Decision Making and Business Performance


Book Description

This breakthrough study examines how business decisions explain successful and unsuccessful performance. Real world and academic research is evaluated, including interviews and cases studies, to create a model of how decisions and performance are connected for businesses of all sizes. Recommendations are made to optimize decision making and projections about the future of decision making and performance are provided.




Handbook of Research on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Decision Making for Sustainable Supply Chains


Book Description

Businesses must create initiatives and adopt eco-friendly practices in order to adhere to the sustainability goals of a globalized world. Recycling, product service systems, and green manufacturing are just a few methods businesses use within a sustainable supply chain. However, these tools and techniques must also ensure business growth in order to remain relevant in an environmentally-conscious world. The Handbook of Research on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Decision Making for Sustainable Supply Chains provides interdisciplinary approaches to sustainable supply chain management through the optimization of system performance and development of new policies, design networks, and effective reverse logistics practices. Featuring research on topics such as industrial symbiosis, green collaboration, and clean transportation, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, business executives, warehouse managers, operations managers, suppliers, industry professionals, sustainability developers, decision makers, students, academicians, practitioners, and researchers seeking current research on reducing the environmental impacts of businesses via sustainable supply chain planning.




Values, Rationality, and Power: Developing Organizational Wisdom


Book Description

This book presents an analysis of organizational wisdom via an embedded single case study of a group's attempt to develop and spread a medical innovation within a Canadian healthcare authority. By offering a unique insight into how values, rationality, and power interact in a real social setting, the book explores how they create positive change.




Talking Collective Action


Book Description

An ethnographic study of anti-nuclear movement groups that both challenges assumptions of traditional social movement studies of strategic action and shows what can be gained through microanalysis of talk in meetings, this book advances social movement studies methodologically and theoretically through the application of a new method of sequential analysis. Drawing on both conversation analysis and objective hermeneutics, it builds on microanalysis to scale up from sequences of talk to meetings, from meetings to groups, and from groups to the anti-nuclear movement, thus addressing a common criticism of analyses of face-to-face interactions: that they fail to demonstrate how their findings are relevant for questions beyond the interaction itself and thus for a broader sociological audience. A demonstration of the ways in which strategic deliberations by activists are subject to dynamics of face-to-face interaction, Talking Collective Action shows how groups adopt different styles of planning to engage with their environment and affect the groups’ development over time. As such, it will appeal to social scientists with interests in social movements, organizations and conversation analysis.




Strategic Information Technology and Portfolio Management


Book Description

"The objectives of the proposed book are to provide techniques and tools appropriate for building application portfolios and develop strategies that increase financial performance"--Provided by publisher.




Public Health Leadership


Book Description

During the last twenty years, the interest in public health leadership has continued to increase with the need to strengthen the infrastructure of public health, the events of September 11, 2001, the health reform movement, scientific breakthroughs, the increasing role for primary care programs in the public health agenda, and the increasing deficit at the federal, state, and local level. Since the publication of the first edition in 2003, Public Health Leadership: Putting Principles Into Practice has become a standard reference for future and practicing public health leaders. In five parts, it explores the basic theories and principles of leadership and then describes how they may be applied in the public health setting. Leadership skills and competencies, as well as methods for measuring and evaluating leaders are all thoroughly covered. This new third editioin is an exhaustive revision that now includes extensive coverage of the leadership skills and tools that are critical to managing public health emergencies. It also offers: • Updated exercises and case studies throughout • New chapter on Building Infrastructure, • New chapter on Accreditation, • New chapter on the Global Public Health Leader • New accompanying online Instructor’s Manual with over 100 references on leadership, additional case studies, curriculum guide, toolkit, and additional exercises.




Case Studies in Needs Assessment


Book Description

Case Studies in Needs Assessment offers insights about the practice of needs assessment in dynamic, real-world organizations and communities. This book invites both novice and seasoned analysts to look over the shoulders of practitioners, to examine needs assessment practice in action, to grasp the real-world issues that arise, and to understand a variety of needs assessment strategies and challenges. Each case in this book examines the implementation of needs assessment in a specific situation, bridging needs assessment theories and actual practice. The book is organized around five major approaches: knowledge and skill assessment, job and task analysis, competency assessment, strategic needs assessment, and complex needs assessment. The last chapter summarizes lessons learned from all the case studies: it describes the insights and tricks of the trade that Darlene Russ-Eft and Catherine Sleezer gained from commissioning and reviewing these cases.




Handbook of Industrial Engineering


Book Description

Unrivaled coverage of a broad spectrum of industrial engineering concepts and applications The Handbook of Industrial Engineering, Third Edition contains a vast array of timely and useful methodologies for achieving increased productivity, quality, and competitiveness and improving the quality of working life in manufacturing and service industries. This astoundingly comprehensive resource also provides a cohesive structure to the discipline of industrial engineering with four major classifications: technology; performance improvement management; management, planning, and design control; and decision-making methods. Completely updated and expanded to reflect nearly a decade of important developments in the field, this Third Edition features a wealth of new information on project management, supply-chain management and logistics, and systems related to service industries. Other important features of this essential reference include: * More than 1,000 helpful tables, graphs, figures, and formulas * Step-by-step descriptions of hundreds of problem-solving methodologies * Hundreds of clear, easy-to-follow application examples * Contributions from 176 accomplished international professionals with diverse training and affiliations * More than 4,000 citations for further reading The Handbook of Industrial Engineering, Third Edition is an immensely useful one-stop resource for industrial engineers and technical support personnel in corporations of any size; continuous process and discrete part manufacturing industries; and all types of service industries, from healthcare to hospitality, from retailing to finance. Of related interest . . . HANDBOOK OF HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS, Second Edition Edited by Gavriel Salvendy (0-471-11690-4) 2,165 pages 60 chapters "A comprehensive guide that contains practical knowledge and technical background on virtually all aspects of physical, cognitive, and social ergonomics. As such, it can be a valuable source of information for any individual or organization committed to providing competitive, high-quality products and safe, productive work environments."-John F. Smith Jr., Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President, General Motors Corporation (From the Foreword)




The Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations


Book Description

A comprehensive guide to effective strategic management of health care organizations. Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations provides essential guidance for leading health care organizations through strategic management. This structured approach to strategic management examines the processes of strategic thinking, consensus building and documentation of that thinking into a strategic plan, and creating and maintaining strategic momentum – all essential for coping with the rapidly evolving health care industry. Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations fully explains how strategic managers must become strategic thinkers with the ability to evaluate a changing industry, analyze data, question assumptions, and develop new ideas. The book guides readers through the strategic planning process demonstrating how to incorporate strategic thinking and create and document a clear and coherent plan of action. In addition, the all-important processes of creating and maintaining the strategic momentum of the organization are fully described. Finally, the text demonstrates how strategic managers in carrying out the strategic plan, must evaluate its success, learn more about what works, and incorporate new strategic thinking into operations and subsequent planning. This strategic management approach has become the de facto standard for health care management as leadership and strategic management are more critical than ever in coping with an industry in flux. This book provides heath care management students as well as health care administrators with foundational guidance on strategic management concepts and practices, tailored to the unique needs of the health care industry. Included are a clear discussion of health services external analysis, organizational internal analysis, the development of directional strategies, strategy alternative identification and evaluation, and the development and management of implementation strategies providing an informative and insightful resource for anyone in the field. This new eighth edition has been fully updated to reflect new insights into strategic thinking, new methods to conceptualize and document critical environmental issues, practical steps for carrying out each of the strategic management processes, industry and management essentials for strategic thinkers , and new case studies for applying the strategic management processes. More specifically, readers of this edition will be able to: Create a process for developing a strategic plan for a health care organization. Map and analyze external issues, trends, and events in the general environment, the health care system, and the service area. Conduct a comprehensive service area competitor analysis. Perform an internal analysis and determine the competitive advantages and competitive disadvantages. Develop directional strategies. Identify strategic alternatives and make rational strategic decisions for a health care organization. Develop a comprehensive strategy for a health care organization. Create effective value-adding service delivery and support strategies. Translate service delivery and support plans into specific action plans. The health care industry’s revolutionary change remains ongoing and organizational success depends on leadership. Strategic management has become the single clearest manifestation of effective leadership of health care organizations and the strategic management framework’s strengths are needed now more than ever. The Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations provides comprehensive guidance and up-to-date practices to help leaders keep their organizations on track.




Evaluating Capacity Development


Book Description

The perspective that informs this important book is that every evaluation of a capacity development effort should itself contribute to the capacity development effort and ultimately to the organization’s performance. This is a revolutionary idea in evaluation. With the idea have come the questions: Can it be done? And, if it is done, what will be the consequences? This book elucidates and deepens the idea, shows it can be done, and examines the consequences, both intended and unintended, of engaging in capacity development evaluation