Strategy - Science topic

According to different sources consulted, Niccolò Macchiavelli was an Italian philosopher, politician, and writer born in Florence on May 3, 1469. He is often accused of being cynical, but his legacy in political history is significant. Let's look at some key aspects:

1. Political Realism: Machiavelli emphasized the importance of state stability and the need to understand politics as it was, not as it should be. His work "The Prince" is a treatise on power and governance, where he argues that leaders must make pragmatic decisions based on reality, even if that involves morally questionable actions.

2. The End Justifies the Means: Machiavelli maintained that, in politics, the end justifies the means. Leaders must be willing to take drastic measures if it benefits the state or the ruler. This idea has influenced political leaders and theorists throughout the centuries, although it has also been very controversial.

3. His Role in History: Machiavelli was an official of the Florence Republic and held the second chancellor position. Despite not always being successful in politics, he managed to reconquer Pisa in 1509, a vital port for the Florentine republic.

In short, Machiavelli was a keen observer of human nature and a defender of political realism. His legacy endures in political thought and continues to be the subject of study and debate today.

Dear Alexander, my long-term researches on original Strategic Self-Management enables to conclude:

El método de INTERPOLACION de Krigin resulta más apropiado por su capacidad espacial.

El período de cobertura preferible de una Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional (SEN) puede variar según las necesidades y el contexto de cada país. No existe una duración única que sea adecuada para todas las situaciones. Sin embargo, se deben considerar varios factores para determinar el período óptimo.

Es importante encontrar un equilibrio entre una duración lo suficientemente larga para permitir la planificación estratégica a largo plazo y abordar los riesgos a largo plazo, y una flexibilidad que permita adaptarse a los cambios rápidos en el panorama de seguridad. También se debe tener en cuenta la capacidad de evaluar y prever los riesgos a largo plazo, así como la capacidad de revisar y actualizar la estrategia de manera oportuna.

Cada país tiene sus propias circunstancias y requisitos únicos, por lo que el período de cobertura preferible puede variar. La discusión sobre el período de cobertura de una SEN debe involucrar a expertos en seguridad, formuladores de políticas y otras partes interesadas para determinar la duración más adecuada y efectiva en el contexto específico de cada país.

The U.S. controls the EU and is already in NATO. No point in their own Army

Thank you Juan, I will look into it!

I would like to do research on this topic, but I am facing a hurdle in the available resources

I would recommend reading the following article:

- Elizandra Severgnini (2018) The indirect effects of performance measurement system and organizational ambidexterity on performance, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 24, No. 5, pp. 1176-1199. DOI 10.1108/BPMJ-06-2017-0159

Hi Michał,

In general, the entire SAR action conducted at sea and especially a selection of the search pattern depends (obviously) on a specific situation. Many factors are affecting the course of the action, such as search area (proximity of the shoreline and nearest rescue center), distance to the commence search point, number of the vessels involved, availability of support for the air (helicopters, aircraft), environmental conditions (usually unfavorable), etc.

When looking from the merchant ship's viewpoint, we have an official manual prepared jointly by IMO and ICAO, the so-called IAMSAR Manual (International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Manual) where some procedures to be followed are presented. Among these, there are also search patterns introduced. Their application differs mainly depending on the aforementioned factors (especially the number of the searching vessels or possible cooperation with an aircraft). One of the most common patterns for a single ship is "expanded square", which is very similar to the example of allies vessels action recalled in your question. Other popular patterns used are, among others, sector search (also called a "flower-pattern") - usually with the support of a helicopter, as well as various modifications of parallel track searches - usually in cooperation with aircraft or other ships involved in the SAR action. For more practical information please refer to:

IAMSAR, 2007. International Aeronautical and Maritime Rescue Manual. Volume II, Mission Coordination. IMO/ICAO publications, London/Montreal; or any newer IAMSAR version.

However, in the mentioned IAMSAR Manual, you will find mainly simply operational procedures for the crewmembers of the merchant ships. If you are looking for algorithms or mathematic explanations of the most effective search methods/patterns you have to check scientific sources. There are a few, quite recently published papers about modern solutions in this field. You can see, for instance, the following papers:

Ai, B., Jia, M., Xu, H., Xu, J., Wen, Z., Li, B., & Zhang, D. (2021). Coverage path planning for maritime search and rescue using reinforcement learning. Ocean Engineering, 241, 110098. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2021.110098

Ai, B., Li, B., Gao, S., Xu, J., & Shang, H. (2019). An Intelligent Decision Algorithm for the Generation of Maritime Search and Rescue Emergency Response Plans. IEEE Access, 7, 155835–155850. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2949366

Xiong, W., van Gelder, P. H. A. J. M., & Yang, K. (2020). A decision support method for design and operationalization of search and rescue in maritime emergency. Ocean Engineering, 207, 107399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2020.107399

Especially the first publication seems to be suitable for you. When you check the reference list, you can find there the older papers/books from the math domain, like:

Koopman, B. O. (1957). The Theory of Search. Operations Research, 5(5), 613–626. https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.5.5.613

Good luck,

Mateusz

Scopus and Clarivate analytics indexed journals are recommended in the Philippines institutions. Researchers with articles published in the Scopus and Clarivate analytics recognized journals are more recognized and given more distinction and promotion. For me, however, every scientific piece of information from any source is important as these are accepted as references regardless of journals indexing, impact factor, or citescore.

All that sounds good to me. I`d also add point 6:

Enjoy doing your doctoral program to the full and no matter what. Virtually, creative activities are good for your mind and soul. They aren`t just about painting, composing music or making some tangible stuff, though. Dive deep into your research and think out of the box. It`s rewarding in many ways :)

The guidance/views/example of a SWOT analysis as per the following papers may further help:

Furthermore, the following publications may help enhance an understanding of SWOT, namely: “…..we prefer TOWS analysis because it starts with an outside-in perspective, whereas SWOT analysis uses an inside-out perspective. An inside-out perspective tends not to consider customers’ wants or competitors advantages. The TOWS analysis is used because changes occur so rapidly that a particular advantage can be rendered meaningless in a very short space of time. Rapid changes often become treats to a company’s survival, though they could also be viewed as opportunities…..” (Kotler and Kartajaya, 2000, pp. 98-99).

logic toys

Pareto's principle can be applied for evaluation.

Affirmative

I would recommend reading the following article:

- Jean-Pascal Gond, Suzana Grubnic, Christian Herzig, Jeremy Moon (2012) Configuring management control systems: Theorizing the integration of strategy and sustainability, Management Accounting Research, Volume 23, Issue 3, pp. 205-223

Keep it simple.

Any operational design should answer some questions, but always has some main questions to answer, previously.

Step 1 (mandatory)

Define your competitive strategy. Then design your Supply Chain, once this design is done. You can continue designing your operational process, do you need now the flows (operational, informational and financial) and cost numbers to decide about the next step.

Questions

a) What is the strategy that this operational process to feed?

b) What is the demand that this process should provide?

c) In that part of the Supply Chain, this process acts?

d) How this design maximize profits and minimize costs?

e) Is the main process or a support process within our Value Chain?

f) Which are your goals and objectives? What did we expect of the process? this is very important due to that you must design based on these objectives.

g) Define your Q&A standard, so this is your base of comparison, to in the future build you KPI's. Based on it's you can develop your control objectives and for consequence the KPI's.

1. How to split tasks between operational routines (repetitive tasks, business as usual) and dynamic routines (transformations, NPD, innovation etc.) for different functions (sales, manufacturing, HR, etc.)?

This question is answered for my past comments, without it, you only made an incomplete work that as always in the text is a theoretical misrepresentation of the reality.

Your design process considers certain restrictions or thinking in unexpected, that isn't the norm, your design is for your central limit of the process, any deviation must be treated as that it's an exception.

2. Once you know the operational number you need to define with that resources you will develop any process, this could be with people, machines, automation or other means. if you decide to use people you need measure times in each part of the process and build a "Line Balance" and if is productive to define machine and times a Mass Balance"

3. KPI's are only control measures that we design to measures relevant or critical operations or processes, that we need to keep in or near to the central limit (search SPC). You should develop it when you have mapped your processor when you are followed all the before steps.

Greetings

Alfredo

Always have a range of follow-up activities for stronger students, who may be paired together, which they can complete while lower level students are still working on initial activities. Stronger students may welcome more autonomy, but they also need to feel they are learning something from the lesson, even while you may be occupied with further explanation to lower level students.

Dear Prof. Edlight Mutungwe

I would like to add that in some countries such as as mine, understand the role of technology in education is imperative before any real investment in the field.

12 yeass ago, my country decided to buy computers for everyone (from kindergate to last high school level), but there was no goal on that, just a populist choice in order to convince---& wash out young fellows brains---that chavismo was a great deal. They tried to transform & change the national school curriculum. It ended in what it is today our ed. system--->a real failure by all means [1].

[1]

Quoting the authors in [1]:

Dear Vardan,

My advice is not to look to the best international practices -- you cannot replicate the Conference Board, American Enterprise Institute, the Brooking Institution, the RAND Corporation or EIU.

In post-USSR countries there are just three types of striving thin tanks

1) extensions of particular ministries (ministry of finance, ministry of economy) performing outsourcing works to their major clients using the government money. The development strategy is simple -- to expand the basis of clients with gradual serving two, three ministries etc. The moment of truth in your strategy is to present or do not present in your report a point which totally contradicts the opinion of your client (minister, deputy minister etc.);

2) networks of researchers serving industry (employers) associations. Here you strategy is to extract data from participants of such associations and to present it back in a fresh interesting way with some assertive arguments for the benefits of the members of associations;

3) 'brain departments' of influential political parties. Here your strategy is dualistic -- be able to produce attractive populist ideas and assertive slogans and short texts (manifestos and political programs) and also to offer to politicians the real analysis of the current situation and the short-term forecasts.

For the first and sometimes for the third cases of think tanks do not expect that they will survive for a very long time. For the second case, you can work successfully for decades. In the second case you may also have a possibility to mutate into a consultancy company providing specified services for particular corporations.

Bests,

Igor Gurkov

Head of a think tank of the first type in 1994-2000, head of a think tank of first&second type in 2000-2006.

Following may be useful...

Bukszar Jr, E. (1999). Strategic bias: The impact of cognitive biases on strategy. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration, 16(2), 105-117.

Olson, B. J., Parayitam, S., & Bao, Y. (2007). Strategic decision making: The effects of cognitive diversity, conflict, and trust on decision outcomes. Journal of management, 33(2), 196-222.

حيث يحاول دونالد ترامب الضغط على العراق لكي يخسر ايران علاقتها القويه مع السياسيين الشيعه في العراق وهذه الخطوه غير موفقه معه لان السياسيين العراقيين عملائهم لايمكن خسارة علاقتهم مع الطبقه الحاكمه في ايران مما يجعله بسحب قواته بشكل علني ولكن سيناريو المخفي سوف يقوم بتوجيه ضربه كضربه ةلسابقه للسياسيين الموالين لايران .

Several studies suggest that music reduces the sensation of labor pain and alleviates the emotional and psychological discomfort associated with it.

Relaxation techniques for pain management in labour

Effects of music therapy on labour pain and anxiety in Taiwanese first-time mothers | Request PDF

(PDF) Effect of Music on Labor Pain Relief, Anxiety Level and Postpartum Analgesic Requirement: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Already have my friend, I'm talking about using safety strategy. The Near Miss is a golden opportunity for an organization to learn from pass mistakes. Reflective observation is a powerful and effective proactive tool in the hands of a safety practitioner. 😉

I wish, won't be able to get the Visa :)

Text based and genre based approaches to teaching translation work best, specially when one is using idiomatic translation method suggested by Mildred Larson.

Especially in the Age of Complexity, the best laid plans (and forecasts) will go awry. And yet, no other than Eisenhower said to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference in Washington, D.C. (Eisenhower, 1957) that "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything." (One must take it the former American army general and president of the United States knew whereof he spoke.) A premortem is a managerial strategy in which a project team imagines that a plan (or forecast) has failed, and then works backward to determine what potentially could lead to the failure of the said. There is probably more food for thought from a premortem than from any standard, mechanism, or formula aimed at evaluating ex-ante whether a strategy will be successful or not. (There also happens to be an art to the practice of strategy.)

I could recommend the Ash MAURYA approach "Running Lean" which works in real life through a very well documented iterative process. Best

Earl Nightangale’s definition is the best one in my opinion, “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy idea.“

Success is not then achievement but the feeling while chasing a goal.

Dear Ann:

I remember an author whose name is Quinn who coined the name "incremental strategy" (in spanish "estrategia incremental"). You can read some book by himself or several readings by Scholes/Whittington/Johnson or Mintzberg et al in "Strategy Safari". According to Quinn, managers have an initial strategy they pretend to use, while developing it they realize certain problems so they have to adapt it. These steps are small compared to the first one, so that´s why he speaks about "incremental strategy".

Regards

Gustavo Concari

There are many strategies such as brainstorming strategy, brain-based learning strategies, and others.

Very good points! I want to add them to the blog post as a comment. Are you ok with that? I'll quote you ofcourse.

The greenhouse effect has long been recognized by research centers and in the past, from the age of 60. Since the 1990s, many international researchers have come together under the auspices of the United Nations to work on this rapid and global climate change and its evolution. Regarding the cycle I totally agree with my colleague Kenneth M Towe

Please tell me if the attempt to open the zip file prospered. Regards

It is something like what Frederickson said in the New Public Administration (the ‘70s) as well as in the Spirit of Public Administration (the ‘90s) more than just for merely social equity anyway ... it was substance for the quo-vadis of existing public administration. If so ... the patriotism will be vis-a-vis with the professionalism, a masterpiece of governance concept in contemporary public administration.

Dear Tomazs,

In my context, making a generalization seems difficult. Every alternative in the literature (e.g. strategy follows sturucture; structure follows strategy; they interact with each other; they are independent) seems possible under certain conditions. For example, public organizations sometimes adopt some structures ceremonically that are dictated by some forceful organizations. In this situation, structure can be independent (decoupled-loose coupled) from strategy of related organization. Good luck in your studies!

Best regards,

Mehmet

Change the boss's "focus of attention" as quickly as possible to a new and different issue.

Dennis

Dennis Mazur

Dear Entedher sarhat, Thank you so much!

Strategic alignment is necessary for its effective execution. Strategies need to be aligned with the structure, processes, operations, resources and so on.

CD3+CD335+ cells will be a small fraction compared to CD3+NK1.1+ cells. Regardless both NK1.1 and CD335 will be expressed by a majority of NK cells. CD335 is expressed in NK cells and iNKT but not on CD1d restricted NK cells. For C57BL/6 mice I will use NK1.1, CD335, CD4, CD8 and TCRbeta

NK cells: NK1.1+CD335+TCRb negative

iNKT cells: NK1.1+CD335+CD4-CD8-TRCb+

other NKT cells: NK1.1+CD335-TCRb-

I think that the 'controlled feedback' procedure in the Delphi method makes it inappropriate for decision-making, since it acts as directing and modeeling the thinking and analysis of the anonymous experts

The current SCM approach is to create values and enhance key outcomes (in terms of efficiency and effectiveness) that drive firm performance. Please refer to Ketchen & Hult (2007). 

see this article 

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PRINCIPLES APPLICATION ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF PUBLIC SHAREHOLDING COMPANIES LISTED IN AMMAN STOCK EXCHANGE

Thank you Nizam Shah Allabasc,

I am working on banking industry (micro finance bank sub-sector).

Thank you.

Maybe this can help you

Dear Nolberto,

Yes, I agree with you it may help in project planning. The duration estimates are the result of subjective input and the probability is based on the subjective input of the project manger or the team. Thanks.

you have to follow a trial and error method basically although you can use any of the available optimisation techniques available like PSO. A easier method is as follows:

1) form the transfer function of the complete system and find out the open loop gain. Open loop gain is nothing but the transfer function of the forward path and the feedback path in cascade. Take any arbitrary value of Ki and Kp (say 100 and 1 respectively to start) 

2) draw the bode plot and observe the phase margin.

3) If you phase margin is more than 76 degrees then your Ki and Kp are acceptable

4) If phase margin is less than 76 degrees then change your Kp and Ki value to make the phase margin more than 76 degrees.

NB: Phase margin of more than 76 degrees is needed to make any system remain stable 

According to the project description, the goal is to help them learn and create opportunities for students to learn about all aspects of scientific practice. A structured PD must include three steps. First, introduce teachers to Next Generation Science Standards (knowledge). Second, introduce teachers to classroom plan or activities that will help them in sharing scientific practices. Third, introduce teachers’ strategies or encourage them to develop strategies that will create opportunities for the student to argue about the scientific practices. In the third step teachers may include a classroom experimentation for developing a successful strategy.  Finally, the strategies are developed based on the goals.

Thanks.

Mohammed

Nice

Thank you Paul for that clarification

The previous answers have been insightful but have not addressed the question spot on. To my knowledge, what matters is not about figuring out the exact type of spatial strategy (be it egocentric, allocentric, or mixed/conjunctive) that will influence visual search performance, but whether the person who performs the task has an inherent predisposition for using either an egocentric or allocentric strategy. If you have a person who is adept at using the egocentric spatial strategy (i.e., he/she prefer to take the field-dependent/first-person viewpoint in any form of battle situation), you would hypothesize that he/she would be more accurate, as well as faster in response, than another person who has a low preference for this strategy. The same logic would apply in terms for a person who has a high preference for the allocentric/field-independent strategy (or spatial representational style, to be precise) versus another person who has a low preference for the same strategy. So in order to have an accurate gauge of spatial strategy use on your participants visual search performance, please make sure you differentiate between the inherent strategic preferences among your participants--through the use of self-reported questionnaires/surveys and/or relevant behavioral measures of egocentric and allocentric perspective-taking. My papers should be relevant for your cause.

Have a look on the attached discussion link. 

Dear Mohamed,

I agree with Igor. However, please allow me to simplify and provide more details.

There are various tools to monitor Strategy Implementation, and it all depends on whether they are for Corporate-level, Business-level (e.g. specific product group or geographical area) or Functional-level (e.g. Marketing, Operational, HR or Finance) strategies. One of the tool that is more applicable for corporate strategy is the Balanced Scorecard, where using measurable KPIs identified, we can track the changes to them over time. The Balanced Scorecard is often translated down to also the business level and the functional level to monitor and improve such corporate level strategy.

For Business level strategy, it is often positional assessment as noted by Igor. Here, we can position the business in views of competitors (e.g. to identify gap areas using the Growth Share Matrix) and to compete similarly or differently (e.g. using focus, differentiation or niche strategy). We can then gather performance indicators in view of these axes or variables such as market share, growth or financial performance.

Functional strategy relates to functional performance. For example in Marketing, we may want to capture customer satisfaction, customer orders and market share in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Depending on the projects, as depicted by Igor, you can further compare 'before' and 'after' results but the measurement again depends on the function and project.

Hope this will make measurement clearer to you.

Best wishes

Prof Kuah

Always start with National Level documents - Constitution, Treaties, Laws on Defense and Chain of Commend/Executive Authorities for Decision Making, National Defense Strategy (including Threats, Diplomatic, Infrastructure - physical and communication/cyber, Acquisition & Materiel/Production, Economic, Technology, Education, and Geography), National Military Strategy, Current Force Structure, Required Operational Capabilities, "Gap Analysis", Future Force Structure, Modernization Strategy, Operational Doctrine, Defense Policy & Institutions, Professional Military Education system, Assessment/Periodic Revisions to all of the above. This is based on a decade of personal (US Security Cooperation/Assistance DOD/DOS) resident advisory work at the strategic national government/ministry of defense and joint staff levels of four former communist nations in SE Europe as a senior defense reform representative to those nations in cooperation with OSCE, NATO, UNDP, and US DoD/DoS - Ambassadors and SACEUR/USEUCOM. .

Joseph,

The models you refer to are created by consultants and have received less academic and business validations that the classics you refer too. They cannot be called "frameworks". This does not make them uninteresting, but they require to be taken with a grain of salt. It is true that the classics are somewhat dated. If you want to look at contemporary academically solid frameworks, look also at the Resource Based Theory, Knowledge Based, etc. Look at

Conner, K.R., 1991. A Historical Comparison of Resource-Based Theory and Five Schools of Thought Within Industrial Organization Economics: Do We Have a New Theory of the Firm? Journal of Management 17, 121–154.

This can also help you structure your comparison.

Hi Thomas,

These papers about the comparative analysis of workers’ cooperatives vs. capitalist firms may be of interest to you (from the oldest to the most recent ones) :

Ben-ner, A. 1988. 'The life cycle of worker-owned firms in market economies.' Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 10:3, 287-313.

Ben-Ner, A. 1988. 'Comparative empirical observations on worker-owned and capitalist firms.' International Journal of Industrial Organization, 6:1, 7-31.

Pérotin, V. 2006. 'Entry, exit, and the business cycle: Are cooperatives different?' Journal of Comparative Economics, 34:2, 295-316.

Burdín, G. & Dean, A. 2009. 'New evidence on wages and employment in worker cooperatives compared with capitalist firms.' Journal of Comparative Economics, 37:4, 517-33.

--

With regard to the performance of financial cooperatives during crises, there is a report of the International Labour Office, which can be found following this link:

See also this special issue of the Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity:

Hope this helps.

All the best,

Thomas

Hi Antonis,

I very much appreciate your question, as well as the answer from Petra!

I have worked for more than a decade in MSWM in Southeast Asia with more than 20 pilot municipalities that tried to establish enhanced MSWM systems in developing country context. The best result from our (official development) work by Integrated approaches was a 'recovery rate of 50%' , mainly through low cost approaches that channeled out organic waste prior to disposal. I have to admit that the organic recycling component was 'subsidized' in all cases, meaning without the supporting local policies to provide project subsidy this 50% recycling rate could not have been achieved. Recovery rates for 'sellable items' (hard plastics, selected glass, metals, paper cartoons) usually had a share below 15% of total collected waste. We have tried several approaches for value adding with the informal sector (handicraft items, alternative fuels, briquettes for household consumption, etc but most of these projects remained small and could not be replicated. Looking on the accomplishment from a simplified perspective: Tackling the organic waste fraction (presented at the ORBIT 2012 for San Carlos City) solved many issues related to waste disposal but is hardly a 'self-running/self-sustaining' activity. Organic waste recovery on a small scale (as is typical for most islands) in view of circular economy demands to provide a sustainable business models that is (lastingly and reliable) supported by the municipality. We have documented this approach in a special GIZ Publication "Eco-Center" (2013) in the Philippines. Please feedback to me if you like to get an e-copy, as well as other related papers.

In summary: It would indeed be interesting to consider a review paper that summarizes to what degree other researchers / developers / island states were able to implement 'circular economy' for island contexts and what were success factors respectively barriers. 

Johannes Paul

All great points that have been made here. I would just add that an open innovation strategy will differ by industry sector and often goes hand in hand with the development of an open business model. SMEs are often part of a (social) network and the utility of an open innovation strategy will depend on their surroundings. 

The literature on this topic is constantly increasing, so I would take a look at these for further reference:

The search strategy is common for both reviewers. In other words, you develop a search strategy and retrieve the initial set of articles. Then, both reviewers start the selection process independently. Both reviewers go through all phases and disagreements are mediated first between them and if not possible by a third person from the research team.

The execution of different strategies requires various types of organizational structures, systems, management styles, staff, resources and shared values

I think that there are no universally accepted strategies for seasonality management. Since the factors that are causing seasonality of tourism demand are different from destination to destination, the strategies aimed at reducing/managing seasonality must be different as well. In Croatia, we apply strategies such as focusing on the tourism generating markets with the lowest seasonality (as measured by Gini coefficient) - typically long haul markets, on accommodation facilities with the highest occupancy rate (hotels and similar) and on improving overall destination experience, in terms of activities that are available to tourists during off season periods. However, these strategies have produced slim results so far, since the major factors that are causing seasonality (climate, public holidays on generating markets etc.) are beyond our reach. Hope this helps. Best of luck with your research!

You might be interested in the following papers:

Historically speaking, another policy aspect to look into is state support of national airlines for the purpose of building a national identity. In the process of improving air transport infrastructure, image-building objectives could be fulfilled--or at least that's what the objective was. I link to an article discussing such efforts in Southeast Asia.

Thank you everyone!

Thank you all for the contributions,

Alessandro

We provided a framework for market and non-market strategy in "Government Policy and Firm Strategy in the Solar Photovoltaic Industry" published in the California Management Review. It is accessible from my profile page linked below. 

For a given active ingredient, concentration is important, particularly when the pesticide target a mode of action relevant a given organism. For example, fungicides generally have little impact on insects, while organophorous insecticides do.

Take note that there are tremendous variations of mode of action and bioactivities across insecticides.

Thank you very much. Yes, i am writing my Masterthesis in this topic

Vincent Blok...very good article...thanks again...

Sajjad

i assume you mean trading off performance along one dimension against another.  If the real intractable problem here is that you cannot find a common metric for all the issues in design.  These issues are dealt with extensively in my book. How Designers Think

First you should determine market segmentation, then you study the incentives of buying decisions.

Strategy is A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. A theoretical model on the other hand gives an abstract description of a given system. Depending on the requirement a model may highlight one single aspect of the system and hide the other details. A model normally contains enough formalism such that it is not ambiguous. Because of this property theoretical experiments can be designed to estimate the performance of the system in different environments. Given a good theoretical model I believe the performance of a strategy can also be evaluated.

Thanks Syeda. Our core business is E&P.  This year can not attend the Oil&Gas HR Forum, but will keep eyes on this