This is a management oriented book about efficiency, quality and effectiveness designed for an audience of management practitioners, scholars, and students. The integrative approach developed in this book contains new ideas regarding quality and efficiency-based effective management. These ideas lend themselves to managerial applications. This work is not meant to provide an exhaustive account of the measurement, and applications of effectiveness, quality, and efficiency concepts. With the exception of the treatment of conventional productivity concepts and measurements in Chapter 2, and of production flexibility in Chapter 5, the discussion in this book is largely non-teclmical. Among management practitioners, the book may be of particular interest to managers with broad strategic orientations in the fields of production management, quality management, marketing, and management of human resources. The academic audience is likely to include scholars and students interested in strategic planning, applied productivity analysis, quality management, marketing management, and management of human resources. The book could also be used as a supplementary text to or part of the readings in basic and advanced courses in strategic management, production management, and quality management. Concepts and dimensions of efficiency, quality, and effectiveness, as used throughout this book, are introduced in Chapter 1. The intricate sets of relationships among effectiveness, quality, and efficiency are explored.

"Considers the common functions of managers, such as effective planning and decision-making, organizational design and staffing, directing and controlling, and delegating. Offers methods to strengthen and enhance personal leadership stule, communication skills, and workplace motivation and involvement to improve individual and organizational productivity and increase business revenues."

The papers contained in this volume were originally presented at the 2015 International Conference on Complex Systems in Business, Administration, Science and Engineering. Included are the latest works of practitioners from a variety of disciplines who have developed new approaches for resolving complex issues that cannot be formulated using conventional, mathematical or software models. Complex Systems occur in an infinite variety of problems, not only in the realm of physical sciences and engineering, but also in such diverse fields as economics, the environment, humanities, and social and political sciences. The papers in the book cover such topics as: Complex ecological systems; Complexity science and urban developments; Complex energy systems; Complex issues in biological and medical sciences; Extreme events: natural and human made disasters; Climate change; Complexity of the internet-based global market; Complex business processes; Supply chain complexity; Transportation complexity; Logistics complexity; Closed and open systems; Attractions and chaotic systems; Complex adaptive software; Complexity of big data; Management of complexity; Global economy as a complex system; Complexity in social systems; Complex political systems; Administrations as complex systems; Complexity in engineering; Complexity and environment; Complexity and evolution; Complexity in linguistics, literature and arts.

Over the last two decades, the field of public administration has witnessed theoretical and practical changes that have innovated the relationships between public administration and performance management. Dealing with the rising complexity of performance regimes in contemporary public administration requires that policy-makers and their organizations are able to face unpredictable problems impacting on a community’s quality of life. Complex policy issues – such as immigration, pandemics, societal aging, crime, unemployment, and financial crises – cannot be easily solved by quick fixes that are focused only on a short-term and bounded vision of their causes. They rather require “robust” methods to support policy analysis and to affect sustainable community outcomes in cross-boundary settings. As illustrated in this book, Dynamic Performance Management provides a methodological framework enabling policy-makers to outline the causal relationships among policy outcomes, performance drivers, and related strategic resources. Such a modeling approach helps stakeholders to broaden the investigated system boundaries so to balance short- and long-term performance under different result domains. This approach blends performance management and System Dynamics modeling. Several examples and case studies are discussed to enable scholars and practitioners to appreciate the practical implications related to the use of such an approach.

Improve your professional management vocabulary with definitions in each chapter, and a complete glossary of terms. Visualise key concepts with over one hundred explanatory diagrams Gain confidence by testing your understanding on the accompanying website Practical applications of theory are illustrated in international case studies throughout the book Discussion questions prompt an exploration of key concepts

Based on the author’s first-hand experience and expertise, this book offers a proven framework for global software engineering. Readers will learn best practices for managing a variety of software projects, coordinating the activities of several locations across the globe while accounting for cultural differences. Most importantly, readers will learn how to engineer a first-rate software product as efficiently as possible by fully leveraging global personnel and resources. Global Software and IT takes a unique approach that works for projects of any size, examining such critical topics as: Executing a seamless project across multiple locations Mitigating the risks of off-shoring Developing and implementing processes for global development Establishing practical outsourcing guidelines Fostering effective collaboration and communication across continents and culture This book provides a balanced framework for planning global development, covering topics such as managing people in distributed sites and managing a project across locations. It delivers a comprehensive business model that is beneficial to anyone looking for the most cost-effective, efficient way to engineer good software products.