This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE 2015, held in Albi, France, in October 2015. The 61 revised papers were carefully selected from 126 submissions. They provide a comprehensive overview of identified challenges and recent advances in various collaborative network (CN) domains and their applications, with a strong focus on the following areas: risks in collaborative networks; agility and resilience in collaborative networks; collaboration frameworks; logistics and transportation; innovation networks; governance in collaborative networks; collaborative communities; information and assets sharing; business processes; performance and optimization; and network formation.

This practical guide shows how to facilitate collaboration among diverse individuals and organizations to navigate complexity and create change in our interconnected world. The social and environmental challenges we face today are not only complex, they are also systemic and structural and have no obvious solutions. They require diverse combinations of people, organizations, and sectors to coordinate actions and work together even when the way forward is unclear. Even so, collaborative efforts often fail because they attempt to navigate complexity with traditional strategic plans, created by hierarchies that ignore the way people naturally connect. By embracing a living-systems approach to organizing, impact networks bring people together to build relationships across boundaries; leverage the existing work, skills, and motivations of the group; and make progress amid unpredictable and ever-changing conditions. As a powerful and flexible organizing system that can span regions, organizations, and silos of all kinds, impact networks underlie some of the most impressive and large-scale efforts to create change across the globe. David Ehrlichman draws on his experience as a network builder; interviews with dozens of network leaders; and insights from the fields of network science, community building, and systems thinking to provide a clear process for creating and developing impact networks. Given the increasing complexity of our society and the issues we face, our ability to form, grow, and work through networks has never been more essential.

As businesses seek to compete on a global stage, they must be constantly aware of pressures from all levels: regional, local, and worldwide. The organizations that can best build advantages in diverse environments achieve the greatest success. Global Business Expansion: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly material on the emergence of new ideas and opportunities in various markets and provides organizational leaders with the tools they need to be successful. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as market entry strategies, transnational organizations, and competitive advantage, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for researchers, scholars, business executives and professionals, and graduate-level business students.

Business practices are constantly evolving in order to meet growing customer demands. Evaluating the role of logistics and supply chain management skills or applications is necessary for the success of any organization or business. As market competition becomes more aggressive, it is crucial to evaluate ways in which a business can maintain a strategic edge over competitors. Supply Chain and Logistics Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that centers on the effective management of risk factors and the implementation of the latest supply management strategies. It also explores the field of digital supply chain optimization and business transformation. Highlighting a range of topics such as inventory management, competitive advantage, and transport management, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for business managers, supply chain managers, business professionals, academicians, researchers, and upper-level students in the field of supply chain management, operations management, logistics, and operations research.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE 2019, held in Turin, Italy, in September 2019. The 56 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 141 submissions. They provide a comprehensive overview of major challenges and recent advances in various domains related to the digital transformation and collaborative networks and their applications with a strong focus on the following areas related to the main theme of the conference: collaborative models, platforms and systems for digital revolution; manufacturing ecosystem and collaboration in Industry 4.0; big data analytics and intelligence; risk, performance, and uncertainty in collaborative networked systems; semantic data/service discovery, retrieval, and composition in a collaborative networked world; trust and sustainability analysis in collaborative networks; value creation and social impact of collaborative networks on the digital revolution; technology development platforms supporting collaborative systems; collective intelligence and collaboration in advanced/emerging applications; and collaborative manufacturing and factories of the future, e-health and care, food and agribusiness, and crisis/disaster management.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE 2018, held in Cardiff, UK, in September 2018. The 57 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 143 submissions. They provide a comprehensive overview of identified challenges and recent advances in various collaborative network (CN) domains and their applications, with a strong focus on the following areas: blockchain in collaborative networks, industry transformation and innovation, semantics in networks of cognitive systems, cognitive systems for resilience management, collaborative energy services in smart cities, cognitive systems in agribusiness, building information modeling, industry 4.0 support frameworks, health and social welfare services, risk, privacy and security, collaboration platform issues, sensing, smart and sustainable enterprises, information systems integration, dynamic logistics networks, collaborative business processes, value creation in networks, users and organizations profiling, and collaborative business strategies.