IRANIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES
Year:2009 | Volume:3 | Issue:12|Papers Count:6

The relationship between information technology investments and firm value as an area of inquiry has sustained interest among IS researchers over the past decade. Based on literature review of published work at corporate level productivity, researchers have developed three different approaches in assessing the correlation between IT implementation and productivity measures. Broadly speaking, the first two approaches focus on the effects of IT investment on direct, intermediary, financial and non-financial measures of productivity. None of these two approaches could positively prove either a direct correlation or lack of such a relation. The third approach, "complementary" approach, considers the IT implementation but emphasizes the role of complementary investments that enhance and complement the IT implementation. Recently some studies focus on process approach, which emphasized on evaluation of impact of information technologies from process to process capabilities, and from capabilities to, Performance. However, there has been no well-founded empirical research on process-oriented evaluation of impact of IT simultaneously with considering complementary investment. The current paper aims to evaluate the level of impact of IT on organization process and the effect of these processes on capabilities. Finally, the impact of capability improvement on performance will be assessed. Results show significant relation between process influence, capability improvement and performance upgrading. On the other hand, this research assesses the Impact of Information Technology on Iran Distribution Company impact of interaction between IT and organizational infrastructure. Data from 109 distribution companies was gathered in a field survey. The empirical work indicated constructed measures reliability and validity. The findings prove the moderating effect of organizational infrastructure as one of information technology complementary. In addition, by considering process oriented approach, the result of analysis shows the significant influence of IT on operational and managerial processes of organizations while these processes' impression improve capabilities of organizations significantly.

The purpose of this paper is to examinee and assesses structural factors affecting Iran's accession of cooperative Sector to world trade organization. To this end a sample survey was conducted to study 164 cooperative societies in Mazandaran province from which 87 were agricultural and 77 inelustrial societies. Several statistical tests including binomial and linier regression were used to reach the research conclusions. The results show that cooperative societies of magnetron province do not. hold the appropriate conditions needed for gaining to world trade organization. The tests of structural equations model show that among structural features studied marketing variable with 44% and production variable with 32% have the most remarkable impact on the above-mentioned conclusions.

Business Self-assessment is applied for identification and improvement of business competition situation. Excellence models are the Self-assessment tools and EFQM is a Self-assessment model. In EFQM model, the performance of activities and systems affects results indices; on the other side, the improvement of enablers will be influenced by the feedback of results' variations. So it is essential to study this loop by a systemic model to observe their interactive effects on each other. Despite of several researches on EFQM model fields, application of system dynamics has been ignored. So, the improvement of EFQM model from the systemic viewpoint will be investigated in this paper. This research shows that we can select the more effective policies among the usable policies by using of this model.

The use of metaphors in facilitating organizational change process is one of the most important achievements of consultants and researches in the field of management in recent years. Although, to many people, metaphors have had a long history in the management field, the systematic use and analysis of them has just started in recent years. Consequently, irrespective of the great body of literature devoted to it, we still face a lot of questions and ambiguities regarding them. Questions like: which metaphors are more suitable for explaining change? Could any organization produce its unique metaphors? Is there any standard framework to use? What are the challenges and traps in using metaphors? In which way can we properly use them? In the paper, after a short review of the literature we introduce appropriate metaphors to use in change process as well as presenting a new and practical framework of using metaphors for managers. Finally, we differentiate modem and traditional metaphors and introduce a new classification of metaphors.