In this book David and Alex Bennet propose a new model for organizations that enables them to react more quickly and fluidly to today's fast-changing, dynamic business environment: the Intelligent Complex Adaptive System (ICAS). ICAS is a new organic model of the firm based on recent research in complexity and neuroscience, and incorporating networking theory and knowledge management, and turns the living system metaphor into a reality for organizations. This book synthesizes new thinking ...

John Wood discovered his passion, his greatest success, and his life's work not at business school or helping lead Microsoft's charge into Asia in the 1990s but on a soul-searching trip to the Himalayas. He made the difficult decision to walk away from his lucrative career to create Room to Read, a nonprofit organization that promotes education across the developing world. By the end of 2007, the organization will have established over 5,000 libraries and 400 schools, and awarded long-term...

Revised and expanded in 2025The Little Book of Gold is dedicated to helping small (and very small) non-profits unlock their fundraising potential. Avoid common pitfalls and get tips on proven methods that work. This short guide helps new Executive Directors, active board chairs, and other key staff in charge of fundraising to learn the basics of professional and sustainable fundraising. Geared specifically for non-profits with small and very small budgets (a few hu...

Do you really understand what business value is? Information technology can and should deliver business value. But the Agile literature has paid scant attention to what business value means—and how to know whether or not you are delivering it. This problem becomes ever more critical as you push value delivery toward autonomous teams and away from requirements “tossed over the wall” by business stakeholders. An empowered team needs to understand its goal!Playful and thought-provokin...

Philanthropy is everywhere. In 2013, in the United States alone, some $330 billion was recorded in giving, from large donations by the wealthy all the way down to informal giving circles. We tend to think of philanthropy as unequivocally good, but as the contributors to this book show, philanthropy is also an exercise of power. And like all forms of power, especially in a democratic society, it deserves scrutiny. Yet it rarely has been given serious attention. This book fills that gap, bri...

Just a few short years ago, if you wanted to produce a new gadget or raise money to make an independent film, you had no choice but to scrape together funding on your own ... or hope a generous friend or relative might put up seed capital. These days, there's a new approach: crowdfunding. Sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe can not only help you raise money to fund your idea or cause, they can also help you establish a community of enthusiastic supporters.In Crow...

This volume explores the challenge of engaging knowledge management in a sharing economy. In a hyper-competitive business environment, everything tends to be digital, virtual and highly networked, which raises the issue of how knowledge management can support the decision whether or not to share strategic resources or capabilities. The book answers questions such as: to what extent does the sharing economy preserve or compromise the competitive advantage of organizations? And what are the ...

The increasing volume of information in the contemporary world entails demand for efficient knowledge management (KM) systems; a logical method of information organization that will allow proper semantic querying to identify things that match meaning in natural language. On this concept, the role of an information manager goes beyond implementing a search and clustering system, to the ability to map and logically present the subject domain and related cross domains. From Knowledge Abstract...

This book contains a collection of research papers on accounting information systems including their strategic role in decision processes, within and between companies. An accounting system is a complex system composed of a mix of strictly interrelated elements such as data, information, human resources, IT tool, accounting models and procedures. Accounting information systems are often considered the instrument by default for accounting automation. This book aims to sketch a clear picture...

Accelerating global change is generating a volatile, shifting and potent array of risks and threats for business and corporate management. If business is to survive and recover, the authors argue that a major shift is needed that embraces corporate culture, operational planning and the key role of communication in the information revolution. This innovative text meets this challenge head on. It includes informed insights into the implications for strategic planning, management and communic...

This book presents a comprehensive approach to protecting sensitive information when large data collections are released by their owners. It addresses three key requirements of data privacy: the protection of data explicitly released, the protection of information not explicitly released but potentially vulnerable due to a release of other data, and the enforcement of owner-defined access restrictions to the released data. It is also the first book with a complete examination of how to enf...

The Art of Governance is an essential guide for trustees in the performing arts and for the artists, managers, and community leaders who work with them. This book provides the larger context in which trustees govern—the art, artists, history, institutions, and national policies of the performing arts—and also explores more practical issues, such as board development, planning, finance, and fundraising. A wide range of distinguished artists, trustees, managers, and consultants have...