Problems of Management in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol. 7, 2013, PMC

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Authors: Iwona Gorzeń-Mitka

Risk and its management are becoming increasingly important issues in modern theory and practice of managing organizations. It is propounded that organizations, regardless of the type or size of activity they carry out, take into account the impact of risk in their decisions and processes. Managerial approach to risk is aimed at reducing the extent to which risk impacts the functioning of an organization, allowing it to take optimal decisions. At the same time, changes occurring in the environment increase manifold the risk that organizations are forced to take. Inadequacy of the existing, traditional approaches to risk management, which often do not correspond to the dynamics of the changes in the environment in which today’s organizations function, makes it necessary to look for new, innovative managerial solutions. This has led to the emergence of the paradigm of enterprise risk management (ERM).

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Authors: Seonghoon Kim, Yong Bai

The Labor Working Status Monitoring (LWSM) Model that incorporates the WRITE and the industry benchmark data was developed through the five steps to enhance labor producitivty in bridge construction operations. The first step of the development process was to conduct a literature review, followed by the second step which was to develop the WRITE. During the development, the authors identified the necessary hardware and software for the WRITE and outlined a schematic to show the connection of major hardware components. The third step was to develop the LWSM Model for monitoring the on-site construction labor working status by comparing data from the WRITE with the industry benchmark data. A survey methodology was used to acquire industry benchmark data from bridge construction experts. The fourth step was to demonstrate the implementation of the LWSM Model at a bridge construction site. During this phase, labor working status data collected using the WRITE was compared with the benchmark data to form the basis for the project managers and engineers to make efficiency improvement decisions. Finally, research findings and recommendations for future research were outlined. The success of this research made several contributions to the advancement of bridge construction. First, it advances the application of wireless technology in construction management. Second, it provides an advanced technology for project managers and engineers to share labor working status information among project participants. Finally, using the developed technology, project managers and engineers can quickly identify labor efficiency problems and take action to address these problems.

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Authors: Joanna Papińska-Kacperek

E-tourism is most often related only with web pages of travel agencies or aggregators offering many services, where it is possible to make transactions electronically. Whereas many applications and devices are applied in tourism, like the audio guides and mobile guides (sometimes with augmented reality functions), electronic cards in museums, 2D codes systems, web pages for individual tourists, geographic information systems (e.g. Google Street View), social network sites recommendation, and profiles of cities on social networks sites like Facebook. Polish tourists' opinions about mentioned innovative tools will be presented as the report from the survey conducted among students and graduates from three Polish universities. The objectives of the study are: investigating the popularity of e-tourist services in Poland and verifying whether municipal authorities promote e-tourism initiatives.

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Authors: Editorial Board

End page, Vol. 7, 2013, PMC