Journal of New Economy and Trade
Year:2009 | Volume:5 | Issue:17-18|Papers Count:10

The effect of Information Technology (IT) on labor productivity is examined by economists since 1990s. The results of empirical studies about the outcomes of IT are mixed. The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of IT on labor productivity in the IT-producing and IT- using industries in Iran. The paned data of 23 industries are used based on 2-digit ISIC over the period 2002-2007. The findings of this paper indicate that the effect of IT capital on labor productivity is positive and statistically significant. Moreover, the results confirm that the labor productivity growth in "high IT-using" industries is greater than others, but there is no labor productivity differences between "IT-producing" and "ICT-using" industries. The elasticity estimates of the labor productivity related to IT capital range from 0.03 to 0.095 percent, this amount increases when the industry and time characteristics are included in the estimated model. The main findings confirm that productivity paradox isn’t observed in the manufacturing industries in Iran.

Current study tries to enhance our understanding of entrepreneurs’ and non-entrepreneurs’ judgment and decision making under uncertainty based on the mental accounting effects. In this paper, a variety of cognitive biases are considered in different valence framing (general and entrepreneurial issues) according to the mental accounting. This research yields valuable outcomes about entrepreneurs’ intuition that has not been yet considered in previous studies. In this study, mental accounting effects considered as the independent variable and entrepreneurs’ and non-entrepreneurs’ judgment and decision used as the dependent variables. The results are dug out by a quantitative method from 120 examinees (60 entrepreneurs and 60 non-entrepreneurs). Based on the results of this article, entrepreneurs have fewer tendencies to the mental accounting effects. Task framing, endowment effects and aggregation and segregation of the information do not affect entrepreneurs’ decisions while non-entrepreneurs have a strong tendency to these biases. In addition, sunk cost and extra cost effect influence entrepreneurs’ decision making. Entrepreneurs’ analytical mind set is the core reason to avoid many mental accounting traps in the decision making process.

Venture Capitalists (VCs) identify commercializeable start-ups which is invested by stakeholder and those agents who participate in the management board. But exit or cashing out is a common practice in any investment. Consequently, there will be a time when a venture capitalist decides to sell or decrease his or her share. This is a multicriteria decision-making problem. The current research focuses on the modeling of the VCs exit process. Based on the findings of the literature review, a basic model is designed. This model is improved through six Delphi rounds. In these rounds, the model is developed based on experts' opinions in three segments. They comprise SME position in its life cycle, SME evaluation criteria and possible exit paths. The final model is approved in the form of a decision tree by more than 90 percent of the respondents. The research results show that buy out is the first strategy chosen by the Iranian VCs. After that, buy in, merger and acquisition, public offering, hybrid and innovative routes and Closedown are respectively the next choices. Additionally, in some situations, it is necessary to restructure the SME. Other strategy could be chosen as a partial exit in order to nominate a new active investor having specialized skills to sit on the board. Based on the findings of the model, a premature exit (e.g. liquidation and bankruptcy) is suggested only when there is no other suitable strategy.

In business field, competitors' identification is very important. Based on the literature review, extensive works are done on the "competitor analysis”. However, competitor analysis is suitable for simple and static environments but not for complex and dynamic environments in which competitors encounter fundamental changes. This paper aims to deepen this type of analysis. First, we investigate those models describing competitors and then propose a framework for describing and classifying all kinds of competitors. The proposed framework enables companies to categorize their competitors in variety of states and, it can be used as a means for developing efficient methodology to recognize competitors as it is expected from a conceptual framework.

New theories of international trade considered exports as a function of exchange rates, inflation and non-price variables such as R& D expenditures, human capital and institutional variables. Recently, the improvement of relations among people and the reduction of the probability of conflict in people's relationships are considered in the framework of Institutionalization.Institutions through the creation of a stable relations lead to reduce uncertainty in markets, decrease transaction costs and business transactions, increase competition in the market and finally increase exports. The present study is focused the evaluation of the effect of institutional factors on non-exports member countries of D8 using panel data approach. The data cover the period 1995-2007. The results of this paper show that D8 countries like other countries are entitled the endogenous mechanisms of exports including the accumulation of human capital and research and development expenditures. Institutional factors such as the observance of patent, doing business, legal origin and quality of education increase the effects of non-price factors such as domestic and foreign R& D and human capital on nonoil exports of D8 countries. Moreover, the empirical estimation results confirm that the World GDP has a positive and statistically significant effect while inflation rate has a negative and statistically significant on non-oil exports of the countries. However, the results show that real effective exchange rate is insignificant.

This paper chooses a kind of mutual view to consider inputs in measuring productivity. In doing this, we employ the Porter's competitive advantage model as well as data envelopment analysis as a strong mathematical model. In Porter's Diamond model, competitive advantage includes exports and direct foreign investment as the output of the model. The data are used in the quantitative model covers the period 2000-2006 for 112 countries. The Findings confirm that Iran is ranked 70 out of 112 with the efficiency value of 68.67. The sensitivity analysis shows that Iran among the input indicators is sensitive to the following indicators respectively: manufactures imports, government effectiveness, and gross fixed capital formation. The most sensitive input indicators in all countries are manufactures imports, research and development expenditures and government effectiveness.

Considering the importance of entrepreneurship in the process of development, scholars have extensively studied on entrepreneurship intention in the recent decades. This paper aims to identify the level of entrepreneurial intentions among students and explain its determinants. The empirical research is based on the quantitative paradigm employing descriptive-survey strategy. The population of this study covers all students studying in the faculty of entrepreneurship at the University of Tehran over the academic year 2009-2010. A questionnaire is used to gather the required data. Students' entrepreneurial intentions are defined as the dependent variable and the independent variables include all the factors extracted from the factor analysis techniques. The results of the factor analysis show that six factors namely job preferences, personal and family favorites, social usefulness/efficacy, social status, economic motivations and entrepreneurial spirit have significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions.

SMS is a new media in comparison with traditional Medias. This paper aims to draw and test a model where the SMS advertising avoidance includes six hypotheses. An open ended 49-items questionnaire is designed and distributed among 282 mobile phone users. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient confirms reliability. Partial least square method is applied to estimate the model. Results of this study show that all hypotheses are confirmed. Subjective norms, self-esteem and prior negative experience increase skepticism on SMS advertisement. The findings also indicate that prior negative experience, SMS advertisement skepticism and SMS advertisement credibility impact SMS advertisement avoidance. Decomposition effect shows that prior negative experience, SMS advertisement credibility and then SMS advertisement skepticism are the most important factors affecting SMS advertisement avoidance.

In the information society, firms need to develop competitive advantages with regard to the adequate and intensive usage of information and communication technology which is essential element in today's markets. Competitive advantages through ICT development are especially important for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Because using ICTs help to improve internal and external communications and develop new organizational models to compete in the new markets. For assurance of the effective and useful implementation of internet based technologies such as e-Commerce in business transactions, the first step is to measure e-Readiness of companies to accept these modern technologies. This study describes six dimensions of telecommunication and technical infrastructure which comprise communication with environment, informational readiness, management and organizational policies, human resources and cultural infrastructures, information technology security and legal environment. The findings of this paper indicate that except in the dimensions of informational readiness dimension and management and organizational policies, there is no e-Readiness in the other dimensions of manufacturing firms in Shiraz Grand Industrial Park.

ISPs always confront a huge amount of their customer usage raw data. Since these data are too voluminous, data mining techniques can be useful to recognize hidden usage patterns of the users to develop relevant management strategies. But these patterns vary according to variable circumstances during a year. Therefore, in this paper, the usage patterns of internet users are detected continuously during time line applying usage attributes of the users and association rules of mining technique within an incremental data mining framework. Raw data of an ISP is surveyed to describe the model. The results of the article show that the usage patterns of internet users obtained from this data mining model can lead to the improvement of ISP services and the reduction of their costs.