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This volume presents the refereed papers given at the International Conference on Managing the Asian Century, held in Singapore in July 2013. The proceedings of this conference include original papers contributed by researchers from many countries on different continents. The papers cover multi-disciplinary areas such as management, the social sciences, development economics, banking & finance, engineering management, and education, all in connection with the development of countries in Asia. Further, the papers are based on the 9 tracks at the conference: Transnational Education Antecedents of Asia's Competitiveness Emerging Trends in Banking, Finance and Accounting Business and Revenue Models in the Gaming Industry Psychological Issues in Asia Emerging Retail and Service Industries Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation Systems Thinking and Systems Practices Tourism Initiatives, Relationships and Issues in the Asia-Pacific Region

Market Evolution: Competition and Cooperation is a selection of papers presented at the recent meeting of the European Association of Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE). The volume brings together twenty high-quality papers reflecting frontier research in modern industrial organization. The contributions cover a broad spectrum of increasing theoretical, empirical and policy issues, including analyses of the nature of the firm, product differentiation, research and development, strategic alliances, information sharing in the banking sector, exchange rate pass-through in international competition, labor unionization and product rivalry, buyer-supplier bargaining, multimarket competition and related entry, entry and exit processes, multinational enterprises in the Third World, European integration and the restructuring of Eastern Europe. From a theoretical perspective, many chapters apply game theory to the analysis of firm behaviors and market competition. Moreover, a large number of the studies contain a significant empirical part, mainly by employing econometric techniques, to test the hypotheses derived from modern industrial organization theories. Data from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the European Union are presented and analyzed.

The International Conference on Production Research has a good tradition: The fIrst Conference was held in Birmingham 1971 with 61 participants. With respect to the decision that the Conference should be held every second year, by this time the Conference has been held in the following countries: Birmingham (1971, UK), Copenhagen (1973, Denmark), Amhurst (1975, USA), Tokyo (1977, Japan), Amsterdam (1979, The Netherlands), Novi Sad (1981, Yugoslavia), Windsor (1983, Canada), Stuttgart (1985, Germany), and the next Conference will take place in Cincinnatti (1987, USA). The number of submitted abstracts and papers was continuously increas­ ing such that the Programme Committee of this actual 8th Conference on Production Research has been forced to introduce a further refereeing procedure. Each submitted abstract was presented to at least two referees. This resulted not only in a reduction of the number of presented full papers and poster contributions but, as the Programme Committee and the Editiors hope, it led also to a considerable increase in the scientifIc quality of this 8th International Conference on Production Research. The preceeding conference in Windsor, Canada, was dedicated to the topic: Production Research as a Means of Productivity Improvement. We don't believe that this statement has become untrue in the meanwhile.

The conference was organized in order to assemble a group of researchers and practitioners in the area of Multiple Criteria Decision Making. The purpose was to discuss the current state of the art with respect to both theory and practice. This conference considered such points as recent t_heoretical developments in terms of models, the behavioral aspects of multiple criteria decision making, as well as practical applications already realized and 1n progress. In addition, there was interest in the problems of implementation of multiple-criteria methods, and the interface between theory and practice, Approximately 78 participants from 15 different countries attended the conference - both theorists and practitioners. A list of participants and their addresses is found on page 411 • Because of the relatively large number of papers presented, large morning sessions followed by smaller parallel afternoon sessions were employed'. In general a discussant commented on each paper. In addition, considerable time was reserved for small-group discussion and interaction. In addition to expressing our gratitude to the participants for their enthusiastic reception and participation in the conference, we want. to thank particularly the speakers, session chairmen and discussants. We also wish to thank the C.E.S.A. and the European Institute for their support, as well as Mrs. Randee Pomerantz and Miss Dina Nagler.~oth of the E.I.A.S.M.,for their active role in the organization and arrangements for the conference, and Mrs. Jessie Goveas, E.I.A.S.M. for typing the conference proceedings.

Projects are becoming more complex and traditional project management is proving inadequate. The key papers in this volume, which takes a look at a variety of new approaches, have been written by 13 leading figures and are discussed by 54 invited academics, consultants, contractors and clients from 15 countries. The papers cover modelling techniques (extensions to PERT methods, risk analysis, and system dynamics), particular domains (new technology, software development and infrastructure projects, specifically human factors), corporate structures (from both Western and Eastern European perspectives), management techniques (Western and Eastern), and the management of portfolios of projects. The book adopts a wide view, rather than advocating one technique: the mix of authors provides a rich, heterogeneous perspective. Mathematical modelling is balanced with human management, and over-complex of simplistic techniques are avoided. Readers are assumed already to have a sound knowledge of project management.

This second edition of the Handbook of Research on Techno-Entrepreneurship, edited by François Thérin, evidences a burgeoning field of research, and a growing cohort of international researchers working in this field who have produced works for this volume. The papers cover a variety of topics that intersect the realm of technovation with other fields of enquiry, such as economic development, sustainability, venture capital, new venture incubation, and academic entrepreneurship. This Handbook represents a convenient place to find and read this broad array of recent papers in this field.'- Evan J. Douglas, Griffith Business School, Australia'In this Handbook, François Thérin assembles a group of researchers with diverse perspectives to enrich our understanding of the nature, antecedents and consequences of techno-entrepreneurship. The Handbook is comprehensive in its scope, deep in its analyses, informative and interesting to read. It opens many avenues for research while communicating well with managers and policy makers.'- Shaker A. Zahra, University of Minnesota, USTechno-entrepreneurship is broadly defined as the entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial activities of both existing and nascent companies operating in technology-intensive environments. This second edition examines the latest trends in techno-entrepreneurship. Comprising entirely new contributions by international experts, this edition covers among others:- Family business- Green and sustainable techno-entrepreneurship- Effectuation- Techno-intrapreneurship- Academic entrepreneurship-Frugal innovationWith chapters focusing on China, India, Southeast Asia and South America, the Handbook explores views on the new hot spots in techno-entrepreneurship development.Providing a comprehensive, highly accessible and innovative first insight into the developing sphere of techno-entrepreneurship, this international study will be essential reading for postgraduate students, academics and researchers with an interest in management and entrepreneurship. Managerial and entrepreneurial professionals in high-tech industries will also find much to interest them within this Handbook.Contributors include: R. Abdullah, P.M. Banerjee, B. Bhardwaj, V. Blok, J. Borchardt, A. Brem, W. Carter, G. Criaco, C. Dessì, C. Fitzgerald, M. Floris, Z. Fuquan, M. Hoppe, J. Houterman, D.A. Isabelle, D. Jolly, T. Kollmann, K.-H. Lai, M. Ledwith, A. Leirner, L. Manral, T. Minola, L.M. Nor, O. Omta, R. O Shea, H. Othman, J. Pellikka, M.Saeed Siddiq, M.S. Salimath, A.Sanna, C. Serarols-Tarres, J. Woolley, A.Yash Bhatiya, M. Yusof, N. Zakaria

The articles in this book constitute the proceedings papers from the IFIP WG 8.2 Working Conference,'IS2000: The Social and Organizational Perspective on Research and Practice in Information Technology,'held June 1 0-12, 2000, in Aalborg, Denmark. The focus of the conference, and therefore this book, is on the basic aim of the working group, namely, the investigation of the interrelationships among four major components: information systems (IS), information technology (IT), organizations, and society. This basic social and organizational perspective on research and practice in information technology may have evolved substantially since the founding ofthe group, for example, increasing the emphasis on IS development. The plan for the conference was partially rooted in the early WG 8.2 traditions, in which working conferences were substantially composed of invited papers. For IS2000, roughly half of the paper presentations were planned to be invited; the remaining half were planned to be double-blind refereed in response to a'Call For Papers.'Invited papers were single-blind reviewed in order to provide the authors with pre-publication feedback and comments, along with the opportunity to revise their papers prior to its final incorporation in this book.

Alan M. Rugman's and Cecilia Brain's paper examines the R&D and strate­ gies of the world's largest finns in the phannaceuticals sector and finds a high degree of intra-regional sales. R&D and sales are more concentrated within North America and Europe than in Asia. In addition, the relative size of the US market, compared to other parts of the triad, creates imbalances with respect to R&D, sales and international strategy. The paper written by Bruce Kogut and Anca Metiu addresses the question of what limits the international distribution of work between rich and poor coun­ tries in the software industry. Their research reveals a convergence among co­ located and distributed projects. The results indicate that the managerial experi­ ence to support global outsourcing of intellectual labor is already advanced, while creativity remains more likely to be located in rich countries. lohn Cantwell, Katherina Glac, and Rebecca Harding analyze the extent and the patterns of specialization of the internationalization of R&D since 1969 by the largest Swiss finns abroad, and by the largest non-Swiss finns in Switzer­ land. They find out that Swiss-owned finns abroad access technologies in the primary fields of their own industry, while foreign-owned finns conducting re­ search in Switzerland demonstrate more technological diversification away from their own primary fields and into sources of local Swiss traditional technological strengths.

The collection of papers in this book comprises the proceedings of the 23rd CIRP Design Conference held between March 11th and March 13th 2013 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. The event was organized in cooperation with the German Academic Society for Product Development – WiGeP. The focus of the conference was on »Smart Product Engineering«, covering two major aspects of modern product creation: the development of intelligent (“smart”) products as well as the new (“smart”) approach of engineering, explicitly taking into account consistent systems integration. Throughout the 97 papers contained in these proceedings, a range of topics are covered, amongst them the different facets and aspects of what makes a product or an engineering solution “smart”. In addition, the conference papers investigate new ways of engineering for production planning and collaboration towards Smart Product Engineering. The publications provide a solid insight into the pressing issues of modern digital product creation facing increasing challenges in a rapidly changing industrial environment. They also give implicit advice how a “smart” product or engineering solution (processes, methods and tools) needs to be designed and implemented in order to become successful.

This book examines a range of issues emerging from the interaction of Information Technologies and organizational systems. It contains a collection of research papers focusing on themes of growing interest in the field of Information Systems, Organization Studies, and Management. The book offers a multidisciplinary view on Information Systems aiming to disseminate academic knowledge. It might be particularly relevant to IT practitioners such as information systems managers, business managers and IT consultants. The volume is divided into six sections, each one focusing on a specific theme. The content of each section is based on a selection of the best papers (original double blind peer reviewed contributions) presented at the annual conference of the Italian chapter of AIS, which has been held in Rome, Italy in September 2012.​

​ Technology is the key driver of business. May it be airport, ICT, smart governance, manufacturing or plantations. Technology management opens up opportunities for the business and help achieve leadership positions. This collection of papers provides a glimpse of issues faced in different sectors. These papers also should inspire more researchers to expand the scope of the subject itself.

The last few centuries have seen paper-based documents and manuscript signatures dominate the way businesses enter into a contractual relationship with each other. With the advent of Internet, replacing paper-based contracts with B2B electronic contracts is a possibility. However, an appropriate technology and an enabling legislation are crucial for this change to happen. On the technology front this feature has the potential to enable business executives to sit in front of their computer and sign multi-million dollar deals by using their electronic signatures. On the legal front various pieces of legislation have been enacted and policies developed at both national and international levels to give legal recognition to such type of contracts. This book presents the findings of an empirical study on large public listed Australian companies that examined businesses'perception towards the use of electronic signatures in B2B contracts. Essentially, it identifies six key factors that create a disincentive to businesses to move from the practice of paper- based signatures to the new technology of electronic signatures. This book offers legal practitioners, academics and businesses insights into issues associated with the use of electronic signatures and suggests a number of measures to promote its usage in B2B contracts.

Experimental Business Research includes papers that were presented at the First Asian Conference on Experimental Business Research held at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), on December 7-10, 1999. The conference was organized by the Center for Experimental Business Research (cEBR) at the HKUST. The papers presented at the conference and a few others that were solicited especially for this volume contain original research on individual and interactive decision behavior in various branches of business research including, but not limited to, economics, marketing, management, finance, and accounting. Experimental Business Research is suitable as a secondary text for a graduate level course, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

This book represents a selection of contributions to the Regional Science Association, European Summer Institute, held at Arco, Lake of Garda, Italy, from 17th to 23rd July 1988 on the theme of'Theories and policies of technological development at the local level'. As such it forms a complementary volume to the collection of invited papers entitled'The Spatial Context of Technological Development', edited by Professors Riccardo Cappellin and Peter Nijk.amp, and published by Avebury/Gower. The Summer Institute covered a broad range of themes and contributions from over 100 researchers. It has therefore not been our intention to represent or replicate these themes directly, but to provide as wide an international coverage of current research in regional science in the field of technological change as possible. The papers to be found in this book are drawn from the European Community, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, North America and elsewhere. Inevitably, as the book was to be published in English, most of the editorial work has been undertaken at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University. In so doing, we have attempted to standardize the English as far as possible, whilst trying not to lose the characteristics of the styles of the individual authors.

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at an international symposium on research and development, industrial change and economic policy organized and hosted by the University of Karlstad, Viinnland, Sweden. Situated about halfway between Stockholm and Oslo, Karlstad stands on the River Klara, which reaches north into the mountains of Norway. Founded by King Charles IX of Sweden, whose statue stands in the city centre beside the river, the city celebrated its 400th anniversary in 1984. For many decades the wealth of Karlstad has been based on traditional industries such as iron, timber and paper, and throughout the province of Viinnland there are a considerable number of industrial communities which grew up around mines, ironworks, sawmills and papermills. Even the cultural structure of these communities is heavily marked by the industrial environment in which they developed. However, for over a decade now a major structural reorientation has been taking place and the old industrial structures have been disappearing. For various reasons the importance of large scale, manufacturing companies has declined and as a result of intense development work with new ideas, new entrepreneurs and new technology, we have seen the rapid rise of small companies. In this context, recent research has shown that universities playing an increasingly central role in regional development. Thus the continued development of the University of Karlstad is of significant regional and national interest. Although fairly small in an international perspective (approximately 4000 students) the university is expanding rapidly.

This book contains the key-note lectures and a selection of papers that were presented at the 15th Conference of the European Association for Research in Industrial Econo­ mics (EARlE) held under the auspices of GRASP at Erasmus University Rotterdam in 1988, plus an introductory chapter by the Editors. Upon suggestions by the Editors, all papers have been revised for this book, some more extensively than others. Robin Marris has added to his lecture a synopsis of the contributions to the Round Table on the Micro-Macro Interface which he chaired during the Conference. The papers cover issues that seem to be both interesting and relevant for the 1990s. While some of the papers are cast in a rather established research frame -enabling the use of regular academic routines - others are first attempts at delineating the contours of areas that are peripheral to what is often considered as the core of Industrial Organization. In their introductory chapter, the Editors set forth that a neglect of those areas may well relegate Industrial Organization to social irrelevancy. Therefore, it is hoped that the book will also contribute to a reflection on the main lines of Industrial Organization research for the 1990s -thus helping to create a healthy perspective for this part of economics at a time when macroeconomics is undergoing a severe crisis.

The papers in this volume were fIrst presented at a symposium on'An Expanded Public Role in Job Training? The Issue of Market Failure in the Provision of Training.'The symposium took place in May, 1989. It was sponsored by the LaFollette Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. JozefRitzen, then in Madison on leave from Erasmus University in the Netherlands, organized the symposium. Subsequently he became Minister of Education and Science for the Netherlands. He asked David Stern to fInish the work of editing the papers for publication. All the papers have been revised in light of comments by discussants at the symposium, as well as subsequent comments by the editors and outside reviewers. INTRODucrroN AND OVERVIEW Jozef M. M. Ritzen Erasmus University Rotterdam Minister of Education and Science The Netherlands David Stem School of Education University of California, Berkeley Two factors are contributing to an increased interest in the training of adult employees. First, there is the present high rate of change in the technologies embodied in products and in production processes. This enhances the negative effect of the undersupply of training on economic growth. Higher levels of training would provide a more fertile environment for technological change. The second factor is the aging of the population.

ENTER has now met for six years, providing a valuable forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss and debate their ideas and perspectives regarding the nature and role of tourism and information technology in global society. Over the years, the nature and rate of change in the tourism industry has been overwhelming. The internet and related technologies are now dominant agents of change and have created a'new economy'which requires new processes and strategies to replace those developed for the'old economy'. The theme of ENTER 2000,'Keeping Pace with Change - New Frontiers for IT and Tourism', captures the challenges that we face at the beginning of the new millennium. The papers included in this volume illustrate the incredible growth in research and development in this area and reflect its youth, vitality and at the same time, maturation. Perhaps most important, these papers document how this new technology has changed and, in tum, how the industry has responded. The series of proceedings of which this volume is a part is creating a unique body of knowledge about the intertwined emergence of tourism and technology. There are, perhaps, three overriding themes of this congress. First is the focus on the tourist. Professor Stock's keynote address'Intelligent Interfaces for the Tourist'is a good representative of a series of papers discussing how information systems, electronic markets, and user interfaces have been or can be developed to enhance the tourist experience.

Asset Condition, Information Systems and Decision Models, is the second volume of the Engineering Asset Management Review Series. The manuscripts provide examples of implementations of asset information systems as well as some practical applications of condition data for diagnostics and prognostics. The increasing trend is towards prognostics rather than diagnostics, hence the need for assessment and decision models that promote the conversion of condition data into prognostic information to improve life-cycle planning for engineered assets. The research papers included here serve to support the on-going development of Condition Monitoring standards. This volume comprises selected papers from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd World Congresses on Engineering Asset Management, which were convened under the auspices of ISEAM in collaboration with a number of organisations, including CIEAM Australia, Asset Management Council Australia, BINDT UK, and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, China. Asset Condition, Information Systems and Decision Models will be of particular interest to finance, maintenance, and operations personnel whose roles directly affect the capability value of engineering asset base, as well as asset managers in both industry and government.

The digitisation of traditional media formats, such as text, images, video, and sound provides us with the ability to store, process, and transport content in a uniform way. This has led the formerly distinct industries of media, telecommunications, and information technology to converge. Cross-media publishing and service delivery are important new trends emerging in the content industry landscape. Mass-media organizations and content providers traditionally targeted content production towards a single delivery channel. However, recent economic and technological changes in the industry led content providers to extend their brands to cover multiple delivery channels. Following the content industry trend to'create once and publish everywhere'-COPE, a number of architectures, technologies, and tools are currently being developed and deployed to facilitate the automatic conversion of content to multiple formats, and the creation of innovative multi-platform services. This new approach enables the seamless access to information over different network infrastructures and client platforms. This work aims to bring together a cross-disciplinary core of contributors to address the technical and business issues of cross-media publishing and service delivery. The volume is based on papers presented at the conference on Cross-Media Service Delivery-CMSD-2003 that took place in Santorini, Greece in May 2003. Each contribution was reviewed by at least two reviewers-typically three. From the 30 papers that were submitted 20 were selected for presentation at the conference. Those were further'shepherded'by programme committee members to be improved according to the review suggestions.

There is now a widely accepted view among manufacturing and service organisations that'operations'can provide the means of achieving competitive edge. The OMA-UK Sixth International Conference has taken this view as its theme and focuses in particular on how technology and people can be used to improve manufacturing and service competitiveness. These proceedings have been organised according to the topics addressed within the overall conference theme and generally fall within three broad areas: technology-based topics, human resource-based topics and general topics. The technology-based topics are: Materials Control, Supply Chain Management and Logistics Flexibility in Operations Systems Computer-Aided Management of Operations Design, Process Planning and'Time to Market'Factors Application of KBS, Expert Systems and Modelling Production Planning and Control The human resource-based topics are: Work Organisation Human Factors Managing the Implementation of Technology Managing the Quality Improvement Process Education Training and Development Employee Participation and Involvement The general topics are: Operations Strategy International Comparisons and Country-based Papers Performance and Productivity Measurement and Improvement A particular feature of all the papers is that they emphasise the application of techniques, technologies and concepts rather than concentrating on specific functional description. The authors are drawn from around 14 countries and represent both the academic and industrial communities. Many are involved in the'mainstream'of operations management while a number are from other disciplines relevant to the conference theme, such as industrial engineering and organisational behaviour.

M. Rycroft, FacultyMember, InternationalSpaceUniversity e-mail:Rycroft@isu.isunet.edu'The Space Transportation Market: Evolution or Revolution?'was the question which was the focus for the papers presented, and also the Panel Discussions, at the fifth annual Symposium organised by the International Space University. Held in Strasbourg, France, for three lively days at the end of May 2000, the Symposium brought together representatives of the developers, providers and operators of space transportation systems, of regulatory bodies, and of users of the space transportation infrastructure in many fields, as well as experts in policy and market analysis. From the papers published here, it is clear that today's answer to the question tends more towards evolution than to revolution. The space launch industry is still not a fully mature one, and is still reliant on at least partial funding by governments. Better cooperation is essential between governments, launch providers, satellite builders and satellite operators in order to reduce the problems which the space transportation market faces today.

lication. Key criteria for inclusion included a sound combination of conceptuali­ zation and empirical grounding in response to the questions above. Peter J. Buckley and Martin J. Carter in their paper Governing Knowledge Sharing in Multinational Enterprises examines knowledge-sharing processes in four UK MNCs. A key challenge is to design governance architectures so that application strategy (uses of a given portfolio of knowledge) and discovery strategy (new combinations of knowledge) can be supported through knowledge sharing. A key trade-off obtains here between integration and partitioning of knowledge assets, whereby increased partitioning facilitates local knowledge sharing but complicates global integration. In addition, coordination mechanisms employed in the governance of knowledge sharing may be organized centrally or decentrally, whereby central organization may lead to knowledge loss and managerial overload while decentral organization may lead to loss of control. An important contingency in resolving these governance problems is the extent to which firms follow application and discovery strategies. In addition, the authors recommend to closely integrate incentive systems with attempts for knowledge sharing including individual incentives and rewards. Julian Birkinshaw and Carl F. Fey examine the Organization of Research and Development in Large Multinational Firms in a sample of 107 firms based in the UK and Sweden. The key challenge addressed in this paper is how knowledge creation is governed and how this impacts R&D performance. Several trade-offs obtain. First, headquarter centred vs.

The papers in volume 6 of Research in Competence-Based Management identify, elaborate theoretically, and investigate empirically a number of new kinds of dynamics in industries and product markets. In so doing, the papers develop some important new competence perspectives on both traditional and contemporary industry dynamics. Most approaches to developing competence theory have adopted an'inside-out'approach, i.e. micro-level analyses of sources of organizational competence lead to theory that predicts industry-level interactions and outcomes. The papers in this volume, however, largely adopt an'outside-in'approach to theory development that suggests how further understanding of firm-level competences may be enabled through macro-level analyses of the resources and capabilities organizations must develop to participate in new kinds of industry and product-market dynamics.

Presented here are 73 refereed papers given at the 34th MATADOR Conference held at UMIST in July 2004. The MATADOR series of conferences covers the topics of Manufacturing Automation and Systems Technology, Applications, Design, Organisation and Management, and Research. The 34th proceedings contains original papers contributed by researchers from many countries on different continents. The papers cover both the technological aspect of manufacturing processes; and the systems, business and management features of manufacturing enterprise. The papers in this volume reflect: - the importance of manufacturing to international wealth creation; - the necessity of responsiveness and agility of manufacturing companies to meet market-led requirements and international change; - the role of information technology and electronic communications in the growth of global manufacturing enterprises; - the impact of new technologies, new materials and processes, on the ability to produce goods of higher quality, more quickly, to meet markets needs at a lower cost. Some of the major generic developments which have taken place in these areas since the 33rd MATADOR conference was held in 2000 are reported in this volume.

This paper describes the current state of workplace wellness programs in the United States, including typical program components; assesses current uptake among U.S. employers; reviews the evidence for program impact; and evaluates the current use and the impact of incentives to promote employee engagement.

As is often the case, the preface is the last task to be finished during the preparation of a large volume such as you are now holding. The first task, obtaining approval for a symposium on the industrial applications, now seems a long time ago. The idea orginated with John Stevens, probably in 1982, from his observation of papers dealing with industrial applications of the Mossbauer effect appearing in the Mossbauer Effect Reference and Data Journal. His initial suggestion for a symposium entitled'Industrial Applications of the Mossbauer Effect'to be held at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society eventually led to the symposium at the International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies which met in Honolulu, Hawaii in December 1984. This volume is the result of the symposium at the above mentioned Congress, but is not actually the'proceedings'of the symposium because this volume does not contain all of the over one hundred Mossbauer effect papers that were pre­ sented at the symposium. Rather it contains a selection of papers that the or­ ganizing committee for the symposium deemed most appropriate for a volume devoted to industrial applications of the Mossbauer effect. The final volume also contains six chapters that were not a part of the symposium but which are closely related to the topic. There is another difference from many proceedings.

Welcome to the proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of the UK Systems Society being held at York University, United Kingdom from July 7th to 10th, 2002. It is a pleasure to be able to share with you this collection ofpapers that have been contributed by systems thinkers from around the world. As with previous UKSS conferences, the aim ofthis conference is to encourage debate and promote development of pertinent issues in systems theory and practice. In current times where the focus has moved from'information'to'knowledge'and where'knowledge management', of everyday speak, it seemed fitting to'knowledge assets'and so on, have become part offer a conference title of'Systems Theory and Practice in the Knowledge Age'. In keeping with another tradition of previous conferences, the UKSS Conference 2002 Committee decided to compile a collection ofdelegates'papers before the event as a platform from which to launch discussions in York. Ideas presented in the following papers will, undoubtedly, be developed during the dialogue generated at the conference and new papers will emerge. In his abstract for his plenary at this conference, Professor Peter Checkland throws down the gauntlet to systems thinking and its relevance in the knowledge age with the following statement:'30 Years In The Systems Movement: Disappointments I Have Known and Hopes/or the Future Springing from a lunchtime conversation at an American University, the Systems Movement is now nearly 50 years old.

The present volume in a series of books produced from European Business Eth­ ics Network (EBEN) conferences in Europe, is a compilation of plenary speeches and papers presented at the 1993 EBEN conference in Oslo, Norway. The theme of this year's conference was'The Use of Consultancy: Ethical Demands and Require­ ments'and there was a special focus on Eastern Europe. Of over 40 papers present­ ed at the conference from 165 participants representing 23 countries, we present here 20 selected by the editors as providing an overview of the latest thinking from both academicians and practitioners on the subject of ethics in consulting. Due to strict constraints on space in this volume, several valuable papers presented at the conference must be published elsewhere. We have also tried to maintain the unique flavor of the papers by authors whose mother tongue is not English. The consulting profession is booming in Europe, both in the West and in the for­ mer Communist Bloc countries. However, it has not previously been subjected to rigorous scrutiny from the ethical point of view. The conference planning commit­ tee thus sought to put the spotlight on the spreading phenomenon of buying and selling consultancy services within the European Union, within Europe and with the new Eastern Europe. The conference addressed several ethical challenges facing either the buyers or providers of consultancy services in both the private and public sectors.

The papers presented at the Second International Conference on Robotics and Factories of the Future held in San Diego, California, USA during July 28-31, 1987 are compiled in this volume. Over two hundred participants attended the conference, made technical presentations and discussed about various aspects of manufacturing, robotics and factories of the future. The number of papers published in this volume and the number of unpublished presentations at the conference indicates the evidance of growing interest in the areas of CAD/CAM, robotics and their role in future factories. The conference consisted of five plenary sessions, twenty three technical sessions, workshops, and exhibits from local industries and educational institutions. I wish to acknowledge with many thanks the contributions of all the authors who presented their work at the conference and submitted the manuscripts for publication. It is also my pleasure to acknowledge the role of keynote, banquet, and plenary sessions speakers whose contributions added greatly to the success of the conference. My sincere thanks to all session chairmen. I wish that the series of the International Conferences on Robotics and Factories of the Future which was initiated in 1984 in Charlotte, North Carolina will have a major impact on the use of robots and computers in the automated factories of the future.

This book of proceedings contains papers for the Second European Workshop on Mobile/Personal Satcoms (EMPS'96), held in Rome, Italy, and hosted by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. The EMPS'96 workshop follows the edition of two years ago, and is intended as an occasion for exchange of information and opinions among experts in the fast-growing field of mobile satellite communications. With respect to the first successful edition we only made one main modification. We issued a formal call for papers, instead oflimiting the selection process to invited papers as was in the past: 60 papers were received from 18 countries. Each paper has been reviewed by at least two referees, and then 41 papers were selected by the Workshop Steering Committee (WSC). An invited introductory lecture opens the workshop and is given by Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi, who is also honorary chairman of EMPS'96. Satellite Personal Communications Networks (SPCNs) are now expected to grow very fast, even beyond the most optimistic forecast: their unique feature to establish ex abrupto a world-wide communication fabric is certainly the winning card. Market analyses now indicate that LEO networks already planned to be operational around 1998 even risk being overwhelmed by users request, so that their extensions are already being considered. And, additionally, multimedia SPCNs are also being introduced at higher frequencies to provide broadband services.

The International Society for Quality of Life Studies held its first conference in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1997. Participants at the conference were allowed to submit their papers for the present volume. The submitted manuscripts went through a review and revision process, and the papers in this book represent the best articles from that process. Because the society sponsoring this volume is international in character, it is not sur­ prising that the 11 contributions are from 4 different countries: Canada (3), India (1), Netherlands (3), and the United States (4). Thus, the volume is cross-national in authorship, although we hope that future works can include more papers from additional nations. Ten of the eleven papers consider quality of life in terms of some aspect of subjective well-being. The book is broken into three sections: the first section presenting material on broad theories of subjective well­ being, the second section covering how work and income are related to subjective well-being, and the third section containing one chapter on health and one on political representation. I am proud to present these broad-ranging chapters on quality of life.

This paper investigates the effects of national culture on firm risk-taking, using a comprehensive dataset covering 50,000 firms in 400 industries in 51 countries. Risk-taking is found to be higher for domestic firms in countries with low uncertainty aversion, low tolerance for hierarchical relationships, and high individualism. Domestic firms in such countries tend to take substantially more risk in industries which are more informationally opaque (e.g. finance, mining, IT). Risk-taking by foreign firms is best explained by the cultural norms of their country of origin. These cultural norms d.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, language: English, abstract: Helping less developed countries close the gap to industrialized countries is the goal of a decades long struggle by various institutions likes the IMF, World Bank and NGOs. The various approaches that exist highly differ in the level of society they address. This paper scales the different development measures from top-down to bottom-up - whereas Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) employed by the IMF are counted as the former and Unconditional Cash Transfers mark the lower end of the scale - to check their respective effectiveness in promoting growth and lasting development. In between the extremes of the scales, light is shed on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) of the IMF, the approach to have the people in need participate in the disbursement of aid (Participation), as well as the usefulness of the Conditional Cash Transfers. Through the absence of substantial savings, poverty prevents the accumulation of capital and the needed investment for productivity growth. By failing to attract investment, Participation is found to do little to break this vicious circle and lift the least developed countries out of the poverty trap. SAPs embodied the right idea but were to rigorous and paying to little attention to the local conditions present. PRSPs seem a well-working successor to the SAPs by involving the recipient. Cash transfers are economically and ethically promising, but entail the risk of inflation and have no effects on under-investment in infrastructure necessary for supporting large-scale growth. Only a combination of bottom-up and top-down measures presents effective development assistance.

0 e This is the proceedings of the first annual symposium of the Safety-critical Systems Club (The Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, 9-11 February 1993), which provided a forum for exploring and discussing ways of achieving safety in computer systems to be used in safety-critical industrial applications. The book is divided into three parts, which correspond with the themes of the three days of the symposium. The first - Experience from Around Europe - brings together information on developments in safety-critical systems outside the UK. The second - Current Research - consists of papers on large projects within the UK, which involve collaboration between academia and industry, providing techniques and methods to enhance safety. The final part - Achieving and Evaluating Safety - explores how methods already in use in other domains may be applied to safety, and examines the relationships between safety and other attributes such as quality and security. The papers identify the current problems and issues of interest in the field of safety-critical software-based systems, and provide valuable up-to-date material for those in both academia and industry. The academic will benefit from information about current research complimentary to his own, and the industrialist will learn of the technologies which will soon be available and where to find them.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed scientific proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Subject-Oriented Business Process Management, S-BPM ONE 2012, held in Vienna, Austria, in April 2012. The 12 papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 36 submissions and are completed by one invited keynote paper and a summary of the tutorial onsubject-oriented business process management. S-BPM as a discipline is characterized by a seamless approach toward the analysis, modeling, implementation, execution, and maintenance of business processes, with an explicit stakeholder focus. This year's contributions address all life-cycle activities, in particular analyzing business objectives, subject behavior design and integration, and automating complex work procedures.

The Cloud Computing and Services Science book comprises a collection of the best papers presented at the International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science (CLOSER), which was held in The Netherlands in May 2011. In netting papers from the conference researchers and experts from all over the world explore a wide-ranging variety of the emerging Cloud Computing platforms, models, applications and enabling technologies. Further, in several papers the authors exemplify essential links to Services Science as service development abstraction, service innovation, and service engineering, acknowledging the service-orientation in most current IT-driven structures in the Cloud. The Cloud Computing and Services Science book is organized around important dimensions of technology trends in the domain of cloud computing in relation to a broad scientific understanding of modern services emerging from services science. The papers of this book are inspired by scholarly and practical work on the latest advances related to cloud infrastructure, operations, security, services, and management through the global network. This book includes several features that will be helpful, interesting, and inspirational to students, researchers as well as practitioners. Professionals and decision makers working in this field will also benefit from this book

Competition, Efficiency and Welfare contains a collection of papers in honor of Manfred Neumann. This collection was prepared as a tribute to a teacher and scholar, whose accomplishments have enriched various fields of economics. The magnitude of his interests is reflected in the breadth of topics covered in this volume: industrial economics, competition policy and related topics. However, if one unifying principle runs through Manfred Neumann's work, it is the belief in the power of competition. Born on May 16, 1933, Manfred Neumann studied economics at the University of Cologne. He graduated in 1960. In 1969 Manfred Neumann was appointed Professor of Economics at Nürnberg University. He was Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, President of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE) and Chairman of Industrial Organization Study Group of the Verein für Sozialpolitik. Most of his professional career has been spent at Nürnberg, where he has helped to make the Economic Institute one of the leading research centers in Industrial Organization. He has also been involved in various advisory activities. The volume contains 18 essays. The first twelve are grouped into four categories: Innovation and R&D (Part I), Cartels (Part II), Mergers and Merger Policy (Part III), and Methodological Issues in Industrial Organization (Part IV). These papers fall within the bounds of industrial economics, which has been Manfred Neumann's primary research interest throughout his career. Part V includes two papers on theories of international trade, which has been a recurring topic of interest for Manfred Neumann through the years. The last three papers look at broader policy and macroeconomic issues. Contributors to this volume include Karl Aiginger, David B. Audretsch, Paul A. Geroski, Stephen Martin and Dennis Mueller.

Russel Cooper and Gary Madden The present volume analyses the frontiers of broadband, electronic and mobile commerce markets. High-capacity and intelligent mobile telecommunication net­ works have resulted in new services, such as SMS and Internet banking. Growth in mobile Internet network infrastructure and subscription has provided a base for the development of e-commerce. Accordingly, recent research on broadband net­ works is forward-looking, e. g., forecasting Internet telephony adoption and the structure of future retail markets. The broadband regime brings with it concerns of identifying appropriate standards and delivery for universal service. Regulation and pricing are matters of importance as well as appropriate investment decisions within a market of ongoing innovation. The volume is divided in five parts: e-commerce business models; network technology and productivity; demand and pricing; market growth, regulation and investment; and issues related to the development imperative. The structure of the volume is guided by the basic themes considered at the International Telecommu­ nications Society's Asia-Australasian Regional Conference'Mcbusiness, E­ commerce and the Impact of Broadband on regional Development and Business Prospects', which took place in Perth Western Australia on 22-24 June 2003. The volume contains a selection of papers presented at this conference as well as four additional invited papers, commissioned to augment the volume. The invited pa­ pers are authored by Jerry Hausman (Chapter 1), Jeffery Bernstein and Charles Zarkadas (Chapter 6), M. Ishaq Nadiri and Banani Nandi (Chapter 8) and Glenn Woroch (Chapter 13).

This book of proceedings is the synthesis of all the papers, including keynotes presented during the 20th CIRP Design conference. The book is structured with respect to several topics, in fact the main topics that serve at structuring the program. For each of them, high quality papers are provided. The main topic of the conference was Global Product Development. This includes technical, organizational, informational, theoretical, environmental, performance evaluation, knowledge management, and collaborative aspects. Special sessions were related to innovation, in particular extraction of knowledge from patents.

Customer relationship management concentrates to a great extent on the profitable customers and how to enhance their profitability. Little insight has been given on how to treat the'wrong'customer. This literature research paper shows that customer profitability and overall firm profitability can be improved when dealing with unprofitable customers. The managerial approaches discussed focus on maintaining the customer relationship. For this reason, this paper differs from the general widespread strategy of termination or'firing'an invaluable customer. First, relationship marketing and'Relationship U-turn'are introduced in this paper. Second, customer value and methods of measuring customer value are discussed. The body of this paper concentrates on different approaches that try to turn unprofitable customer relationships into profitable ones. Some of the approaches focus on letting the customer take over more of the value chain activities such as self-service. Other approaches look more at the non-monetary value a customer can provide such as positive word-of-mouth. Examples from business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets are given for each approach and discussed in detail. The paper concludes with ideas for future research and a discussion. It emphasizes that companies need to realize that every customer is an asset that contributes to the value of a firm. However, customers differ in their needs and a company has to tailor its offering to meet these needs. Only when a company takes a more customer-centric view can it be successful, especially in mature markets.

One of the nation's biggest music labels briefly signed Taylor Swift to a contract but let her go because she didn't seem worth more than $15,000 a year. At least four book publishers passed on the first Harry Potter novel rather than pay J. K. Rowling a $5,000 advance. And the same pattern happens in nearly every business. Anyone who recruits talent faces the same basic challenge, whether we work for a big company, a new start-up, a Hollywood studio, a hospital, or the Green Berets. We all wonder how to tell the really outstanding prospects from the ones who look great on paper but then fail on the job. Or, equally important, how to spot the ones who don't look so good on paper but might still deliver extraordinary performance.Over the past few decades, technology has made recruiting in all fields vastly more sophisticated. Gut instincts have yielded to benchmarks. If we want elaborate dossiers on candidates, we can gather facts (and video) by the gigabyte. And yet the results are just as spotty as they were in the age of the rotary phone.George Anders sought out the world's savviest talent judges to see what they do differently from the rest of us. He reveals how the U.S. Army finds soldiers with the character to be in Special Forces without asking them to fire a single bullet. He takes us to an elite basketball tournament in South Carolina, where the best scouts watch the game in a radically different way from the casual fan. He talks to researchers who are reinventing the process of hiring Fortune 500 CEOs.Drawing on the best advice of these and other talent masters, Anders reveals powerful ideas you can apply to your own hiring. For instance: Don't ignore'the jagged résumé'-people whose background appears to teeter on the edge between success and failure. Such people can do spectacular work in the right settings, where their strengths dramatically outweigh their flaws. Look extra hard for'talent that whispers'- the obscure, out-of-the- way candidates who most scouting systems overlook. Be careful with'talent that shouts'-the spectacular but brash candidates who might have trouble with loyalty, motivation, and team spirit. Each field that Anders explores has its own lingo, customs, and history. But the specific stories fit together into a bigger mosaic. In any field, there's an art to clearing away the clutter and focusing on what matters most. It's not necessarily hard, but it requires the courage to take a different approach in pursuit of the rare find.

This series publishes monograph length conceptual papers designed to promote theory and research on important substantive and methodological topics in the field of human resources management. Volume 30 of'Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management (RPHRM)'contains a collection of papers on important issues in the field of human resources management, including insights on employment branding, family owned firms, virtual global teams and intrinsic motivation, thus continuing the tradition of the series to develop a more informed understanding of the field. This collection of papers represents excellent scholarship and illustrates the truly interdisciplinary character of the field.

The advancementof the softwareindustry has hada substantialimpact notonly onproductivityandonGDPgrowthglobally,butalsoonourdailyworkandlife. Software business refers to commercial activity of the software industry, aimed at generating income from delivery of software products and software services. Although software business shares common features with other international knowledge-intensive businesses, it carries many inherent features making it an intriguing and challenging domain for research. Until now, however, software business has received little attention from the academic community. The First International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB 2010) was organized in Jyv¨ askyl¨ a during June 21–23, 2010. This inaugural conference brought together a strong Program Committee of 52 members with research disciplines from various?elds of business management and technology mana- mentaswellasinternational?avorwithmemberscomingfrom17countriesfrom South and North America to Europe, India and Australia. Wereceived35researchpapersubmissions.Thepaperswentthroughadoub- blind review process producing at least three reviews for each accepted paper. The ProgramCommittee accepted 13 submissions to be presented as full papers in the conference, equaling 37% of the submissions. In addition, ten papers were accepted as short papers. The accepted papers represent the wide variety of - searchactivityonsoftwarebusiness.Forthepurposesoftheconferenceprogram, the papers were organized under eight themes: business models, business m- agement, ecosystems, education and research, internationalization, open source software and social media, product management, and software as a service. In addition to the paper sessions, the conference program included three keynote presentationsand a Business Innovation Track containing best-practice presentations from the software industry. The conference program also included two workshops, three tutorials and an adjunct meeting of the Cloud Software Consortia.

The global meltdown, the concomitant demise of legendary corporate behemoths, and the challenge of competing in a world marked by unprecedented complexities, volatility, discontinuities, and ambiguities, have pushed discussions on survival and excellence to the forefront. Towards the Next Orbit: A Corporate Odyssey brings forth ideas, experiences, studies, insights, and suggestions from renowned theoreticians and practitioners towards changing and succeeding in a new world. The first part of the book comprises rich conceptual papers and research-based empirical papers written primarily by thought leaders from all over the world. The second part comprises dialogs with persons who are well known in the business landscape as'change masters.'The chapters discuss cutting-edge ideas in the areas of corporate behavior, positioning, growth, leadership, employee relations, and so on. Together, the articles and interviews will help readers develop perspective, cognitive framework, behavioral repertoire, and portfolio of practices for making the transition from simply functioning to achieving excellence.

A large 2008 ISECS International Colloquium on Computing, Communication, Control, and Management (CCCM 2008), was held in Guangzhou, August 2008, China. Just like the name of the Colloquium, the theme for this conference is Advancing Computing, Communication, Control, and Management Technologies. 2008 ISECS International Colloquium on Computing, Communication, Control, and Management is co-sponsored by Guangdong University of Business Studies, China, Peoples'Friendship University of Russia, Russia, Central South University, China, Southwestern University of Finance & Economics, China, and University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is also co-sponsored IEEE Technology Management Council, IEEE Computer Society, and Intelligent Information Technology Application Research Institute. Much work went into preparing a program of high quality. We received about 972 submissions. Every paper was reviewed by 3 program committee members, about 382 were selected as regular papers, representing a 39% acceptance rate for regular papers. The CCCM conferences serve as good platforms for the engineering community to meet with each other and to exchange ideas. The conference has also stroke a balance between theoretical and application development. The conference committees have been formed with over two hundred committee members who are mainly research center heads, faculty deans, department heads, professors, and research scientists from over 30 countries. The conferences are truly international meetings with a high level of participation from many countries. The response that we have received for the congress is excellent. This volume contains revised and extended research articles written by prominent researchers participating in the conference.

Patient self-reported data has become increasingly important in today's clinical trials. Trials in some disease indications rely upon patient recorded diary data as the primary endpoint to demonstrate drug efficacy - including, for example, indications such as insomnia, migraine and pain. In addition, improvements in quality of life measured using patient questionnaires can now be included as claims on drug labelling. Traditionally these data have been collected using paper questionnaires and diaries issued to subjects. Regulators and the industry have become increasingly aware of the limitations of recording patient reported outcomes data on paper including data quality and integrity issues. As a result there is a growing interest in collection of patient reported outcomes data using electronic means (ePRO). Solutions include handheld PDAs, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, and other site-based hardware such as touchscreen PCs. Recently, there has been much open debate with the regulators around the use of ePRO in clinical drug submissions. US and European agencies have approved new drugs that have included ePRO data in the submission dossier, but there are many questions around the adoption of the technology that concern the community. These include: ¢ How should instruments developed on paper be adapted for electronic use, and what degree of validation should be done between paper and electronic forms? ¢ How can researchers ensure they are complying with regulatory requirements including the PRO guidance published by FDA in 2009 when using ePRO solutions? ¢ Can fewer patients be exposed in a clinical trial as a result of improved data quality obtained using electronic diaries? ¢ What type of solution should be used for certain patient populations and protocols, and how can ePRO solutions be designed optimally to increase patient acceptability and compliance? Bill Byrom and Brian Tiplady's ePro addresses all these issues, reviews the new FDA guidance, and provides a very contemporary view on this important subject.

Snow fell quietly the night before and the morning sun was shining brightly under the blue sky the next day. Looking out to the snow-white garden from a large w- dow, Sid Winter, one of the contributors to this book, was beaming with smile. It was such a nice and calm morning in the middle of December at a summer resort hotel one hour from Tokyo. That morning, he was going to present the last paper to our conference and to everyone's surprise, in the very same morning a praising book review of the Japanese translation of his famous book appeared in the major economic journal in Japan. Everyone congratulated him for the coincidence and it was such a happy ending to the three-day conference. The atmosphere of the conference, out of which this book grew, was very st- ulating and cordial at the same time. Without picking on the minor defects of the presented papers, every participant was trying to contribute by probing the issues presented deeper and trying suggestions to make the papers better. Among others, Bruce Kogut was responding fondly on Jiro Nonaka's comment on his paper and Dong-Sung Cho was trying to expand even more the already very broad conceptual framework that Hiro Itami presented. For sure, the dynamics of knowledge creation was at work in the conference room and the dining hall.

Theory and practice of writing a research paper linked through practical but creative activities. Includes activities for postgraduate dissertation writers. Contents include the following: • Writing identity • Research paper specifics • Conceptualising research • Making writing easier • Creative techniques • Getting started • Structure • Clear arguments • Feedback • Beginnings and endings

This publication contains sample papers which feature actual exam questions taken from a bank of questions provided by the Official Accreditor, APMG, so the exam questions in the book may appear on the day of your exam. The sample papers are also presented in the same way as they appear in the exam. Industry reviews: Director of Best Management Practice,'The purpose of this guide is to help people prepare for their PRINCE2 foundation or Practitioner examinations…This publication should help pave the way for those preparing to undertake PRINCE2 training…'Emma Jones, PRINCE2 Chief Examiner,'I would recommend that candidates intending to take a PRINCE2 examination review this guidance…'Richard Pharro, CEO APMG Group'…this guidance will prove invaluable in preparing you for your examinations.'