Leader Strategy Research Articles

Multinational Company Marketing Strategy: An Emphasis on Cement Industry Bangladesh

The main objective of this study is to know the multinational cement companies’ marketing strategies those are currently operating their business in Bangladesh. For doing this report, the data is basically collected from several authentic sources like journal articles, paper, governmental reports and several online sites. The study shows that the development of the cement industry of Bangladesh is not too long, so the expansion of the multinational companies’ business in the cement industry in Bangladesh is also comparatively new. As the people of Bangladesh are already inclined to build a permanent house, so in recent few decades the demand for cement has increased in Bangladesh. Currently along with local cement companies, there are also so many multinational cement companies are operating their business in Bangladesh. The study shows that the market share of foreign cement factories in Bangladesh is not more than 30 percent and the recognized foreign cement brands are facing very tough competition with local cement companies. Foreign entrepreneurs have been shrinking as local entrepreneurs come forward to produce international quality cement. Advertising is considered as the great tool of multinational cement companies for increasing sales growth in Bangladesh. All of the companies have their own slogan and this is effective in Bangladesh as it helps to make the products popular by giving unique identity. Many multinational cement companies offer bundle pricing and most of the cement brands in Bangladesh use the touch of a celebrity. Since people are already devoted to them so they will for sure buy the product, and most of the people don’t even think about the quality and rely totally on the ad and their favorite celebrity. Based on the study it has been recommended that multinational cement companies in Bangladesh should take the loss leader strategy, and although the traditional advertisement will continue in future, but they should focus more on the digital media and social media as a part of their marketing strategy.

Formation Control for Water-Jet USV Based on Bio-Inspired Method

The formation control problem for underactuated unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) is addressed by a distributed strategy based on virtual leader strategy. The control system takes account of disturbance induced by external environment. With the coordinate transformation, the advantage of the proposed scheme is that the control point can be any point of the ship instead of the center of gravity. By introducing bio-inspired model, the formation control problem is addressed with backstepping method. This avoids complicated computation, simplifies the control law, and smoothes the input signals. The system uniform ultimate boundness is proven by Lyapunov stability theory with Young inequality. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness and robust of the proposed controller.

Wizerunek i kierunki polityki Władimira Putina w mediach społecznościowych w kampanii prezydenckiej w 2018 roku

The main aim of this paper is to analyse the image and policy directions of Vladimir Putin in social media before the 2018 presidential elections that he won. The official Twitter channel in English version was traversed in this paper. The presidential campaign of Vladimir Putin on Twitter in 2018 was very gentle. The leader strategy, which was adopted, ensured his outright victory. The most commonly raised issues before the presidential elections in Russia concerned international partnerships, military issues, army and arms. Information concerning private life was not used in the pictures and in the paper. He had condoled, wished and congratulated – the widely promoted image of a charismatic leader was broken down by friendly gestures. The figure of president was exposed in pictures. The most posted pictures of the President were pictures of him surrounded by common people, workers and politicians. His attire and body language underlined a professional approach.

On minimaxity of Follow the Leader strategy in the stochastic setting

We consider the setting of prediction with expert advice with an additional assumption that each expert generates its losses i.i.d. according to some distribution. We first identify a class of “admissible” strategies, which we call permutation invariant, and show that every strategy outside this class will perform not better than some permutation invariant strategy. We then show that when the losses are binary, a simple Follow the Leader (FL) algorithm is the minimax strategy for this game, where minimaxity is simultaneously achieved for the expected regret, the pseudo-regret, and the excess risk. Furthermore, FL has also the smallest regret, pseudo-regret, and excess risk over all permutation invariant prediction strategies, simultaneously for all distributions over binary losses. We generalize these minimax results to the case in which each expert generates its losses from a distribution belonging to a one-dimensional exponential family, as well as to the case of loss vectors generated jointly from a multinomial distribution. We also show that when the losses are in the interval [0,1] and the learner competes against all distributions over [0,1], FL remains minimax only when an additional trick called “loss binarization” is applied.

Do patients value a hospital's innovativeness reputation? A multi-method approach to assess the relative importance of innovativeness reputation in patients' hospital choice.

Innovations in health care are costly and risky, but they also provide the opportunity for hospitals to increase quality of care, to distinguish themselves from competitors and to attract patients. While numerous hospitals strive to increase their innovativeness by adopting a costly innovation leader strategy, the question of whether this actually influences the patient's choice remains unanswered. To understand the role of innovativeness from the patient perspective, this study conceptualizes the construct of innovativeness reputation of hospitals and determines its relevance in patients' hospital choice decisions. In the pretest, we identified six dimensions of innovativeness reputation such as progressive work procedures and value added services. We then used three different quantitative multi-criteria decision-making methods to evaluate the relative importance of innovativeness reputation in patient choice. We collected data from 355 former German patients who had undergone elective non-emergency surgery. Overall, innovativeness reputation accounts for 11.6%-16.8% of the patient decision. Innovativeness reputation has a moderate influence on hospital choice and should be taken into account by managers. Since technical innovations are costly, hospitals should use other means to enhance their innovative image. Strategies such as emphasizing value added services can enable hospitals to increase their innovativeness reputation efficiently.

Virtual Stackelberg game coupled with the adjoint method for aerodynamic shape optimization

ABSTRACTIn this article, a Virtual Stackelberg Game (VSG) is proposed for aerodynamic shape optimization, where the design variables are divided into two categories to optimize the same objective function, one acts as a leader, and the other ones as followers react independently and selfishly relative to the leader's strategy. During each Stackelberg strategy cycle, the Gradient-Based Method (GBM) with the adjoint method in Stanford University Unstructured (SU2) is applied in the optimization of each player. Firstly, parametric studies of VSG by two simple cases are conducted to assess the impact of critical parameters on aerodynamic shape optimization, including the design cycle, the split of design variables and role (leader and follower) assignment. Based on the criterion from parametric studies, two typical numerical cases under transonic flow are applied—the drag reduction design of a 2D airfoil and a 3D wing. It is found that, compared to the original GBM method, VSG can provide better optimization results with less computational cost.

Coordination Task Triggered Formation Control Algorithm for Multiple Marine Vessels

This paper presents a novel coordinated formation algorithm for multiple surface vessels that used the guidance-control structure. The proposed coordination algorithm is the combination of the virtual leader strategy and the passivity-based coordination method. In which, the guidance system is used to supply the desired reference signals by designing the controller according to the corresponding marine task. The control system is designed to achieve a coordinated controller which can be applied to different tasks used these reference signals. The desired formation among these surface vessels is formed by designing a universal consensus control law for all the formation reference points of these surface vessels. Especially, the hybrid control theory is introduced to guarantee smooth switching among the coordinated controllers for different marine task. Then, the proposed coordination control algorithm can guarantee the general marine formation operation for multiple surface vessels. Finally, the effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by the simulation results.

Urban governance innovations in Rio de Janeiro: The political management of digital innovations

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes urban governance innovations in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, focusing on the role of these innovations within the wider political management strategy of the executive leader. These innovations, all of which utilize digital information and communication technologies, are important elements within a leadership and management strategy. The article explores the role of digital innovations within the broader strategy of the mayor’s use of managerial tools as means to strengthen control of the city’s governance. Though presented as an apolitical management style of “what works,” this form of management is also deployed to enforce contentious political decisions with substantial implications for the social fabric of the city. This article offers an analysis of the political role and implications of urban governance and public service innovations that are often presented and analyzed in purely instrumental and apolitical ways.

Proactive professional networking strategies for enhancing teacher engagement in private school: Case study of Kraiumnuayvittaya army sponsor school

Aim: This study aims to create proactive professional networking strategies for enhancing teacher engagement in private school with a case study of Kraiumnuayvittaya Army Sponsor School.Methodology: This phenomenological study used narrative inquiry and in-depth interview to collect data from the school manager, principal, school board members and teachers.Findings: The research finding revealed the proactive professional networking strategies for enhancing teacher engagement in private school consisted of (1) problem joint strategy, 2) teacher leader strategy and (3) expertise strategy. Each strategy was examined through a research and development approach within a school year to reveal a deeper understanding of ways to most successfully influence effective teacher engagement in the private school.Novelty/Implications: The strategies addressed in this study were grounded in perceptions of a gap between the school managers, principal and teachers. The research sought to shed light on progress towards the successful implementation of school change in teachersâA Z engagement as perceived by school board members, principal, and teachers at all levels.

Markets with heterogeneous beliefs: A necessary and sufficient condition for a trader to vanish

What does it take to survive in the market? Previous literature has proposed sufficient conditions for a trader to vanish, which depend on pairwise comparisons of traders’ discounted beliefs. We propose a novel condition that focuses on the ratio of traders’ discounted beliefs and (approximate) equilibrium prices. Unlike existing conditions, ours is both necessary and sufficient for a trader to vanish and delivers the exact rate at which vanishing traders lose their consumption shares. As an application, we analyze the performance of two intuitive behavioral strategies: the “Follow the Leader Strategy” that prescribes mimicking the beliefs of the most successful trader, and the “Follow the Market Strategy” that prescribes to use beliefs which coincide with the state price density. Further, we show that the relative performance of vanishing traders cannot be studied in isolation. Our analysis highlights an intuitive point obscured by the existing conditions: trading in financial markets is qualitatively different from bilateral trading.

The effectiveness of integrating teaching strategies into IRS activities to facilitate learning

AbstractPrevious studies on the interactive response system (IRS) have generally adopted the lecture method to facilitate teaching and learning, while few have made efforts to investigate the learning effects of instructional methods and IRS activities on learning and teaching. The purpose of the present study was therefore to explore whether the use of the IRS with two different teaching methods would affect students' learning performance. A quasi‐experimental design was employed, with the teacher conducting the course using the learner as leader strategy in the experimental group (E.G.) and the teacher leader strategy in the control group (C.G.). The experiment was conducted over a period of 15 weeks (a semester), and questionnaires were administered at the beginning, in the middle and after the experiment to elicit the learners' views on the IRS application. The results support previous research which found that using the IRS improved learners' engagement and interaction. They also provide further evidence that the use of the IRS with both teaching strategies not only had a short‐term learning effect but could also be a tool for sustaining students' learning motivation and self‐directed learning for long‐term learning purposes. Besides, the use of the learner as leader strategy contributed to enhancing discussion in groups, especially for the leading groups. The use of the IRS with the learner as leader strategy benefited those who acted as leaders in taking the initiative to learn the course content, and also engaged the students who acted as learners in concentrating on the course because it was their classmates who were leading.Lay DescriptionWhat is already known about this topic The interactive response system (IRS) facilitates course interaction, and increases course attendance and learning performance Most studies have integrated the IRS with lectures to facilitate teaching and learning What this paper adds The paper explored the effectiveness of using the IRS with two teaching methods on students' learning for a semester. The use of the learner as leader strategy with IRS benefited the learners who acted as leaders in taking the initiative to learn the course content, and engaged the students who acted as learners in concentrating on the course. Implications for practice and/or policy Students are benefited in taking the initiative to learn the contents through hosting the IRS activity. Teachers could adopt both lectures and learner as leader strategy with IRS to sustain students' learning motivation and self‐directed learning for long‐term learning purposes.

"Madonnas," "Assassins," and "Girls": How Female Politicians Respond to Media Labels Reflecting Party Leader Strategy

"Madonnas," "Assassins," and "Girls": How Female Politicians Respond to Media Labels Reflecting Party Leader Strategy

Robust cooperative path tracking control algorithm for multi-vessel

The issue of distributed cooperative path tracking control for multi-vessel in the presence of ocean currents has addressed in this article. The proposed cooperative control approach is achieved by designing the guidance system and the control system. In order to achieve the multi-vessel’s coordination with the desired spatial formation, the guidance system is designed based on the strategy of virtual leader for supplying the desire path and relevant parameters for each vessel. In addition, a robust cooperative path tracking controller is designed to reject the disturbance of unknown ocean currents using the backstepping method and the adaptive control technology. The synchronization between all the vessels is achieved by defining same path parameter and same speed along the path through the guidance system. Global asymptotic stability is guaranteed by Lyapunov-based technique for the whole control system. The effectiveness of the proposed cooperative path tracking control method is demonstrated by numerical simulation.

Optimal formation control with limited communication for multi-unmanned aerial vehicle in an obstacle-laden environment

This paper investigates the formation control problem of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with limited communication in a known and realistic obstacle-laden environment. In order to deal with the limited communication constraints, the leader–follower strategy and the virtual leader strategy are integrated into an optimal control framework to formulate this formation control problem. This combination formation framework can be achieved by integrating a redefined directed graph and a proposed information vector. In more practical applications, an obstacle/collision avoidance strategy is achieved by constructing a non-quadratic cost function innovatively using a virtual flow field approach. The proposed optimal control laws, which derive from the local information rather than the global information, are proved to guarantee the stability of the close-loop system by an inverse optimal control approach. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the formation flight of multiple UAVs with limited communication in an obstacle-laden environment.

Stochastic problem of competitive location of facilities with quantile criterion

A stochastic problem of facility location formulated as a discrete bilevel problem of stochastic programming with quantile criterion was proposed. Consideration was given there to a pair of competitive players successively locating facilities with the aim of maximizing their profits. For the case of discrete distribution of the random consumer demands, it was proposed to reduce the original problem to the deterministic problem of bilevel programming. A method to calculate the value of the objective function under fixed leader strategy and procedures to construct the upper and lower bounds of the optimal value of the objective function were proposed.

Bioinspired Coordinated Path Following for Vessels with Speed Saturation Based on Virtual Leader.

This paper investigates the coordinated path following of multiple marine vessels with speed saturation. Based on virtual leader strategy, the authors show how the neural dynamic model and passivity-based techniques are brought together to yield a distributed control strategy. The desired path following is achieved by means of a virtual dynamic leader, whose controller is designed based on the biological neural shunting model. Utilizing the characteristic of bounded and smooth output of neural dynamic model, the tracking error jump is avoided and speed saturation problem is solved in straight path. Meanwhile, the coordinated path following of multiple vessels with a desired spatial formation is achieved through defining the formation reference point. The consensus of formation reference point is realized by using the synchronization controller based on passivity. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed coordinated algorithm.

ATM Fees at Black and Hispanic Owned Single Market Banks: A Comparative Analysis

This paper presents evidence regarding three types of ATM fees: foreign fees charged for use of a non-bank ATM by the bank's customers, surcharges for use of bank ATMs by non-customers, and balance inquiry charges for the bank's own customers. It is hypothesized that, among single market banks, fees will be positively correlated with bank size, a lack of market competition, market penetration by multimarket banks, banks serving low income communities, and Black owned banks (BOBs) and Hispanic owned banks (HOBs), although banks may try to confuse depositors with fees that exhibit a low correlation, or may set low surcharges as part of a loss leader strategy. A 2013 sample of approximately 1500 single market banks, including 21 Black owned banks (BOBs) and 19 Hispanic owned banks (HOBs) is used for correlation and regression analyses. It is found that BOBs charge an average of $0.50 higher foreign fees, and are more likely to charge balance inquiry fees. We also find that larger banks tend to charge higher fees, and that banks may set higher fees where they serve disadvantaged communities of color. Surprisingly, market competition is never significantly associated with ATM fees, and there is minimal correlation across fees, and both results are consistent with banks setting fees strategically to confuse customers.

Security Games With Unknown Adversarial Strategies

The security community has witnessed a significant increase in the number of different types of security threats. This situation calls for the design of new techniques that can be incorporated into security protocols to meet these challenges successfully. An important tool for developing new security protocols as well as estimating their effectiveness is game theory. This game theory framework usually involves two players or agents: 1) a protector and 2) an adversary, and two patterns of agent behavior are considered: 1) selfish behavior, where each of the agents wants to maximize his payoff; and 2) leader and follower behavior, where one agent (the leader) expects that the other agent (the follower) will respond to the leader's strategy. Such an approach assumes that the agents agree on which strategy to apply in advance. In this paper, this strong assumption is relaxed. Namely, the following question is considered: what happens if it is unknown a priori what pattern of behavior the adversary is going to use, or in other words, it is not known, what game he intends to play? Using a simple game-theoretic model, it is shown that the protector can lose if he does not take into account the possibility that the adversary can play a game other than the one the protector has in mind. Further considered is a repeated game in which the protector can learn about the presence of an adversary, and the behavior of belief probabilities is analyzed in this setting.

Do Not Follow a Weak Leader

What does it take to survive in the market? Previous literature has proposed (only) sufficient conditions for the consumption share of a trader to converge to 0 (i.e., vanish), which depend on pairwise comparisons of traders’ discounted beliefs. We propose an alternative condition for a trader to vanish that is both necessary and sufficient that depends on the comparison between trader’s discounted beliefs and equilibrium prices. We apply our condition to study the performance of the simple “follow the leader strategy”, which prescribes a trader to mimic the beliefs of the trader who did best in the past. Our condition shows that this strategy leads to certain ruin whenever there is not a unique leader; a result that cannot be obtained using the existing approach.

Prognostics-Based Two-Operator Competition in Proactive Replacement and Service Parts Procurement

Effective prognostics and timely maintenance of degrading components can improve the availability and economic efficiency of an engineering system. However, possible shortage of required service parts usually makes near-zero downtime difficult to achieve. To coordinate service parts availability with scheduled maintenance, it is necessary for the operator to decide when to order the service parts and how to compete with other operators in parts procurement. In this article, we consider a situation where two operators are to make prognostics-based replacement decisions and strategically procure the needed service parts. When a competition occurs, each of the operators has a bounded continuum of strategies. A one-shot sequential game (Stackelberg game) is formulated and a sequential, constrained maximin experimental design approach is proposed to facilitate searching for the equilibrium solution. This approach is quite useful in handling cases where the follower's best response to the leader's strategy, both chosen from continuums of strategy sets, is difficult to obtain analytically. Numerical studies on wind turbine operation are provided to demonstrate the use of the sequential decision-making method in solving such complex, yet realistic maintenance and service parts logistics problems.