of the legal and ethical challenges posed by artificial intelligence and robotics technologies and the appropriate intellectual property based legal and regulatory responses. It provides a philosophical and legal framework for considering concepts and principles that relate to the development and use of such technologies at the international, regional, and national levels.   The legal discourse in IP concerns the ever-growing AI sector and how businesses can protect their IP and incorporate AI. Moral sentiments often take a back seat to market sentiments, even in shaping the direction of ethical business strategy. This anomaly persists despite growing interest in ethics and IP. Taking an interdisciplinary and diverse perspective, this book enriches the evolving definition and scope of IP literature by focusing on actors, products and regulation that shape the business sector. Considering the gap between theory and practice, this book bridges academic and professional knowledge in unpacking legal, ethical and governance issues in the intellectual property industry.   In an effort to include as many viewpoints as possible, contributions have been gathered from diverse fields, including business, ethics, governance, law, philosophy and technology studies. This book will appeal to academics in the field of intellectual property, business ethics, AI, emerging technologies and strategic innovation, as well as practitioners and policy makers.  

It is now widely recognized that the emotional dimension of products and services is a critical success factor in many sectors. Generating products with significant emotional features is a complex challenge, as professionals responsible for designing and developing new products should be able to focus the design effort on eliciting specific emotions. But how do designers prepare themselves to convey emotions through the products they design? How do they know how to provoke certain emotions? To obtain the benefits that the knowledge of emotions can bring when it is integrated into the design process, professionals need to be assisted with approaches to apply the knowledge of emotions systematically and strategically.  This book presents the development of a process to support product design teams to envision emotion-focused new product ideas - Emotion-Driven Innovation (E-DI). The E-DI process supports designers in identifying the occurrence of emotions in a certain category of products present in the market and applying this information to make strategic decisions when defining the emotional intentions for the new product. It also helps to focus their creative thinking to develop strong and meaningful emotion-centric new product ideas. This book targets a professional audience wanting to learn more about this process and provides useful tools and frameworks that can be applied in real-life cases.

This book provides an overview of the latest developments in real estate blockchain technology and its applications. It explores blockchain technologies in all industries, cryptocurrencies' effect on the payment system, money transfers and currency exchange, investment, venture capital, etc. It examines the urgent need to build trust in digital technologies as companies rethink their approach to operations. It describes how Blockchain technology can enable property or land ownership to be managed through immutable records and verifiable transaction history to register and transfer land and how it can also be used to improve the efficiency of property management through the use of smart contracts. It explores how blockchain can upgrade the traditional Multi-Listing System (MLS) - a professional information system that combines the offers of market participants from different real estate agencies and creates a much more transparent MLS, in which brokers and agents can see the entire history of transactions in relation to property. In real estate, blockchain can help organize new forms of registries, titles, and transactions. The blocks recorded in the blockchain system certify the process of transfer of ownership and confirm money transfers and owner data. There are several regulatory and administrative challenges in implementing blockchain real estate tokenization. If and when this is implemented, it could greatly simplify and speed up the process of buying, receiving dividends, and financial benefits from owning real estate around the world. This book explores the implications of real estate blockchain and the opportunities and challenges. It will interest scholars, researchers, and real estate, finance, and financial technology students, real estate agents, town planners, developers, real estate experts, investors, communities.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of smartphone security, focusing on various operating systems and their associated challenges. It covers the smartphone industry's evolution, emphasizing security and privacy concerns. It explores Android, iOS, and Windows OS security vulnerabilities and mitigation measures. Additionally, it discusses alternative OSs like Symbian, Tizen, Sailfish, Ubuntu Touch, KaiOS, Sirin, and HarmonyOS. The book also addresses mobile application security, best practices for users and developers, Mobile Device Management (MDM) in enterprise settings, mobile network security, and the significance of mobile cloud security and emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, ML, and blockchain. It discusses the importance of balancing innovation with solid security practices in the ever-evolving mobile technology landscape.

This book analyzes the impact of entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation on meeting chronic and recurring social challenges, such as poverty, gender inequality, sustainability and climate change, income disparity, social healthcare, community housing and homelessness, and the drive to cleaner food and water supplies. It discusses inclusive entrepreneurial strategies to meet the above social challenges through transformational leadership in the developing economies. With case studies from Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the chapters highlight the success and failure of entrepreneurship in resolving the social challenges, arguing that effective convergence of strategies related to technology, innovation, and poverty alleviation influences entrepreneurial performance. Connecting different theoretical underpinnings and providing a number of frameworks, conceptual models, and cases, this work advances the conversation among entrepreneurship scholars on impacting the developing world.

This book is an indispensable guide for executives, programme leaders, and business owners on maximising value from automation and digital transformation. It provides a real-world journey map of automation, from RPA through to intelligent automation, with a focus on practical strategy and management principles intended to help seize the trillions of dollars that are still being left on the table by companies that have not yet made this leap.  Though grounded on the research and advisory work of the author team, this book offers clear eyed, easy to read advice for avoiding the 'transformation bog' where many organisations find themselves, struggling to maintain their strategy in an environment that feels increasingly dynamic and confusing. This book is not blinded by the brilliant new technology and hones in on what works and what distracts. It provides a total value of ownership framework for navigation and identifies seven core digital capabilities required for success.  Ultimately a book for realists rather than digital idealists, it will be a vital resource for professionals who must chart a course to verifiable business performance improvement through digital enterprise empowerment amid often conflicting priorities.

Discover the exciting future of sports in the digital age with "21st Century Sports: How Technologies Will Change Sports in the Digital Age." This thought-provoking book, now in its second edition, delves into the transformative power of technology on the world of sports within the next five to ten years and beyond. Written by esteemed academics from prestigious institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Queensland University of Technology, and the University of Cambridge, alongside seasoned practitioners with extensive technological expertise, this collection of essays offers profound insights. Through their comprehensive analysis, the authors explore the profound impacts of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain, web3 and robotics on sports. Uncover how these technologies will revolutionize not only the nature of sports itself but also consumer behavior and existing business models. Athletes, entrepreneurs, and innovators working in the sports and other industries will find invaluable guidance to identify trendsetting technologies, gain deeper insights into their implications, and stay ahead of the competition, both on and off the field. In this new edition, a special focus is given to technology convergence, featuring chapters on the future of fandom, sports in the third connected age and in new digital worlds like the Metaverse. This book is your gateway to the dynamic world where technology and sports intersect, offering a compelling vision of what lies ahead.