This text provides a comprehensive overview on how modern cruise ships are run, covering the most important topics of today’s shipboard operation involving Deck, Engine and Hotel divisions, with a focus on the recent innovations in the Culinary Arts, Entertainment productions, Spa and Beauty facilities and a specific reference on how to maximize "onboard revenues" such as Casino, Bar, Duty-Free Shops, Shore Tours, Photo Gallery, and onboard Art Auctions. A special chapter is dedicated to the procedures to prevent virus outbreaks including Norovirus and Coronavirus. World Class Shipboard Hospitality is addressed to all those who want to get an unbiased understanding of today’s cruise industry such as worldwide media professionals, tourism and hospitality college teachers, cruise indu...

White-Collar Crime describes white-collar crime and criminals. It discusses executive knowledge of white-collar crime, and white-collar crime theories are presented. Executive positions involved in crime, white-collar crime analysis, response to crime suspicion, corporate social responsibility, and corporate reputation damage and repair are some of the core topics of this book. Knowledge strategy, intelligence strategy, and systems strategy are also presented from a strategic management perspective. By the same author: Policing Financial Crime: Intelligence Strategy Implementation Knowledge Management in Police Oversight: Law Enforcement Integrity and Accountability Essential Knowledge and Management Issues in Law Firms

In business today, it is critical for companies of all sizes to have a comprehensive Workplace Violence policy. Through the identification and definition of the four types of workplace violence most commonly recognized, the book seeks to provide low cost, no-cost, and full-scale programs. Each of the sub-sections reviews ways in which small and large businesses can prepare for each type of workplace violence, prevention tactics to minimize the risks of such incidents, and methods for responding to any and all situations. Included are sample policies, crisis management plans, procedures and training modules. Also included are resources, both public and private, which can help any business to create and implement their own workplace violence procedure.

THE PROBLEMThe primary purpose of this study was to provide an analysis of the effectiveness of leadership through the interpersonal relationship between a team leader and a team. This research paper attempted to define "how" leaders create and handle effective teams. Specifically, this study was focused on UXO teams in a UXO environment performing a UXO clearance project still in progress. It was the aim of this study to provide information that will be beneficial to team leaders and will contribute to improvement of UXO team leadership techniques. METHOD This research evaluated the relationship between the leadership demonstrated by team leaders and the effectiveness and productivity of the teams. Adoption and use of Frank LaFas...

There is a lack of understand of how management within organizations make decisions and how these decision are motivated based on the organization's structure. People within and outside of the organizational structure always want to understand how and why these decisions are made to better position themselves. The purpose of this book is to help the reader understand organizations and management, their structure and behavior, and the decisions that are made within. The new information that this book offers the readers is a simplified system for understanding the decision process at the various levels within the organization. This book introduces triangle analysis as a simple process that everyone can use to understand organizations, how they work, and how decisions are made.

Based on data on publicly traded insurance firms, the first essay examines questions about the effect of large catastrophic events on insurance firms. Rather than looking at a single event, thirty catastrophic events were aggregated into quintiles and the cumulative abnormal returns around these events were found to be significantly positive over a 25 day trading window. There is no significant evidence that post-catastrophic stock returns are correlated to the magnitude of the catastrophe. The second essay analyzes the effect of a large land grant university, the University of Illinois, on the State Treasury of Illinois. If the State Treasury were acting as its own agent trying to maximize revenues, would it choose higher education as an investment versus other alternative investm...

This book reveals and discusses existing and potential problems derived from the transport economics domain in relation to their environment, and the social, political and economic impacts, with reference to a wide range of transport modes. It is suitable not only for academics or students, but also for people working in the transport industry. From this book, readers will learn how to apply economic principles to transport, drawing specifically upon a number of case studies of different areas of Great Britain. This book is particularly useful for those who are interested in the subject of transport economics, but may not have studied economics, statistics or mathematics. REVIEWS A useful collection of concepts on transport economics for all of us that work in the transport field, and ar...

This book offers an introduction to transfer pricing with particular reference to China, for those who are looking for an overview that can be rapidly comprehended and who value diagrammatic images as a vehicle for learning. The subject is of importance both for Chinese and foreign personnel engaged in foreign company activity in China and for those who are similarly engaged in Chinese-owned companies already operating abroad, or which are to be extended to foreign locations.

Projects are important to industry, but project performance continually disappoints stakeholder expectations. Organizations react to this performance problem in many ways, and purchase consultancy, training, methods and tools as possible solutions. There is no published evidence that any of these solutions are consistently successful in improving project performance. This thesis answers the question, "What can be done to improve project management practices, and thus project performance?" by demonstrating that a novel form of continuous action research can contribute such evidence. Firstly a community of practice was formed from practitioners with major corporations interested in answering the question, and commercially motivated to implement changes. A programme was developed that c...

Decision-Making gets significant coverage in the business press and as an academic topic in business schools. However, there is a dearth of information on the transpersonal consideration on decision-making and how it effects leaders and leadership in human-systems. Maximizing positive results in human-systems, requires the decision-maker to maintain a constant consideration of both local and non-local elements impacting and being impacted by the decision(s) being made. This book introduces the concept of "Scope of Decision" as a way of arriving at higher quality decisions by considering them from a greater distance from the decision-maker in the time-space continuum. The author designed and used a unique exemplar modeling paradigm to conduct the research, using the proven methodologies of ...

This study examined the relationship between the education heterogeneity of top management teams and organizational performance measured as long-term total shareholder returns. The subjects were 46 publicly traded North American insurance companies that had been traded for at least five years. I employed two metrics to measure education heterogeneity. One metric assessed the education heterogeneity of top management teams based on the highest education certification and the other metric assessed education heterogeneity of the teams based on all education certifications, and therefore the underlying disciplines, represented on the top management teams.Controlling for team size, I found that individually the education heterogeneity metrics are poor predictors of organizational performance. T...

Theory and Practice of Modern Islamic Finance seeks to contribute to the existing body of work in the area of Islamic finance through examining the extent of divergence in practice of Islamic financing from the traditional Shari`ah in the Australian context. The author makes a discursive analysis of the regulation of Islamic finance in Australia in terms of (a) the financing instruments used, (b) certainty of transactions between participants in the system, and (c) institutional risk management of Islamic financial institutions. The work's objectives are two-fold: (a) to analytically study the extent to which Islamic Financial Services Providers (IFSPs) of Australia differ from the traditional Shari`ah in their current practices of Islamic legal financial system by their use of different f...

Two working physicians with a team of multigenerational, multidisciplinary and rising thought leaders created a system, Wealth from Health, to take an honest, unfiltered look at American healthcare. Rather than beginning from an institutional perspective, the team started from the premise of patients and families best understanding their needs and wants and then designing systems that champion access and health. Step by step instructions allow anyone with a vision to create true value: cost effectiveness merged with high quality of care. Far from theoretical about what might work, or capturing the low hanging fruit of better workflows, this book is an eminently practical guide with reproducible examples and stories from the authors’ decades on the frontline of American medicine. When Co...

The purpose of this dissertation is to assess whether the consumers are receiving a greater range and more frequent airline services since the U.S. airline industry was deregulated. Are the consumers better off since deregulation? Are the airlines providing more and better services? The questions mentioned above are examined and answered in this dissertation and based on the literature available and on numerous reports and published papers, many conclusions are drawn. These conclusions can help the readers in both comprehending the complicated issue of airline deregulation and assessing whether consumers are better off since deregulation. Initially an analysis of the ai...

If you are looking for work, consider temporary employment a valuable source of job opportunities. As a temp, you can increase job skills and work experience, expand business networks, strengthen your resume, and avoid gaps in employment, all while being paid. Quite often, temp work can be a “job audition” because it puts temps in front of hiring managers and decision makers for days, weeks, or even months at a time while on job assignments. The Temp Factor for Job Seekers: The Job Seeker's Guide to Temporary Employment presents how this job search strategy may get you back to work faster. Becoming a temp guarantees what a resume cannot: face time inside the doors of potential employers. With over 20 years of experience working with staffing service firms and temps, Cathy A. Reilly ...

Temporary employment is on the rise. In uncertain economic times, many businesses view employing temps as a cost-effective strategy to both maximize productivity and foster flexibility. Being noticed and ultimately hired by clients in this increasingly competitive market requires staffing services and temps to perform at new levels of excellence. Working with staffing service firms and temps for over 20 years, Cathy A. Reilly has learned a thing or two about the staffing industry and the bottom line: what temporary employment success looks like to a client. No matter where you are in this three-sided working arrangement, The Temp Factor: The Complete Guide to Temporary Employment for Staffing Services, Clients, and Temps is the most comprehensive and innovative manual on temporary emplo...

The United States government spends billions of dollars on home ownership programs in low and moderate income communities. However, there is paucity of academic research to assess the socioeconomic impacts of these programs. The purpose of this empirical research was to assess their possible impacts. The key research question explored the relationship between low and moderate income home ownership, the independent variable, and the dependent variables of the rates of crime, unemployment, high school graduation, and standardized test scores in the communities concerned. The research design was quantitative-causal. Welfare economic theory formed the theoretical foundation for the study. Using public records, data were collected from four low and moderate income communities ...

Trust continues to be a leading concept in organizational commitment. Milligan (2003) conducted a survey looking at trust in the Air Force among junior officers. This study was conducted as a follow-up study to determine whether trust continues to be an issue in the Air Force. The purpose of this study is to measure the comparative strengths and weaknesses, as well as the significance, of leadership’s ability to gain trust from its subordinates in order to reduce the numbers of officers leaving after their commitment. This research measures organizational commitment and trust in a random sample of 372 Air Force captains. All participants completed the following surveys: The Management Behavior Climate Assessment, Organizational Commitment Scales, Intent to Leave Scale, and a demographics...

This research study seeks to understand the nature of organisational change with respect to offshore outsourcing of information technology services in a multinational pharmaceutical company, and to examine the effectiveness of approaches used to manage this change so that lessons may be drawn from these experiences. Despite the abundant literature on effective organisational change management, the key factors that need to be managed properly at different stages of the offshore outsourcing process are not well understood. The research adopts a processual view to paint a broad picture of the issues involved in these different stages. A generic process model of change, based on the review of the change literature, was first developed to represent how change was intended to occur. This model f...

This study investigated whether known economic and international business theories available in the literature are meaningful enough to explain the nature, existence and role of multinational companies (MNCs) in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. Two sets of questionnaires were distributed in major cities of Saudi Arabia -- one set for 100 multinational managers and another for 280 multinational customers. 234 questionnaires were collected -- 45 from multinational managers and 189 from customers. This represents a total response rate of 62 percent, which is adequate for this study.The empirical results, supported with comprehensive secondary data, confirmed virtually all of the research hypotheses. The study found that joint ventures are the dominant form of multinational business...

Investment in executive education has grown steadily since its inception during the last century. Several studies have attempted to measure the effectiveness of executive programs; prior research has indicated that some programs lack relevance. This study addressed the topic from the perspective of corporations, whose future executive education decisions are affected by the relevance of current programs, and program alumni. In a partial replication of a 1959 Harvard study, which queried graduates of 39 residential programs, I surveyed the 1993-1995 executive MBA graduates of four schools: UCLA, University of Colorado, University of Utah, and University of Washington. The main research question was: Are executive education programs meeting the needs of their mid-career students ? ...

Software developer turnover can have disastrous effects on an organization due to the loss of business process knowledge, as well as acquired technical skills. Annual rates of turnover in information technology (IT) departments have been estimated at 20% or more with the cost of replacing technology workers ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 times annual salaries. This study purposely focused only on software developers as opposed to IT employees in general due to the critical nature of their work. The factors leading to turnover intention in this field are poorly understood; therefore, this study was designed to further understand the relationships between job characteristics, job satisfaction, and turnover intention among software developers. 326 web surveys were completed that contained questions...

American, African, European, and Middle Eastern (N = 420) technical professional employees of a multinational organization were surveyed to explore the relationship between perceived values congruence (PVC) and organizational commitment (OC). PVC was looked at as a function of fit between: (a) person s and organization s actual values and (b) organization s espoused and actual values. Four dimensions of values (ethics, people, change, and bottom line) and three components of OC (affective, continuance, and normative) were considered. The key findings of the study were: (a) PVC was related to OC; (b) the relationship was different for each component of OC and socio-cultural group; and (c) the regression models that described these relationships showed that each socio-cultural group was most...

The issues of trust and job satisfaction have taken on a greater strategic importance in organizations since the post-Enron scandal. Without trust or the lack of it among organizational members and between management and employees, organizational communication, knowledge management, organizational performance, and involvement may tend to close down. Trust has been identified as a crucial ingredient for organizational effectiveness. A linkage between trust and job satisfaction in private organizations has been established by researchers; however, in the U.S. federal government, the linkage between organizational trust and job satisfaction has not yet been studied. This study, therefore, explores the relationship between organizational trust and job satisfaction in seven selected small, medi...

Whether you are a project manager tasked with overseeing an outsourced capital project or an owner investing in a major project critical to the future of your business, you are most likely starting at a disadvantage. A savvy contractor’s project team is likely to be populated with project management professionals who have read an abundance of literature on how to maximize project value for themselves. Unfortunately, as any book search will show you, there is virtually no guidance out there for how to successfully oversee a capital project from an owner’s perspective. In project management terms, the client or owner is just a “managed external stakeholder.” The Project Oversight Guide (POG) is intended to bridge the gap between knowing how to run a project and knowing how to overse...

This research is an empirical study of the legitimacy of economic inequality with a focus on the case of Chile. Chile is an appealing case study in this regard because it has been one of the countries with the highest indexes of economic inequality over the past several decades. Theoretical perspectives based on the rational interest of the median voter have pointed out a negative association between high levels of inequality and legitimacy. Nevertheless, empirical evidence indicates that an unequal distribution of income is not necessarily challenged by the majority of a society, a phenomenon associated with the concept of legitimacy of economic inequality. Most empirical studies of this topic to date have considered social contexts that are not characterized by (comparatively) high level...

The Islamic Moral Economy is an academic book that analyzes the religious permissibility or lack thereof of the existing repertoire of financial instruments used in Islamic banking and finance. The work is both timely and sound, especially considering the growth of the international Islamic banking and insurance industries, and the Great Recession of 2007-2010. The Islamic Moral Economy is an excellent introductory book for academics and finance professionals wishing to gain a better understanding of Islamic moral constraints on economic transactions and how most current Islamic banking transactions are structured. More specifically, the author examines the utopian nature of the Islamic moral economy with a special emphasis on riba (i.e., financial interest and illogical increase), ...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is pivotal to the UK economy, with the UK being both the second largest investor abroad and the second largest host to foreign companies. Although since the Second World War FDI has been dominated by the USA, the more recent rise of Japan as both an international force in global markets and as an investor, has seen increasing amounts of Japanese FDI being directed towards the UK. Further, the perceived innovativeness of Japanese work organisation is held by many to have an even greater qualitative impact than the quantitative significance of Japanese FDI would indicate, providing both a 'demonstration' effect and a competitive spur to indigenous companies that it is believed has the power to transform the UK's competitiveness. However, many aspects of t...

This study attempts to examine the impact of a trade decontrol policy on food output within the Nigerian macroeconomic context. In other words, the study relates trade liberalization to the national food security situation between 1970 and 2000, by employing descriptive statistics and error correction model (ECM) as the research methodologies. Regional and multilateral trade agreements seem to reduce barriers to the flow of commodities across borders, thus fostering a more efficient allocation of scarce resources as well as raising gross output with positive implications for food security at various levels. Though the trend analyses revealed considerable fluctuations, there existed greater improvements during the trade decontrol era than during the period of trade restriction. The produc...

Commercial companies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are internationalising at an increasing pace. Yet little is known about the management of NGOs during this process. Indeed, they have been neglected by comparison to the literature on companies. This thesis draws on theories of how and why companies internationalise to determine whether the explanations they offer can be extended to cover NGOs. It considers the driving forces experienced by NGOs, the stages they pass through. This was undertaken through a postal survey using results from 52 international NGOs from Europe and the US. The findings were later considered in relation to four case studies of NGOs; two relatively small NGOs, which have internationalised slowly, and two larger and faster NGOs, to give practical exam...