Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies – serie

Through an interdisciplinary approach combining the concepts, methods and tools in language and discourse studies and insights from marketing and tourism research, this book examines the online place branding of Hong Kong, one of the most visited cities and well-known spots in the world. The book compares how the place brand is officially constructed and conveyed by the institutional bodies, as realised on the Brand Hong Kong website online, with how the place brand is publicly experienced and perceived by individuals around the world, as realised on the TripAdvisor Hong Kong travel forum online. The book also includes comparative analysis between Singapore and Hong Kong to provide better understanding of online place branding and findings from the comparative study identify interesting similarities and differences between the official portrayal of the place brand of Hong Kong and its public perception in the digital realm, as well as between Hong Kong and Singapore in online place branding. The book also offers evidence-based suggestions on how we can bridge the gap between the online representation and perception of a place brand and how to enhance online place branding in general.

Gender Equality in a Global Perspective looks to discuss whether Gender Equality can be adopted as it has been defined in international documents anywhere, or whether it needs to be adapted in a more local context; discuss which factors and perspectives need to be taken into account when adapting Gender Equality to specific contexts; suggest research approaches for studies on whether a universal (Western) concept of Gender Equality fits in certain specific contexts; and finally suggests challenges to the existing interpretation of Gender Equality (e.g., theory of intersectionality); and the development of legal and policy framework.This book is situated within the tradition of comparative gender studies. While most other such books take up and compare various ways of implementing (or not implementing) gender equality, this book studies and compares whether or not (and to what extent) a specific definition of Gender Equality (GE) could be adopted by various nations. Thus, all chapter contributors will engage with the same definition of GE, which will be presented within the book, and discuss the possibilities and constrains related to applying such a definition in their particular national context. The readers will learn about the problems of applying a universal concept of Gender Equality and the possible reasons for and modes of adapting Gender Equality to different contexts. Gender Equality in a Global Perspective looks to maintain a critical and reflexive stance towards the issues raised and will seek to present multiple perspectives and open-ended answers. As such it hopes to contribute to the international discussion of human rights more broadly and Gender Equality specifically. The intended audience is not limited only to but will include policy makers, scholars and students with an interest in Gender issues, Organizational Theory, Political Science, Human Development, Policy Analysis, Globalization and other management sub-disciplines.

With the acceptance of CSR and Sustainability as important business performance indicators, it is timely now to assess the impact that leadership has on the development of these processes. CSR, Sustainability, and Leadership seeks to explore the integration of these three elements through an examination of concerns and trends in contemporary organisations. The authors discuss empirical and theoretical studies which focus on processes and practices which inform the field. Organisations wish not only to participate in responsible behaviour, but also actively lead within their local environments. However, businesses are failing in their execution of CSR because of ineffective leadership. Business leaders are central to an organisation’s purpose in the world and this book will inform a robust discussion about social issues which are pressing to scholars, policymakers, not-for-profit organisations and students.

This book explores the new product development process of firms developing frugal innovation for the base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) markets in developing countries. Frugal innovations are products characterised by an affordable price-point, durability, usability and core functionalities that are highly adapted to BOP consumers’ needs. Frugal products have the potential to drive the development progress and living standards of low-income consumers.With an innovation framework developed from worldwide frugal case studies, this book provides detailed insights through two in-depth start-up firms in Indonesia that have successfully launched frugal products for the low-income market. These two start-ups have addressed two major development challenges for not just Indonesia, but also the global BOP market – traditional methods of cooking and access to clean drinking water.A detailed roadmap is developed from insights into the processes and management decisions of these two start-ups and combined with previous studies on frugal products. Providing a detailed roadmap across the different phases and stages of the new product development process when developing frugal products, this book will be insightful to not only innovators but also investors and government agencies supporting their activities.

Due to the recent global financial crises, academic business schools have come in for much criticism, having, in the eyes of the public, failed in their responsibility to society by teaching future managers only how to increase their personal gain without any consideration as to their actions’ social and cultural consequences. Realising that there is a pressing need to innovate their educational offers accordingly, business schools are beginning to turn to the humanities and social sciences to improve on the understanding and thus the teaching of management. This book is the result of an empirical study conducted at eight academic business schools that either already practise or are beginning to practise linking management education to the humanities and social sciences. Gathered mostly in interviews our research team conducted during site visits to these schools, the material presented shows three major fields of concern: how to shift the focus from instrumental to transformative learning, how to reframe the concept of disciplinary subject matter towards a more relational understanding of knowledge—especially in the light of the impact digitalisation is having on education—and how to address the organisational, as well as the political consequences of management education turning towards the inclusion of the humanities and social sciences strategically. The findings indicate that the humanities and social sciences indeed offer knowledge which can significantly help management education with meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. Innovating management education by making it part of its program portfolios proves a challenge in and of itself in the face of a university system which still determinedly clings to disciplinary segregation. Reforming management education towards an engagement with fields of knowledge traditionally at best ignored and at worst vilified as being completely useless in the "real world" may therefore place academic business schools at the forefront of a movement that is beginning to reshape the educational landscape as a whole. This book will be of value to researchers, academics and students in the fields of business, management studies, organisational studies and education studies.

Due to the recent global financial crises, academic business schools have come in for much criticism, having, in the eyes of the public, failed in their responsibility to society by teaching future managers only how to increase their personal gain without any consideration as to their actions’ social and cultural consequences. Realising that there is a pressing need to innovate their educational offers accordingly, business schools are beginning to turn to the humanities and social sciences to improve on the understanding and thus the teaching of management. This book is the result of an empirical study conducted at eight academic business schools that either already practise or are beginning to practise linking management education to the humanities and social sciences. Gathered mostly in interviews our research team conducted during site visits to these schools, the material presented shows three major fields of concern: how to shift the focus from instrumental to transformative learning, how to reframe the concept of disciplinary subject matter towards a more relational understanding of knowledge—especially in the light of the impact digitalisation is having on education—and how to address the organisational, as well as the political consequences of management education turning towards the inclusion of the humanities and social sciences strategically. The findings indicate that the humanities and social sciences indeed offer knowledge which can significantly help management education with meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. Innovating management education by making it part of its program portfolios proves a challenge in and of itself in the face of a university system which still determinedly clings to disciplinary segregation. Reforming management education towards an engagement with fields of knowledge traditionally at best ignored and at worst vilified as being completely useless in the "real world" may therefore place academic business schools at the forefront of a movement that is beginning to reshape the educational landscape as a whole. This book will be of value to researchers, academics and students in the fields of business, management studies, organisational studies and education studies.

In order to understand collaborative research activity in the United States, it is important to understand the contextual environment in which firms pursue a collaborative research strategy. The U.S. environment for formal collaborative research was established through a number of policy initiatives promulgated in the 1980s in response to the widespread productivity slowdown throughout industry that began in the early 1970s and then intensified in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These initiatives include the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, the Stevenson–Wydler Act of 1980 and its amendments, the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 and its amendments, and the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986.Collaborative Research in the United States offers a critical and retrospective description of collaborative research activity in the United States in an effort to provide a prospective framework for policymakers to evaluate future policy initiatives to encourage such strategic behavior. The analysis that underlies the policy framework draws from the performance of U.S. firms’ experiences, presenting a quantitative foundation for recommendations about future policy initiatives. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students in the fields of critical management studies, strategic management, economics, and public policy.

This book examines four aspects of Malaysian consumers’ financial vulnerabilities. First, it discusses the issue of over-indebtedness due to excessive reliance on consumer financing. Second, the book investigates why Malaysians are ill-prepared for their golden years in terms of retirement planning and savings. Third, it delves into the problem of financial fraud victimisation among Malaysian consumers. Fourth, the book analyses the reasons why Malaysians are underinsured despite the distinct benefits of life insurance. Drawing on secondary data from government agencies such as Bank Negara Malaysia, Employees' Provident Fund, Royal Malaysian Police and the Department of Statistics Malaysia, each chapter presents statistical trends reflecting the four financial vulnerabilities. In-depth analyses of the literature reveal three broad psychological domains (cognition, motivation, and disposition) and specific psychological factors (e.g. over-confidence, self-control, social norms, and financial literacy) that significantly influence consumers’ financial decisions. The four financial vulnerabilities investigated in this book directly address the strategic outcomes of the Malaysian National Strategy for Financial Literacy 2019–2023 (MNSFL), a five-year plan to elevate the financial literacy of Malaysians. Finally, the book presents strategic recommendations that are believed to be useful guidelines for relevant policymakers to promote positive financial behaviours and rational attitudes among consumers.It will be a useful resource for policymakers and researchers interested in economic psychology and behavioural finance.

This edited volume examines how forces of globalization, demographic and technological change are manifested and accommodated in an emerging economy such as Indonesia, which has a large workforce pool. Using the human resource development framework, the book explains the opportunities and challenges in developing human capabilities to support current and future living standards. It looks at human development challenges across the spectrum of workforce skills and across the spectrum of formal and informal labour markets. Through the case study on Indonesia, this book presents many of the features and issues that are present in emerging economies as they grapple with human resource development in the globalized and networked era.This book will appeal to researchers and policy makers working in the areas of human resource and economic development.

Strategies, Leadership and Complexity in Crisis and Emergency Operations will bring together the main themes of strategy, operational leadership, organizational dynamics and complexity in the context of crisis and emergency operations; creating a book that is timely and relevant for research and leadership in emergency services, the police, military and other organizations involved in operations in highly dynamic and critical contexts. Based on two recent Scandinavian cases, Strategies, Leadership and Complexity in Crisis and Emergency Operations identifies theoretically generalizable dimensions in the discussion of emerging strategies and leadership in complex, uncertain and dynamic situations during crisis and emergency operations. The book will offer original material and discussions from these cases on how strategies, leadership and organizational dynamics evolve during crisis and emergency operations - and further link these to existing international cases and researchIn light of theories and fields of knowledge emphasising complex organizational dynamics, discussions are coupled with examples from different organizations and countries. The knowledge fields draw on a wide range of new organizational complexity research, and insights from more established work. The intention is to integrate established and recent organizational research in order to understand dynamic practices of organizations during crisis and emergency operations.

Written by leading experts in the field of business, finance, law and economics, this edited volume brings together the latest thoughts and developments on turnaround management and business rescue from an academic, judiciary and turnaround/insolvency practitioner perspective. Turnaround Management and Bankruptcy presents different viewpoints on turnarounds and business rescue in Europe. Presenting a state-of-the-art review of failure research in finance, such as on bankruptcy prediction, causes of decline, or distressed asset valuation. It also presents the latest insights from turnaround management research as well as giving a contemporary insight into law debates on insolvency legislation reform, cross-border judicial issues, bankruptcy decision-making by judges and competition policy in distressed economies. Finally, the book provides a regional and sector perspective on how the current crisis affects Europe, its government policies and industry performance.In this way, the volume presents a modern, interdisciplinary and scholarly overview of the latest insights, issues and debates in turnaround management and business rescue, developing a European perspective in an attempt to redress the predominance of an American orientation in the academic literature. It aims at a wider audience interested in turnarounds and failure, such as faculty and students in the fields of law, business, economics, accountancy, finance, strategic management, and marketing, but also at judges, insolvency practitioners, lawyers, accountants and turnaround professionals, as well as the EU and government officials, staff of trade unions and employer’s associations.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), and particularly environmental management, has now become a global social norm. As the largest developing economy in the world, China is currently a major environmental polluter. This book examines how Chinese enterprises, including both indigenous firms and foreign-owned organizations operating in China, utilize human resource management (HRM) to conduct environmental management, i.e. green HRM, also referred to as environmentally friendly HRM.Green HRM integrates HRM with environmental management and is implemented by firms to realize corporate green strategies by providing opportunities and motivating employees to become involved in environmental activities. This book explores how green recruitment and selection, green training, green performance management, and green pay and rewards are managed in Chinese enterprises, and how green HRM affects organizational green and non-green workplace behaviors. It enriches the current literature on green HRM practices and measures. It also advances our understanding of employee organizational behavioral consequences of green HRM, which is an emerging and understudied field of research. As such, this book offers practical implications on how to elicit desirable employee green and non-green workplace behaviors through green HRM policies and practices.This book will appeal to anyone interested in learning more about green HRM practices and the social and psychological processes through which green HRM influences employees, promotes green workplace behaviors and improves a firm's environmental performance.

Whilst there has been an increased interest in minorities and their contribution to society, the literature on minorities and under-represented communities is still weak. This edited volume discusses entrepreneurship in the context of minorities and the role they play in society. The book looks at under-represented communities such as LGBTQ+, disadvantaged, ethnic minority, religious entrepreneurs, medically limited, indigenous, refugees, young/old and other socio-economic segments. It provides a holistic, comprehensive overview of how diversity in entrepreneurship facilitates increased levels of innovation. The book will be amongst the first to take a broad perspective of minority entrepreneurs.

The phenomena of Japan emerging as one of the most competitive industrial nations in the twentieth century and the general shift of competitiveness to East Asia since the 1980s have been widely studied by many scholars from different fields of the social sciences. Drawing on sources from Japanese, Swiss, and American archives, the historical analysis of this book tackles a wide range of actors and sheds light on the various processes that enabled Japanese watch companies to transfer technology and expand commercially starting in the second half of the nineteenth century.By exploring the case of the watch industry, this book serves to establish a better understanding of the origins of the competitiveness of Japanese manufacturing and its evolution until its decline in the post‐bubble economy (in the 1990s and 2000s).

Collaborative spaces are more than physical locations of work and production. They present strong identities centered on collaboration, exchange, sense of community, and co-creation, which are expected to create a physical and social atmosphere that facilitates positive social interaction, knowledge sharing, and information exchange. This book explores the complex experiences and social dynamics that emerge within and between collaborative spaces and how they impact, sometimes unexpectedly, on creativity and innovation.Collaborative Spaces at Work is timely and relevant: it will address the gap in critical understandings of the role and outcomes of collaborative spaces. Advancing the debate beyond regional development rhetoric, the book will investigate, through various empirical studies, if and how collaborative spaces do actually support innovation and the generation of new ideas, products, and processes.The book is intended as a primary reference in creativity and innovation, workspaces, knowledge and creative workers, and urban studies. Given its short chapters and strong empirical orientation, it will also appeal to policy makers interested in urban regeneration, sustaining innovation, and social and economic development, and to managers of both collaborative spaces and companies who want to foster creativity within larger organizations. It can also serve as a textbook in master’s degrees and PhD courses on innovation and creativity, public management, urban studies, management of work, and labor relations.

The book examines the management of social purpose driven organizations in an Asian context, using the case study approach. It looks at these organizations during a period of major changes in the regulatory and governance environment for charities in Singapore. The focus is on how these changes impact the organizational and management issues confronting several charities and volunteer welfare organizations, an arts enterprise, a co-operative and a non-governmental organization in international disaster relief. Although diverse, the common denominator among these organizations is their commitment to a core social purpose. Issues examined include: organizational restructuring, crisis management, organizational change management, social entrepreneurship and organizational sustainability. The book adopts a systemic perspective in examining the challenges of managing organizations that are neither state-owned nor private enterprises, and in particular, the interrelationships between contexts, actions and outcomes and their impact on the organizations, their stakeholders and external environments.

For many decades, management in its research and practice has been in need of an alternative approach and paradigm to understanding human behaviours. Many studies and books have attempted to provide solutions to the individual, which ended up being a cultural dilemma with little success. This book provides a novel approach to address this dilemma by linking aspects from three knowledge domains; Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology. Cross-Cultural Leadership supports Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and makes it a practical construct and tool that both managers and researchers harness to understand what "cultural Chameleon" means. The book also renders support to Douglaisan Cultural Framework (DCF) by activating the role of the usually neglected fifth culture; the hermit by linking it to the metacognitive dimension of CQ. This link introduces for the first time the mechanism that individuals use to run through metacognitive processes to drive change. This book is a tool for individuals to help them work efficiently outside their homeland. Being an adaptive or culturally hybrid leader is among the most important competencies of the effective leaders in the 21st century. By focusing on comprehending the five cultures as elaborated in DCF, leaders and managers will be relieved from the dilemma of having to understand each and every national culture of their employees. This book will be of value to researchers, academics, managers, and students with an interest in leadership, management, organization studies, globalization, and innovation

This book locates the issue of ‘vulnerability’ in an international context, within public-sector reform processes, and goes beyond the conceptualization of existing concepts of policing and vulnerability to include multi- and intra-agency working. It uncovers many competing and contradictory conceptualisations of the phenomenon and shows how a variety of agencies in different jurisdictions prioritise and operationalise this escalating 21st-century social problem.Two recurring themes of this edited collection are the ways in which non-state organisations and agencies have become an acknowledged feature of modern service delivery, and how the withdrawal of the state has heralded a perceptive shift from collective or community provision towards the stigmatization of individuals. Increasingly, public service professionals and ‘street level bureaucrats’ work in collaboration with non-state agents to attempt to ameliorate vulnerability. Chapter contributions were deliberately drawn from combinatory empirical, theoretical, policy and practice fields, and diverse academic and policy/professional authors. Editors and authors deliberately cast their nets widely to provide integrative scholarship, and contributions from international perspectives to confirm the complexity; and how socio/cultural, political and historic antecedents shape the definitions and responses to vulnerability.This collection will appeal to academics, policy makers and practitioners in a wide variety of disciplines, such as public management and leadership, criminology, policing, social policy, social work, and business management, and any others with an interest in or responsibility for dealing with the issue of vulnerability.

Today, some suppliers have grown increasingly powerful and in certain cases, earn revenues that rival or even exceed that of their automaker clients. In the pre-globalisation period, automakers wielded absolute power over their significantly smaller suppliers. This book reveals the upending of this relationship, with the gradual shift in the balance of power from automakers to their suppliers in this era of globalisation.The book examines how suppliers in the global tyres, seats, constant velocity joints (hereafter 'CVJs'), braking systems and automotive semiconductor industries have evolved into powerful oligopolies through a mix of acquisition and organic growth strategies. It also highlights how joint ventures could be strategically deployed as springboards to acquisition, as they enable firms to familiarise themselves with their partners’ markets and operations. Moreover, the book analyses the disruption stirred by the entry of well-resourced technology titans into this industry and their inevitable clash with the traditional incumbents. This book is an invaluable reference for anyone interested in learning more about the automakers’ and now their suppliers’ relentless quest to create market-dominating intelligent driving systems.

The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry is dominated by major Western brands. The dominance of such major brands extends to burgeoning Asian markets. These conglomerates often rely on packaging as a strategic tool to entice Asian consumers. This book illustrates how packaging as a marketing tool is more than simply changing the label or translating the brand into vernacular language. It examines how different packaging elements (e.g. information, imagery, packaging type) can help to communicate product values to Asian consumers.Drawing upon rich knowledge of the Asian CPG markets with extensive findings from fieldworks in the key Asian markets, this book explains how Western brands are localising their packaging design in Asian markets. It provides invaluable insight into how major Western CPG brands have relied heavily on their packaging strategies to compete not only against domestic brands but also against other foreign brands.The book includes in-depth interviews with brand managers of several major Western CPG brands and retailers, and sheds light on emerging trends of CPG packaging in Asia.

This book is the first to systematically introduce China’s tourism education system and the various tourism education practices in China to the international audience and stakeholders. China has the world’s largest tourism education system, which consists of over 1,000 higher learning institutions with tourism-related programs and over half a million of tertiary-level students studying in these programs. Despite the industry scale, internationally, little is known about this tourism education system and how it operates. Knowledge and better understanding of China’s tourism education system are important as tourism becomes one of the critical forces transforming economy, society and environment. The book offers an historical evaluation of China tourism education development and elaborates on the current industry status and practices in different subject fields of China’s tourism education, including tourism management, hospitality management, events and festival management in higher education, tourism vocational education, tour guides training and certification, master of tourism administration (MTA) education as a unique education model in China, PhD education in tourism, tourism curriculum, research and international collaboration in tourism education in China.The book provides relevant knowledge to international tourism education providers, industry practitioners, human resource managers, government officials, and tourism academics, researchers, and students.

Tourism is often a key driver of economic growth in many countries. The recent upward trends of tourism and hospitality education in higher academic institutions in Bangladesh suggests a growing tourism sector. Very little has been written on Bangladesh’s tourism industry. This is the first edited volume published from an international publisher which looks at this industry and how it has developed and flourished. The book begins by looking at tourism policy planning and provides a comprehensive overview of topics from tourism products and services in Bangladesh to how they are being marketed. It also discusses how private and public tourism institutions can address future long term trends.This book will appeal to those interested to learn more about developing tourism industry in emerging economies and may provide invaluable lessons from Bangladesh’s experience and success.

The pharmaceutical industry, long thought of as a recession-proof investment, now faces a day of reckoning. The reasons for this impending downfall are not hard to discern. The prices the industry charges for its prescription drugs have escalated at four to five times the cost-of-living increases during the past two decades and have reached a point where 30% of Americans must choose between filling a prescription, paying for housing, and buying food. This has brought about public pressure on governments around the world to control drug prices, yet the world’s twenty largest pharma companies realized 80% of their growth as a result of exorbitant price hikes.Pharma currently enjoys its extraordinary profitability by exploiting the world’s most vulnerable populations. Yet even their ability to increase prices in the face of falling demand does not satisfy their profit demands. The breadth and depth of pharma’s marketing transgressions exceed those of any other industry and have now reached a point where authorities around the world have found it necessary to take legal action against its violations. Drastic change is needed if the pharmaceutical industry can equitably advance the health of the world’s population and regain public esteem. This book illustrates the range and extent of pharma’s violations and addresses the actions that should be implemented in order to make the drug industry a more constructive, less venal part of contemporary society. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students with an interest in the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare management, regulation, and bioethics.

Competencies are a component of human capital and one of the most important assets of an enterprise. They play an important role in strengthening the position of the company in a competitive market. Investing in the development of competencies increases the organisation's ability to grow and compete through innovations. This book presents a multi-dimensional analysis of the relationship between managerial competencies and innovations. It analyses the role of a manager in a modern organisation, functions performed by managers, management styles and key challenges, including shaping behaviour in the process of managing change in an organisation, as well as an analysis of the structure of competencies, in particular managerial competencies, and the conditions of the process of forming managerial competencies.Management Theory, Innovation and Organisation: A Model of Managerial Competencies illustrates the organisational conditions of innovativeness, which is the relationship between strategy, structure, organisational culture and leadership and knowledge management and innovation management. The developed model can undoubtedly be considered the author’s pioneering contribution to the studies of managerial competencies and innovativeness.The book will be valuable to researchers, students, and managers in the fields of leadership, organizational studies, innovation management, and human resource management.

This edited volume examines how forces of globalization, demographic and technological change are manifested and accommodated in an emerging economy such as Indonesia, which has a large workforce pool. Using the human resource development framework, the book explains the opportunities and challenges in developing human capabilities to support current and future living standards. It looks at human development challenges across the spectrum of workforce skills and across the spectrum of formal and informal labour markets. Through the case study on Indonesia, this book presents many of the features and issues that are present in emerging economies as they grapple with human resource development in the globalized and networked era.This book will appeal to researchers and policy makers working in the areas of human resource and economic development.

For many decades, management in its research and practice has been in need of an alternative approach and paradigm to understanding human behaviours. Many studies and books have attempted to provide solutions to the individual, which ended up being a cultural dilemma with little success. This book provides a novel approach to address this dilemma by linking aspects from three knowledge domains; Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology. Cross-Cultural Leadership supports Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and makes it a practical construct and tool that both managers and researchers harness to understand what "cultural Chameleon" means. The book also renders support to Douglaisan Cultural Framework (DCF) by activating the role of the usually neglected fifth culture; the hermit by linking it to the metacognitive dimension of CQ. This link introduces for the first time the mechanism that individuals use to run through metacognitive processes to drive change. This book is a tool for individuals to help them work efficiently outside their homeland. Being an adaptive or culturally hybrid leader is among the most important competencies of the effective leaders in the 21st century. By focusing on comprehending the five cultures as elaborated in DCF, leaders and managers will be relieved from the dilemma of having to understand each and every national culture of their employees. This book will be of value to researchers, academics, managers, and students with an interest in leadership, management, organization studies, globalization, and innovation

Talent management is a way banks acquire competitive advantage. Practices such as personality profiling with effective knowledge-based productivity and the application of high-performance work systems help to set a company apart from its competition and maintain this competitive advantage. This book provides an in-depth look at the relationship between personality types and individual-level performance in knowledge-based environments, through cases in Australia’s banking and finance sector. This book also examines how high-performance workplace systems influence individual performance in relation to productivity through a multi-level analysis of micro- and meso-level factors. The findings in this book have relevant implications not only for the Australian system but also for other banking and financial service contexts outside of Australia.

Talent management is a way banks acquire competitive advantage. Practices such as personality profiling with effective knowledge-based productivity and the application of high-performance work systems help to set a company apart from its competition and maintain this competitive advantage. This book provides an in-depth look at the relationship between personality types and individual-level performance in knowledge-based environments, through cases in Australia’s banking and finance sector. This book also examines how high-performance workplace systems influence individual performance in relation to productivity through a multi-level analysis of micro- and meso-level factors. The findings in this book have relevant implications not only for the Australian system but also for other banking and financial service contexts outside of Australia.

What goes on in a small firm that lives or dies by its capacity to innovate? How are decisions made on new product development, and how does that feed into the ecological, social and financial sustainability of the firm? This book answers the questions through an in-depth look at a small business that manufactures high-end carpet yarn.Using advanced analytical techniques to interrogate rich qualitative data, the book draws together established theories of decision-making and new product development, coupled with thinking about business sustainability to improve our understanding of this important area of business practice. The book further reinforces the importance and role of organizational learning in organizational decision-making, based on novel analysis of empirically developed qualitative data.