STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT THOUGHT (MANAGEMENT THOUGHT)
Year:2012 | Volume:6 | Issue:1 (11)|Papers Count:6

The purpose of this paper is an ideal organizational strategic control function. Inferential and descriptive content analysis, qualitative and quantitative and ideal modeling are selected as the research strategies. In this paper three basic steps have been taken: The first step is to study and analyze the content of theories and models to determine the control functions. The second is designing the ideal type of reconstructed control based on content analysis of different views. The third is the analysis of the achieved ideal type based on the functional approach. A total of 7 controls and 6 functions for corporate control and three types of organizational control were deduced. Control is of three types, namely operational control (infra strategic), strategic control and supra strategic control. Operational control and strategic control of three subsidiaries each have. In the article, researchers have proposed future research directions.

This qualitative research tries to find the capabilities that are necessary to brand positioning in a systematic model by using grounded theory. Previous researches in brand positioning are very limited and most of them are one-sided (from the customer’s point of view), quantitative and abstractive. Brand positioning is analyzed from an intra-organizational viewpoint in accordance with organizational capabilities approach in strategic management. To do that, depth interviews were conducted with managers of famous food companies. Analyzed data based on grounded theory showed that organizational stability provides good context for strengthening identity-building brand capabilities. This identity helps to position brand through image-maker capabilities. Managerial competencies and market dynamism as intervening and context creating conditions strengthen and accelerate the brand positioning.

Iran’s unique attractions and destinations has created a great potentiality for utilising tourism industry. However, according to statistics of the World Travel and Tourism Council in 2011, among 182 countries, Iran ranked 127th in terms of the contribution of tourism industry to GDP, 135th in terms of the level of employment in tourism industry, and 138th in terms of investment in the industry, while, according to the existing tourist destinations in the country, at least 5% of the global income of tourism industry should be gained by Iran. This number was 0.4 in 2011, which is a sign of an undesired situation in the industry and failing to make use of the existing capabilities and potentials of the country. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and explain the major problems of this industry. This research is to realise a part of this end. For the qualitative part of this research, exploratory mixed method and qualitative content analysis were used. On the other hand, survey method and structural equations were used in the quantitative part. After acquiring theoretical sufficiency by interviewing the experts of the field and applying qualitative content analysis on interviews, some questionnaires were distributed in order to conduct a survey. Finally, 22 major problems were identified for the country’s tourism industry, classified into four categories, namely government sector problems, private sector problems, national level problems, and international level problems.

One of the main objects of companies in the market is to maintain and develop their market shares through using their brand. Whereas, creation of a new brand is very costly and time consuming and its chance of success is limited, nowadays, more than ever, marketing agencies are trying to achieve their goals through brand extension strategy. So, factors which influence acceptance of brand extension should be considered. According to this research only a knowledge about product category and the difference among brands in product category, and their interaction are considered as factors which have effects on acceptance of brand extensions. But, because of the importance of product involvement, this research is conducted to evaluate acceptance of brand extensions in both high and low involvement products. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of knowledge about product category, difference in the quality among brands in product category, and their interaction on acceptance of brand extension. In this research, consumers’ responses on eight hypothetical new products that used eight established brand names -four high involvement products and four low involvement products- are investigated. In this descriptive survey, the data has been collected by questionnaires. For data analysis, analysis of variance, covariance, and general linear model repeated measures have been used. Research findings indicate, among others, that: the two above-mentioned factors and their interaction have effects on acceptance of brand extensions in just good products (low involvement) and service products (high involvement) which are made in a foreign country.

One way of survival and success of organizations in the highly changeable world of today is to focus on “organizational agility”. Organizational agility is a rational and comprehensive response to the continuous changing demands of competitive markets and the gain of advantages at every available opportunity. Many authors have categorized the effective factors on organizational agility in three main groups including: stimulators, abilities and enabling factors. As recognizing the factors which enable the organization to obtain agility is a useful help to organizations for gaining the necessary information for managerial decision making in turbulent environments and reaching the advantageous aspects of change flows, this research has tried to identify the structural enabling factors of organizational agility. According to the nature of this subject, the research has been done in two phases. In the first phase, theoretical studies have been done about the literature of the topic. Based on the results, using various models and theories, 7 structural enabling factors in organizational agility were identified. Then some criteria were introduced for each factor. The second phase of the research was done as field study. The population was all of the employees of branch affairs offices of Sistan & Baluchestan Province and central branches of public and private banks of Zahedan, among which a sample of 242 people were selected through disproportionate categorized random sampling method. The 7 factors showed an acceptable correlation with organizational agility after the data analysis by LISREL software. The first and the last priorities were respectively “organizational integration and coordination” and “virtual organization establishment”. Finally, it is recommended that banking system moves for further promotion of its agility through focusing on, improving and investing in the identified enabling factors.

Today, concepts and factors such as competition, trading, production, supply and logistics as well as purchasing are changed dramatically. Conventionally, organizations depended on the internal markets for their purchasing and supplying goods. Therefore, purchasing principles and regulations were dependent on internal circumstances. However, with the advent of big multinational companies, that base their considerations mainly on international environment, these principles and regulations have changed.In some counties, however, there is still a combination of conventional and modern principles running in the area of production and trading. For instance, although supply and provision are performed at a global level, the main problem that production companies face in Iran is importing process. Therefore, this article has studied the process of importing process in Iranian auto industry in order to identify and rank importing process risk factors using Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MADM) approach. Thus, after a brief literature review, factors affecting the importing process are enumerated. Finally, the factors are ranked using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique.