Statistics for Business by Derek L. Waller

Statistical analysis is essential to business decision-making and management, but the underlying theory of data collection, organization and analysis is one of the most challenging topics for business students and practitioners. This user-friendly text and CD-ROM package will help you to develop strong skills in presenting and interpreting statistical information in a business or management environment.

Based entirely on using Microsoft Excel rather than more complicated applications, it includes a clear guide to using Excel with the key functions employed in the book, a glossary of terms and equations, plus a section specifically for those readers who feel rusty in basic maths. Each chapter has worked examples and explanations to illustrate the use of statistics in real life scenarios, with databases for the worked examples, cases and answers on the accompanying CD-ROM.

* Focused on the application of statistics for business using Microsoft Excel
* Includes over 200 worked examples, exercises and cases illustrating real-life business scenarios using statistics
* Accompanying CD-ROM provides databases for all worked examples, exercises, cases, and selected tables

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The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement - Revised 3rd Edition by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Revised third edition!

Alex Rogo is the manager of a failing manufacturing plant who receives an ultimatum from corporate headquarters: Turn the situation around in three months or the plant will be scrapped. With help from a mysterious mentor, Rogo discovers a revolutionary new way to do business—a way for people in any field of endeavor to increase productivity, profitability, and personal fulfillment.

A business book disguised as a novel, a love story about the manufacturing process, and an exhilarating adventure in human potential, The Goal is changing how America does business. First published in 1984, it became an underground bestseller; today it's used by thousands of companies and taught in hundreds of business schools. Includes the author's personal story, "My Saga."

This third edition includes case study interviews. Professional readers recreate interviews that David Whitford, Editor at Large with Fortune Small Business, conducts with the author Eli Goldratt and with business professionals from General Motors, Thomson-Shore, Security Federal Banks and others who put the principles of The Goal into action.

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Design Thinking Research: Building Innovation Eco-Systems (Understanding Innovation) by Larry Leifer, Hasso Plattner, Christoph Meinel

This book summarizes the results of Design Thinking Research carried out at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA, and Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany.
The authors offer readers a closer look at Design Thinking with its processes of innovations and methods. The contents of the articles range from how to design ideas, methods, and technologies via creativity experiments and wicked problem solutions, to creative collaboration in the real world and the connectivity of designers and engineers. But the topics go beyond this in their detailed exploration of design thinking and its use in IT systems engineering fields and even from a management perspective.
The authors show how these methods and strategies work in companies, introduce new technologies and their functions and demonstrate how Design Thinking can influence as diverse a topic area as marriage. Furthermore, we see how special design thinking use functions in solving wicked problems in complex fields.
Thinking and creating innovations are basically and inherently human – so is Design Thinking. Due to this, Design Thinking is not only a factual matter or a result of special courses nor of being gifted or trained: it’s a way of dealing with our environment and improving techniques, technologies and life.

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Portfolio Decision Analysis: Improved Methods for Resource Allocation (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science) by Ahti Salo, Jeffrey Keisler, Alec Morton

Portfolio Decision Analysis: Improved Methods for Resource Allocation provides an extensive, up-to-date coverage of decision analytic methods which help firms and public organizations allocate resources to 'lumpy' investment opportunities while explicitly recognizing relevant financial and non-financial evaluation criteria and the presence of alternative investment opportunities. In particular, it discusses the evolution of these methods, presents new methodological advances and illustrates their use across several application domains.
The book offers a many-faceted treatment of portfolio decision analysis (PDA). Among other things, it (i) synthesizes the state-of-play in PDA, (ii) describes novel methodologies, (iii) fosters the deployment of these methodologies, and (iv) contributes to the strengthening of research on PDA. Portfolio problems are widely regarded as the single most important application context of decision analysis, and, with its extensive and unique coverage of these problems, this book is a much-needed addition to the literature. The book also presents innovative treatments of new methodological approaches and their uses in applications.
The intended audience consists of practitioners and researchers who wish to gain a good understanding of portfolio decision analysis and insights into how PDA methods can be leveraged in different application contexts. The book can also be employed in courses at the post-graduate level.

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Economic Methodology: A Historical Introduction (Economics as Social Theory) by Harro Maas

Ever since the inception of economics over two hundred years ago, the tools at the discipline’s disposal have grown more and more more sophisticated. This book provides a historical introduction to the methodology of economics through the eyes of economists.
The story begins with John Stuart Mill's seminal essay from 1836 on the definition and method of political economy, which is then followed by an examination of how the actual practices of economists changed over time to such an extent that they not only altered their methods of enquiry, but also their self-perception as economists. Beginning as intellectuals and journalists operating to a large extent in the public sphere, they then transformed into experts who developed their tools of research increasingly behind the scenes. No longer did they try to influence policy agendas through public discourse; rather they targeted policymakers directly and with instruments that showed them as independent and objective policy advisors, the tools of the trade changing all the while.
In order to shed light on this evolution of economic methodology, this book takes carefully selected snapshots from the discipline’s history. It tracks the process of development through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, analysing the growth of empirical and mathematical modelling. It also looks at the emergence of the experiment in economics, in addition to the similarities and differences between modelling and experimentation.
This book will be relevant reading for students and academics in the fields of economic methodology, history of economics, and history and philosophy of the social sciences.

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Making IT Lean: Applying Lean Practices to the Work of IT by Howard Williams, Rebecca Duray

Making IT Lean: Applying Lean Practices to the Work of IT presents Lean concepts and techniques for improving processes and eliminating waste in IT operations and IT Service Management, in a manner that is easy to understand. The authors provide a context for discussing several areas of application within this domain, allowing you to quickly gain insight into IT processes and Lean principles.

The text reviews IT Service Management, with reference to the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) as a framework for best practices—explaining how to use it to accommodate Lean processes and operations. Filled with straightforward examples, it provides enough modeling tools so you can start your Lean journey right away. Examining the work of IT from an IT practitioner perspective, the book includes coverage of:
The OM Perspective—considers the work of IT from an Operations Management (OM) perspective, showing how many of the concepts that have been successfully applied within manufacturing can be applied to IT
The Lean Improvement Model—explains Lean concepts and practices and details the authors’ Lean improvement model
Lean Problem-Solving (Identifying and Understanding Problems)—considers operational work in IT and explains how to apply Lean practices related to problem identification and root cause analysis
Lean Problem-Solving (Identifying and Managing Solutions)—describes how to use good problem identification as the basis for identifying the right solutions
Lean IT Service Management—examines IT work from an IT Service Management perspective, using the ITIL® framework as a guide
Implementing and Sustaining Lean IT Improvements—explains how to implement and sustain Lean IT improvements
Throughout the book, the authors use a simple model for Lean Improvement as the framework for communicating practical guidance on identifying and understanding problems, as well as identifying, implementing, managing, and improving solutions. Emphasizing alignment with core Lean concepts, such as A3 Thinking and Plan Do Check Act, it introduces concepts in a manner that allows you to take away small bits at a time and immediately apply them in your IT operations. Exploring the notion that any IT organization can benefit from the application of Lean, the text supplies you with virtually limitless opportunities for improvement in your IT organization.

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Measuring and Improving Productivity in Services: Issues, Strategies and Challenges (Services, Economy and Innovation) by Faridah Djellal, Faiz Gallouj

The definition and measurement of productivity in services raises important conceptual, methodological and strategic problems. This book aims to provide a critical review of the main debates on productivity in the domain of services. The first part examines the theoretical consequences of services specificities on the concept of productivity and reviews the attempts to measure it. The second part is devoted to the main determinants of productivity growth and the strategies to increase productivity in service firms and organisations.

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Overcoming Isolation: Information and Transportation Networks in Development Strategies for Peripheral Areas (Advances in Spatial Science) by Harry Coccossis, Peter Nijkamp

As European countries pursue a common effort towards establishing a European Union, various isolated -and consequently disadvantaged -regions are likely to face increasing competitive pressures due to their peripheral location. To assist such areas, regional, national and supranational bodies put much effort into developing transport and communication networks and linkages in order to ensure that such less favoured areas are better integrated in the broader European social and economic development process. This book addresses the issue of lagging development in various -mainly central and southern - European regions which are in a disadvantageous position as a result of their isolated 10cation.··The persisting problems of social and economic development in several European Union areas (e.g. islands, mountains, border areas) has turned the attention of policy-makers to "the critical importance of transport and (tele)communication linkages. The purpose of the book is to bring into perspective the role of transport and communications in regional policy for peripheral areas. This subject is currently of high priority, since the European Union through the Structural Funds interventions (i.e. the Community Support Frameworks) and the new Cohesion Fund relies heavily on transport and communication infrastructure investments to assist areas which are at a disadvantage due to their peripheral location and isolation. Furthermore, as the Union considers enlargement, some of these issues might be of wide European interest.

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Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-Building State Changes its Mind by Michael Pusey

Throughout the world since the 1970s, state and public sector reform has been driven by a conservative agenda emphasising notions of 'streamlining' and 'rationalisation'; Australia has been no exception. Michael Pusey undertakes a detailed analysis of top bureaucrats in Canberra who have been responsible for this recasting of national policy. He concludes that economist rationalist view dominate each of the key ministries, and have altered the traditional balance between the economy, the state and society. The book also discusses the social significance of economic rationalisation and public sector reform from a theoretical perspective, contributing to contemporary understanding of modernisation, public morality and citizenship in the new global order.

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Statistical Noise or Valuable Information by Clemens Pirker

Clemens Pirker addresses the frequent doubt among researchers on how to deal with extreme and outlying observations in data analysis. He draws on various scientific domains to explore possible handling alternatives and the relevance of the phenomenon. In the empirical section, a published segmentation study on international tourists using sample censoring is replicated and the effects on the results are discussed. The dissertation concludes that authors may leverage their insights from given data by reporting those cases and their influence on the results.

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