Our socio-economic systems continue to grow and evolve. We need to acknowledge that, consequently, our decisions often fail – they are ineffective and create unexpected side effects. The speed of execution is increasing constantly and markets and systems respond almost immediately, making decision-making challenging. There is little or no room for failure.This important new book analyses real world strategy and policy challenges, addressing the interconnectedness of the markets/systems we ...

He was one of the brightest stars at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, a brilliant young banker on his way to the top. But Brian Molony had a secret obsession: he loved to gamble. The unsuspecting bank was soon fuelling that obsession, as Molony helped himself to hundreds of thousands, then millions, of dollars in fraudulent loans. Despite falling deeper and deeper in the hole, Molony convinced himself he could win it all back. Before long, the mild-mannered assistant manager had bec...

In 2000, after the Tribune Company acquired Times Mirror Corporation, it comprised the most powerful collection of newspapers in the world. How then did Tribune nosedive into bankruptcy and public scandal? In The Deal From Hell, veteran Tribune and Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea takes us behind the scenes of the decisions that led to disaster in boardrooms and newsrooms from coast to coast, based on access to key players, court testimony, and sworn deposit...

From the award-winning author of Medical Apartheid, an exposé of the rush to own and exploit the raw materials of life—including yours.Think your body is your own to control and dispose of as you wish? Think again. The United States Patent Office has granted at least 40,000 patents on genes controlling the most basic processes of human life, and more are pending. If you undergo surgery in many hospitals you must sign away ownership rights to your excised t...

Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity, a definitive manifestation of the well-worn links between progress and devastation. This book explores the complex relationship that the corporate world has with climate change and examines the central role of corporations in shaping political and social responses to the climate crisis. The principal message of the book is that despite the need for dramatic economic and political change, corporate capitalism continues to rely o...

The telephone can be your greatest friend or your worst enemy. It all depends on how you use it!You would be surprised at the number of times the telephone either makes or breaks the customer relationship. How it can make things so much better or make them so much worse. Often it is just one simple word or action that makes the whole difference!Communicating over the phone is so much different than face to face communications. There are different things we need to pay atten...

The Global Financial Crisis is acknowledged to be the most severe economic downturn since the 1930s, and one that is unique in its underlying causes, its scope, and its wider social, political and economic implications. This volume explores some of the ethical issues that it has raised.

How do we design a self-organizing system? Is it possible to validate and control non-deterministic dynamics? What is the right balance between the emergent patterns that bring robustness, adaptability and scalability, and the traditional need for verification and validation of the outcomes?The last several decades have seen much progress from original ideas of “emergent functionality” and “design for emergence”, to sophisticated mathematical formalisms of “guided self-organization...

This book opens up a critical dimension to the interdisciplinary field of Industrial Ecology (IE) and one of its four areas - Industrial Symbiosis (IS). Presenting the concept of closed-loop thinking, this timely book explains how industries and societies can achieve environmental sustainability, a necessity for today’s businesses. Providing a critical review of the definitions and developments of both IE and IS, this study establishes their fundamental role in improving environmental sust...

This book blends the principles of cloud computing theory and discussion of emerging technologies in cloud broker systems, enabling users to realise the potential of an integrated broker system for scientific applications and the Internet of Things (IoT).Due to dynamic situations in user demand and cloud resource status, scalability has become crucial in the execution of complex scientific applications. Therefore, data analysts and computer scientists must grasp workflow management...

This book provides an introduction to digital storage for consumer electronics. It discusses the various types of digital storage, including emerging non-volatile solid-state storage technologies and their advantages and disadvantages. It discusses the best practices for selecting, integrating, and using storage devices for various applications. It explores the networking of devices into an overall organization that results in always-available home storage combined with digital storage in ...

As the economic crisis of 2008/09 unfolded, it became apparent that the huge mountains of debt being built up by central governments were unsustainable and that savage cuts would be needed to balance budgets. It also became clear that the public sector would be one of the first in line when the axe started swinging. Yet, at the very same time, green advocates from business, academia and civil society were making calls for greater investment at the local level in the big sustainability issu...