This book is the result of research and conversation over a number of years, and it gives us great pleasure to have a chance to thank the many people who have generously provided criticism, support, and inspiration to us over that time. There is no way to cite everyone who helped as we tested our ideas at university seminars, academic conferences, before the U.S. International Trade Commission,…
This Companion to Sociolinguistics has been collected together for anyone who is interested in how and why diverse people speak and write differently: in other words, it is aimed at everyone. Anyone who has ever noticed an accent, or puzzled over a dialect phrase, or wondered why road signs are in several languages; anyone who adjusts their speech or writing in different situations, or cannot i…
This work justified “the impacts of Strategic Environmental Scanning on Organization performance in a competitive business environment” by studying Nestle Nigeria Plc and Cadbury Nigeria Plc. The opinions of the selected respondents were sought by the use of structured questionnaire; the collected data were analyzed and interpreted with regression and coefficient of correlation method of an…
How many beggars one rich man can feed!/When kings build, the carters have their hands full,” writes Friedrich Schiller in Kant und seine Ausleger.1 In this poem carters are separated from the king as conspicuously as light is from darkness, or giants from dwarves. Should this division prove unjust, the king may be overthrown. Schiller’s poem, however, has nothing to do with political just…
The theory of univariate splines began its rapid development in the early sixties, resulting in several thousand research papers and a number of books. This development was largely over by 1980, and the bulk of what is known today was treated in the classic monographs of deBoor [Boo78] and Schu- maker [Sch81]. Univariate splines have become an essential tool in a wide variety of application are…
This book is the first to apply the network approach to the analysis of business relationships in a global context. Drawing on a wide variety of international case. studies, a `network approach' is developed, giving rise to far-reaching theoretical and practical managerial insights and a different way of conceptualizing companies within markets. New angles emerge on traditional problems of busi…
Optimization is a discipline that plays a key role in modeling and solving problems in most areas of engineering and sciences. Optimization tools are used to understand the dynamics of information networks, financial markets, solve logistics and supply chain problems, design new drugs, solve biomedical problems, design renewable and sustainable energy systems, reduce pollution, and improve he…
Bargaining in the international system is governed by rules, which shape and constrain states’ bargaining behavior. However, these rules can be changed. When, why, and how do states bargain differently under different sets of rules? Drawing on original qualitative and quantitative evidence, this book demonstrates how the rules of the game influence the cooperative or coercive nature of the st…
You’ve survived all those technical accounting courses, advanced courses, systems, auditing, cost, and tax, and now you’re ready to take the big exam. But perhaps in those intermediate or advanced courses, you didn’t receive enough expo- sure to research in the accounting standards, the auditing standards, or the tax code. No problem! This little book is designed to quickly bring you up…
Communication has always played a pivotal role in the evolution of human culture, societies and civilisation. From symbols, cave paintings, petroglyphs, pictograms, ideograms and alphabet based forms of writing, to computerised forms of communication, such as the Web, search engines, email, mobile phones, VoIP Internet telephony, television and digital media, communication technologies have bee…
The worldwide rise in natural and man-made disasters in the last two decades has questioned the very preparedness to cope with them. Although less frequent, such disasters occur with high impact and completely disrupt the daily lives of people resulting in huge loss of lives and capitals to the extent of wiping out the entire city. Countries the world over have been developing mechanisms to dea…