Maximizing Corporate Reputation Through Effective Governance: A Study Of Structures And Behaviors

Book Description

Based on a literature review on the topic of corporate reputation and governance, which comprises the first part of the dissertation, a positivistic, deductive approach was chosen and a self-administered questionnaire has been developed that was sent out to the CEOs of the 60 companies currently covered in the 2002 RQ-rankings. The detailed discussion of the research method can be found in the third chapter.

Due to a low response rate, the original research approach had to be adapted, in that - where available - the information requested in the questionnaire was filled by the author with publicly-available data from various sources, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), brokerage reports, company web sites and third-party information providers, aggregating information from these sources. Because the data points obtained this way, in all cases are based on official company disclosures (i.e. SEC-filings,press releases, published web sites), for which the companies are held legally liable, it is assumed that the quality of the data points obtained this way is just as accurate as from having received it as part of the filled-out questionnaires. This for one, because of the legal implications mentioned above and for the other because the answers to the questionnaire would have been based on the same internal data used to provide information to the Securities and Exchange Commission and general public.

This adaptation of approach narrowed down the original sample size of 60 to 32 companies, because for 28 companies not sufficient public information was available and/ or the companies were not listed in both the 2001 and 2002 RQ-rankings. A second effect is that fewer of the originally intended aspects, especially relating to leadership, could be investigated, as no reliable public information was available. Nevertheless, the sample size was sufficient to draw statistically valid conclusions.

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The aim of this dissertation research is to develop an understanding of how components of the organizational structure, leadership structures at the top level and resource allocation decisions may affect corporate reputation as defined by the reputation quotient(RQ),and which aspects of running a company top management should keep an eye on in order to maximize the reputation of their company? Based on a literature review on the topic of corporate reputation and governance, which comprises the first part of the dissertation, a positivistic, deductive approach was chosen and a self-administered questionnaire has been developed that was sent out to the CEOs of the 60 companies currently covered in the 2002 RQ-rankings. The detailed discussion of the research method can be found in the third chapter. Due to a low response rate, the original research approach had to be adapted, in that - where available - the information requested in the questionnaire was filled by the author with publicly-available data from various sources, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), brokerage reports, company web sites and third-party information providers, aggregating information from these sources. Because the data points obtained this way, in all cases are based on official company disclosures (i.e. SEC-filings,press releases, published web sites), for which the companies are held legally liable, it is assumed that the quality of the data points obtained this way is just as accurate as from having received it as part of the filled-out questionnaires. This for one, because of the legal implications mentioned above and for the other because the answers to the questionnaire would have been based on the same internal data used to provide information to the Securities and Exchange Commission and general public. This adaptation of approach narrowed down the original sample size of 60 to 32 companies, because for 28 companies not sufficient public information was available and/ or the companies were not listed in both the 2001 and 2002 RQ-rankings. A second effect is that fewer of the originally intended aspects, especially relating to leadership, could be investigated, as no reliable public information was available. Nevertheless, the sample size was sufficient to draw statistically valid conclusions.

Book Description

Expert guidance on theory and practice in condition-based intelligent machine fault diagnosis and failure prognosis

Intelligent Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis for Engineering Systems gives a complete presentation of basic essentials of fault diagnosis and failure prognosis, and takes a look at the cutting-edge discipline of intelligent fault diagnosis and failure prognosis technologies for condition-based maintenance. It thoroughly details the interdisciplinary methods required to understand the physics of failure mechanisms in materials, structures, and rotating equipment, and also presents strategies to detect faults or incipient failures and predict the remaining useful life of failing components. Case studies are used throughout the book to illustrate enabling technologies.

Intelligent Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis for Engineering Systems offers material in a holistic and integrated approach that addresses the various interdisciplinary components of the field--from electrical, mechanical, industrial, and computer engineering to business management. This invaluably helpful book:
* Includes state-of-the-art algorithms, methodologies, and contributions from leading experts, including cost-benefit analysis tools and performance assessment techniques
* Covers theory and practice in a way that is rooted in industry research and experience
* Presents the only systematic, holistic approach to a strongly interdisciplinary topic

Customer Reviews:

A must reference for serious research in this field.......2007-09-25

As a researcher in diagnosis/prognosis for PHM I frequently have to reference this book. I attended the conference hosted by one of the authors and this book does serve as a compliment. The topics are well organized and the writing is easy to follow. Examples are provided in MatLab. Not only does the book highlight some of the important topics from the conference it also discusses topics that were not covered.

Great look at what is currently possible in CBM.......2007-05-19

As a person who has been involved with Condition Monitoring, Diagnostics and Prognosis in an operating industrial plant environment, this book gave me an excellent view of available best practice in Diagnostics and Prognosis with a design life cycle cost focus. Military and Aerospace have had the organisational support and dollars to develop some great technical solutions, which the book communicates well with some practical and understandable examples. I brought this book to get a view of what direction industrial plants should be going to improve Condition Based Maintenance efficiency and effectiveness and it has been very helpful in this reguard.

Manufacturing Optimization through Intelligent Techniques (Manufacturing, Engineering and Materials Processing)

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Good compilation of research papers
Applying Modern Techniques to Manufacturing

Manufacturing Optimization through Intelligent Techniques (Manufacturing, Engineering and Materials Processing)
Rajendran Saravanan
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Quality Control | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0824726790

Book Description

Providing in-depth knowledge of how to implement the myriad conventional and intelligent techniques, this book delineates the different types of manufacturing optimization problems as well as the conventional and intelligent techniques for solving them. The author explores how to model optimization problems, select suitable techniques, develop the optimization algorithm and software, and implement the program. He covers how to develop and implement effective optimization procedures and algorithms for a wide variety of problems in design manufacturing. The book delineates five new techniques and all the manufacturing functions described have been successfully solved by Genetic Algorithm.

Customer Reviews:

Good compilation of research papers.......2007-07-12

The authors have done good job by compiling research papers of course most of their own. But still book is in between research papers and good text book. No one can recommend this book to newbie in the field of AI. Over all its a nice book addressing application of AI techniques for mechanical engineering problems.Very rare book available of this kind. Good job.

Applying Modern Techniques to Manufacturing.......2006-04-14

Manufacturing optimization is the systematic and scientific approach for solving problems concerned with various manufacturing functions to make the best production decisions.

Over the history of manufacturing various techniques for solving manufacturing problems have been derived. These are examined at the start of this book to illustrate what was done in the past and to serve as a baseline upon which to build the more advanced techniques that have been developed more recently.

From this base Dr. Saravanan goes on to discuss multivariable techniques, genetic algorithms, optimal design for manufacturing , optimization of machining tolerance allocation, optimization of operating parameters for CNC machine tools, scheduling optimization, and finally modern manufacturing applications.

It is intended that by the end of this book, the reader be able to select and implement suitable optimization procedures and algorithms for a wide variety of problems.

Automotive Software-Connected Services in Mobile Networks: First Automotive Software Workshop, ASWSD 2004, San Diego, CA, USA, January 10-12, 2004, Revised ... Papers (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

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Automotive Software-Connected Services in Mobile Networks: First Automotive Software Workshop, ASWSD 2004, San Diego, CA, USA, January 10-12, 2004, Revised ... Papers (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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Systems Analysis & Design | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Programming | Mobile & Wireless Computing | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the First Automotive Software Workshop, ASWD 2004, held in San Diego, CA, USA in January 2004.

The 10 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 lectures held at the workshop, that brought together experts from industry and academia, working on highly complex, distributed, reactive software systems related to the automotive domain.

The papers presented are organized in topical sections on quality assurance, real-time control, services and components, as well as model-based development and tools.

Dynamics and Control of Wastewater Systems, Second Edition (Water Quality Management Library , Vol 6)

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Dynamics and Control of Wastewater Systems, Second Edition (Water Quality Management Library , Vol 6)

Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Loose Leaf

Environmental Science | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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Recycling | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1566766729

Book Description

FROM THE PREFACE Dynamic modeling, computer simulation, and modern control systems are valuable tools for use in both the design and operation of dynamic systems. From the "tools" point of view, this book is designed to show practicing engineers how to develop models capable of describing dynamic behavior and how to "solve" these models using computer simulation. The basic principles of process control are also presented so that the effects of different control systems on dynamic behavior can be established by computer simulation.

Advances in Intelligent Data Analysis. Reasoning about Data: Second International Symposium, IDA-97, London, UK, August 4-6, 1997, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

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Advances in Intelligent Data Analysis. Reasoning about Data: Second International Symposium, IDA-97, London, UK, August 4-6, 1997, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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General | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 3540633464

Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis, IDA-97, held in London, UK, in August 1997.The volume presents 50 revised full papers selected from a total of 107 submissions. Also included is a keynote, Intelligent Data Analysis: Issues and Opportunities, by David J. Hand. The papers are organized in sections on exploratory data analysis, preprocessing and tools; classification and feature selection; medical applications; soft computing; knowledge discovery and data mining; estimation and clustering; data quality; qualitative models.

Artificial intelligence approach to support statistical quality control teaching [An article from: Computers & Education]

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Artificial intelligence approach to support statistical quality control teaching [An article from: Computers & Education]
M.M. Reis , E.P. Paladini , S. Khator , and W.A. Sommer
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Elsevier | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000P6NQV4

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Computers & Education, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Statistical quality control - SQC (consisting of Statistical Process Control, Process Capability Studies, Acceptance Sampling and Design of Experiments) is a very important tool to obtain, maintain and improve the Quality level of goods and services produced by an organization. Despite its importance, and the fact that it is taught in technical and college courses, as well as in companies' training sectors, SQC has been largely misused. An inappropriate teaching approach may be the cause of such problem; therefore it has motivated the development of a model for SQC teaching, allowing its learners to correctly apply SQC techniques. After a survey regarding the concept needed to correctly apply SQC, its use and teaching/training methods, the model's contents and methodology were defined. We also realized the opportunity of incorporating a computer environment for the model, permitting the practice of the needed SQC concepts and skills. An Artificial Intelligence approach was used to develop the computer environment, resulting in an Intelligent Tutoring System, the STCEQ. The paper discusses the main characteristics of the system, its functioning, benefits of using such a system and the results we obtained while using this system.

Assessing the impact of internet agent on end users' performance [An article from: Decision Support Systems]

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Assessing the impact of internet agent on end users' performance [An article from: Decision Support Systems]
R.E. Hostler , V.Y. Yoon , and T. Guimaraes
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Elsevier | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000RR537Q

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Decision Support Systems, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Intelligent software agents that can perform tasks on the user's behalf independently of direct control of the user themselves, promise to evolutionize the way in which we use the Internet to conduct business. Research on how these agents will change the nature of Internet-based e-commerce and what its impact will be on consumers and businesses is only just beginning. To assess the impact of agent usage in a retail online shopping environment, an empirical study was conducted to determine what impact, if any, the use of Shopbots, a form of Internet agent, had on consumers looking to purchase a DVD player online via the World Wide Web [WWW]. Of particular interest was the Internet agent's impact on the user's task performance and task outcomes. These included the time spent on shopping activities, the shopper's confidence in their purchase decision, the quality of the purchase decision made by the shopper and the amount of cognitive effort required to select a product for purchase.

Autonomous Dynamic Reconfiguration in Multi-Agent Systems: Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Collaborative Problem Solving (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

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Autonomous Dynamic Reconfiguration in Multi-Agent Systems: Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Collaborative Problem Solving (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
Markus Hannebauer
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Distributed Databases | Databases | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 3540443126

Book Description

High communication efforts and poor problem solving results due to restricted overview are two central issues in collaborative problem solving. This work addresses these issues by introducing the processes of agent melting and agent splitting that enable individual problem solving agents to continually and autonomously reconfigure and adapt themselves to the particular problem to be solved.

The author provides a sound theoretical foundation of collaborative problem solving itself and introduces various new design concepts and techniques to improve its quality and efficiency, such as the multi-phase agreement finding protocol for external problem solving, the composable belief-desire-intention agent architecture, and the distribution-aware constraint specification architecture for internal problem solving.

The practical relevance and applicability of the concepts and techniques provided are demonstrated by using medical appointment scheduling as a case study.

Computer Controlled Systems: Theory and Applications (Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering)

Average customer rating:

Good book for signal and control systems
A great textbook for computer controlled systems.

Computer Controlled Systems: Theory and Applications (Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering)
G. Perdikaris
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0792314220

Customer Reviews:

Good book for signal and control systems.......2005-04-28

I'm currently taking one of Prof. Perdikaris' classes for real-time systems, and I've been using this book to help me understand motor control systems and other stuff in the class. George covers a lot of information in the book, starting with fundamental info about ADC/DAC, continuous systems (w/ Laplace), discrete systems (w/ Z transformations), and other general signal analysis stuff that you'll need. The book then covers filter design and signal processing methods. Then covers how to design, analyze, and optimize control systems (using various methods, including open/closed loop systems and PID/PDFF systems). I believe George has done a lot of the original ground breaking research in modern control systems, PID, and PDFF over the past few decades. I wasn't too interested in control systems before taking this class, but I'm starting to find it pretty interesting and may consider taking a control class in the future.

There are a lot of topics covered in the book and a lot of heavy math/electrical stuff to learn, but I think he keeps stuff relevant and understandable. If you are into signal processing or control system work, then you may want to consider picking this up.

A great textbook for computer controlled systems........1998-01-20

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