JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Year:2020 | Volume:12 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:14

Objective It is important to understand why consumers do not like some brands or even cultivate a sense of hatred for them, because consumers usually tend to evaluate negative information about brands than positive information. The phenomenon of hatred of the brand is still in its infancy, and this research, given its exploratory nature, will help conceptualize this phenomenon and will take a step forward in promoting the theory of brand hatred. This research develops a model of brand hatred including its causes and consequences in the context of Iran. In general, this study seeks two main goals: 1) discovering the causes of brand hatred among Iranian consumers and 2) discovering the consequences of brand hatred in them. This issue significantly helps Iranian producers to pave the way for branding by being aware of these causes and consequences. Methodology The present study is a qualitative research and is grounded in terms of purpose. It is also exploratoryinductive in terms of data collection. The target population of this study includes consumers of Iranian products in Tehran and the data were collected through face-to-face interviews or interactions with the researchers and through self-expression in response to a general question about whether or not to have strong negative feelings about a particular brand or brands. Sampling is carried out through nonprobabilistic judgmental and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data in this study. Qualitative data analysis was performed using theme analysis. After observing the interviews and entering them into the software and reviewing the notes, the key points were codified. It should be noted that all the steps of qualitative data analysis were performed using NVivo10 software. Findings Eventually, two main themes were discovered. The first category includes the main themes that affect brand hatred i. e. the negative factors that cause brand hatred among the consumer or the lack of positive factors that lead to the development of brand hatred. The main themes discovered in this category were "mixed marketing deception", "mixed marketing failure" and "social irresponsibility". The second category was the main themes affected by brand hatred; that is, actions or intentions to negative actions after creating sense of brand hatred among the consumers. The answer to the question that what would the consumers who hate the brand do about their hatred. The main themes discovered in this category were "negative word of mouth advertising", "supporting the competitors" and "breaking the relationship with the brand". Conclusion Based on the results of the present study, costumers who hate Iranian product brands do not develop cases such as "brand revenge", "complaint", "threat" and "damage"-which have been discovered in western researches and are considered as the consequences of brand hatred. The present study discovered some behaviors including negative word of mouth advertising, supporting a competitor, and breaking relationships with a brand.

Objective Beside cultural, historical and natural attractions, the city of Rasht has been selected as one of the ten most creative gastronomy cities in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Therefore, there is a desirable position to raise the mental image of the city brand and gain economic and social benefits accordingly. This study, hence, is an initial attempt to create a new approach to the study of branding in the city of Rasht through identifying a set of symbolic resources to visualize the city. This study examines the descriptions and perceptions of the city of Rasht from the symbolic perspective and specifically attempts to design the story of the Rasht brand through identifying the symbolic themes of the city in various media. The present study, as a preliminary and exploratory study, seeks to answer these questions: “ what are Rasht’ s fantasy themes (as symbolic realities) reported in the media? ” and “ how is the story of Rasht brand defined based on symbolic facts? ” Methodology In this study, using the fantasy theme analysis method (FTA), it is examined how the city of Rasht is portrayed in the studied media from the perspective of centrality of food and other attractions. This method examines convergence in texts to discover a deeper system of meaning through new experiences that are imagined and interpreted. In fact, FTA is a grounded theory that contradicts the hypothetico-deductive model of research and inductively examines textual, auditory, and visual data. The statistical population of this study includes all the contents published in personal, acquired and shared media regarding Rasht brand. Findings Seven fantasy themes were identified as symbolic realities of Rasht city as a result of reviewing the convergence of the content of the texts published in the media including: nature dance on Rasht heavenly table; cultural museum of food; adventurous eating habits of Rasht; the nature of Gilan's public culture in the world's largest bazaar; souvenirs and gifts, cultural ambassadors of Rasht; the architecture of the world and time; and the land of the Great. Therefore, applying the symbolic realities, the proposed story of Rasht brand was designed. Conclusion Successful city brands must inspire the public and create good feelings and associations. The brand of the city must describe the image of the city and stimulate human emotions and imagination based on the values and beliefs of the city. As a result, the contents in the media regarding the city's symbolic realities must be developed in a way to impress the audience.

Objective Competitiveness of business environment in the country, growth of ever-discount stores, and the prevalence of foreign brands in the form of stores and shopping centers in Tehran and other cities have caused Iranian stores and companies to widely develop their price discounts so as to increase their sales and expand their market share. In this new space, if the strategy and methods of discounting are not used effectively, that is, the percentage of discount is too high or too low, the time and repetition of the discount is high or low, and etc., Iranian stores and companies will face several risks including reduced sales, weakening of the brand’ s position, and so on. Hence, the present study aims to explore for the factors influencing these levels, which are referred to as the "price discount threshold" in this study. The main purpose is, then, to identify which factors affect the high and low discount threshold to use those effective strategies. This research helps stores and companies design a "discount window". Methodology This research is developmental in terms of purpose, qualitative in terms of the data analysis research and documentary in terms of data collection method. The present study is analytical-descriptive in terms of research method. This study was conducted through meta-synthesis. For this purpose, after CASP analysis, 24 studies that have directly addressed the issue of discount threshold entered the analysis phase. The selected researches were entered into Max Kioda software for codification and were using Max Kioda software. Findings In this study, 24 studies directly dealt with the discount threshold entered the analysis phase. Finally, after the integrations phase, 56 distinct codes were identified. In the next step, the codes were identified in the form of 23 concepts or themes and finally the concepts were identified in the form of 13 categories as affecting factors on the price image based on the results of the identification analysis and their quality test. Based on the findings, the “ brand” with 16 citations, the “ discount percentage” with 12 citations, the “ type of products” with 9 citations, the “ repetition of discount” with 5 citations, and the “ reference price” with 4 citations were among the most important codes in terms of citation. As mentioned earlier, the identification of the themes and categories of this model has been finalized in the fifth stage of the analysis. Conclusion In this study, for the first time, the affective factors on the discount threshold for the prices were examined using meta-combination method in shopping centers. According to the evaluated studies, the dimensions such as product brand, discount percentage, type of product, repetition of discount and reference price were identified as having the most impact (referrals).

Objective Despite its high complexity, the strategy of forming international joint venture (as one of the main types of strategic alliances) is one of the strategies to be frequently used because of its numerous benefits. Corporate governance is also considered as one of the factors that leads to the successful implementation of this strategy. In spite of the importance of this issue, there has been no comprehensive research on how corporate governance is formed in international joint ventures, and it has often been assumed that the components of corporate governance in general can be generalized to the concept of international joint ventures as well. However, given the complexity of this concept, it is generally unwise to generalize the various dimensions of corporate governance in general to international joint ventures. As a result, this study attempts to identify the factors affecting the formation of corporate governance in these kinds of organizations. Methodology The present research is conducted based on the systematic literature review method. For this purpose, the related literature was systematically reviewed over a period of one year (from September 2018 to September 2019). In the first step, while determining and specifying the subject of study, the research questions were developed in accordance with the research design. In the next step, the research protocol was designed and an appropriate mental model was designed accordingly. Subsequently, inclusion and exclusion criteria were determined. Accordingly, the comprehensive and systematic search began within the literature and 400 studies were considered. After classification, screening, and measurement of their quality (methodological assessment based on Caldwell's proposed method), 60 studies were finally examined in depth (through a detailed review of their abstracts, introduction, methodology, and results) and the required data were collected. Then, in the last step, the obtained data were classified, codified (using open coding method through Excel software) synthesized and finally summarized. Findings In general, all the factors that affect the corporate governance formation in international joint ventures can be classified into four main categories of parents’ characteristics, partnership interactions, macro issues, and parents’ expectations and perceptions. Each category also includes a number of subcategories and codes. A total of 4 categories, 19 sub-categories and 75 codes make up the factors that play a role in the formation of corporate governance in international joint ventures. Conclusion According to the diversity of detected factors, it can be concluded that formation of corporate governance in international joint ventures is a complex process and multi-dimensional concept which cannot be undermined and treated like other types of organizations.

Objective The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of emotional labor on the sales performance of insurance agencies. The researchers seek to observe if employees have the ability to control and moderate their emotions and feelings in accordance with the requirements of the organization and their role, then how their work performance will be affected. In addition, the present study examines whether the perception of organizational support moderates this relationship. This study attempts to observe the insurance industry and among insurance agencies, and since the sales performance of insurance agencies is the main element of their work performance, it is addressed whether they have the characteristics of emotional labor in their agency sales performance and which of the dimensions and characteristics of emotional labor will have a greater impact on the sales performance of insurance agencies. In addition, the role of perception of organizational support will be studied as a moderator variable. Methodology The present study is descriptive in terms of method and is applied in terms of purpose and a survey. It is a quantitative research in terms of the nature of data collection. The statistical population of the present study includes the insurance representatives of Alborz Insurance Company in Tehran provided that they have been active at least during the time of conducting the research. In order to establish a correlation between the sales performance data of each insurance agency and the data related to emotional labor and perceived organizational support, the research questionnaires were identified separately for each agency. An online method has been used to distribute the questionnaire. Findings Demographic information showed that the same number of men and women participated in the research. In terms of age, about half of the participants were between 31 and 40 years old and one third of the participants were between 25 and 30 years old. Moreover, more than 90% of them hold a bachelor's degree or higher degrees. Based on the five Likert Scale used in the present study, it is found that emotional labor has a mean above average and the perception of organizational support has a mean lower than average. Accordingly, emotional labor and its four dimensions including tangible action, deep action, automatic display of emotions, and variety of display of emotions have a significantly positive effect on the sales performance of insurance agencies. The moderating role of perceived organizational support was not confirmed in the relationship between emotional labor and sales performance. Conclusion Superficial action as one of the dimensions of emotional labor has a significant effect on the sales performance of insurance agencies. This means that if they can encourage employees to cooperate with customers, even superficially, it may lead to an increase in sales. According to the test results of the sub-hypotheses of this research, it is clear that other dimensions of emotional labor including deep action, automatic display of emotions and variety of display of emotions have a significantly positive effect on the sales performance of insurance agents as well. Examining the coefficients related to the effect of each dimension of emotional labor on sales performance does not show much difference among different dimensions. The automatic display of emotions in this study, which was examined in the third hypothesis, had the highest impact on sales performance among the dimensions of emotional labor. In the present study, perceived organizational support does not moderate the relationship between emotional workforce and sales performance of Alborz insurance agents, and this could be due to poor employee’ s perception of organizational support in this company. This means that the calculated rate for perceived organizational support could not show a significant moderating role in the present study. In other words, according to the research findings, it can be said that the employees under study do not have a good perception of the fact that the organization applies the necessary support and attention to them. Another explanation is that emotional labor and its four dimensions, regardless of the impact of the perceived organizational support variable, can affect sales performance.

Objective Given that the customers’ experience in each industry, service and communication channel is unique and special, this study aims at identifying and examining the strengths and weaknesses of the existing models in the developing customers’ experimental map based on develment of journey map model planned on mobile service users. In this study, in order to create knowledge background in the field of customer experience in the service provider organization, a model is proposd which aims to identify customer contact and experience points and drawing them in the form of customer-planned journey map, as a goal map for the customer. Methodology The paradigm of the present research is interpretive. From the audience’ s point of view, this grounded study is considered applied in nature. This research is qualitative based on analogy. The data collection in this field study is done using qualitative case study. The qualitative part of this study is descriptive-exploratory in terms of purpose. The present study is among cross-sectional studies. The case study is semi-structured and the context of the phenomenon under study is assumed to be fixed in Iran. Based on the the purpose of the preent study (planned journey map), mystery shopping method is used for data analysis; after collecting the data, the researcher's experimental observation technique, content analysis o and interviews were analyzed using Maxqda software after codification. Findings After identifying pain and contact points in different stages of the customer’ s journey including previous experience, awareness and information, search, persuasion, taking action, use of service and after service (feedback and evaluation, sharing experience and support), the results of the analysis of the planned journey map on Mellat Bank and Mellat Plus applications were classified and drawn in the form of 3 general experiences including service experience (transaction-financial experience, nonfinancial interaction, e-wallet, deposit), technical experience and visual experience. Conclusion This study developed a framework for customer’ s journey map in the form of a planned journey map to draw customer’ s experience from the perspective of service provider. This framework uses product usability test and mystery shopping technique in order to achieve the designed experience by the organization. The most important differences between the planned journey map and the common methods are: 1) the systematic nature of the approach, taking into account all phases and stages of the customer’ s experience, especially the past experiences from the previous version of the application; 2) focusing on pain points as well as good and bad experiences of working with the designed product; 3) focusing on the out-of-service contact points through different phases and steps; 4) focusing on the customer’ s feelings of the service provided from the perspective of the organization; 5 ) identifying systematic deviations in the service providing process from the customer’ s experience perspective; and 6) helping the qualitative development of the services provided considering the dynamics of the customers’ experience. The customer’ s journey plan can help the organization increase its knowledge of how to provide services. Prior to providing any unplanned service, all customers’ journey maps must be completed to minimize deviations. In the proposed model, the start and end points are presented in each phase and path are provided in order to reach the map during the service as well as before and after the service. The organizations can visualize their planned journey map considering the type of product or service and the process defined according to the customer. At the same time, given the unique experience of each organization, the steps and contact points must be extracted qualitatively.

Objective Identifying organizational lifestyle is very important for all organizational stakeholders because it enables them to plan their interactions with the organization accordingly. Organizational strategists, on the other hand, are looking for models beyond marketing and competition, especially in markets where companies’ products and services do not have a significant advantage over each other and the components of integrated marketing are very similar. This is to understand the difference between the competitive advantage of brands and their competitive position in the market. Therefore, the present study seeks to design a comprehensive model and framework in the form of lifestyle for the organizations to use to strengthen their ability to determine the decisions and organizational behaviors for the stakeholders. The first question of the research is: "What are the indicators of determining the lifestyle of the organization? ". After determining the indicators, in the second stage, the research seeks to evaluate the identified indicators in the pipe and polymer fittings industry in Isfahan province so that the lifestyle of the active companies in this industry can be identified. Therefore, the second question of the study is "What is the diversity of the lifestyle of companies active in the polymer pipe and fittings industry? " Methodology The present study is developmental in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in terms of method that has been done within three stages. In the first stage, the research population includes a sample of 15 management experts in Isfahan province who were selected based on their target method so as to identify the lifestyle variables of the organization; in the second stage, to discover the hidden dimensions of the organizational lifestyle, a sample of 300 industrial and commercial managers in Isfahan was randomly selected; and in the third stage, all the 47 units of companies were selected to determine the lifestyle of polymer pipe and polymer fittings producers in Isfahan province. The content validity index, exploratory factor analysis, and Key-Mines clustering analysis were used in the three stages, respectively, to analyze the data. The questionnaire was used to collect data in all three stages, the validity of which was confirmed using the content validity ratio index and its reliability was confirmed through Cronbach’ s alpha coefficient. Findings Regarding the organizational lifestyle indicators, six factors or indicators determining the organizational lifestyle were identified which include the organizations’ interaction with humans, the organization’ s interaction with technology, the organization’ s interaction with money and capital, the organization’ s interaction with the market and industry, the organization’ s interaction with the environment, and the organization’ s interaction with the future trends. Regarding the diversity of lifestyles in Isfahan polymer pipes and fittings companies, six different lifestyles were identified using the diamond pattern of the organizations’ lifestyle indicators including: undecided, entrepreneurial, self-evident, mediating, pioneering and competitive. Conclusion The undecided group includes companies that do not pay any attention to any of the six indicators of the organizational diamond lifestyle model. These companies do not have any specific program in the six areas of the diamond pattern and there is a kind of uncertainty in all of their interactive areas. The Entrepreneurial group includes companies that show a relatively high level of attention to four factors of the organizational interaction with human, market and industry, future and money and capital among the six indicators of the lifestyle diamond patterns; and pay little attention to other indicators. Entrepreneurial companies are very systematic and humanistic in terms of social structure, innovative and transformational in terms of competitiveness, and risk-taking and forward-looking in terms of finance. Based on the calculated average behavior, the self-reported group has the highest behavioral attention among the indicators of lifestyle diamond pattern to the three factors of market and industry, environment and future trends. From the personality perspective, the behavior of these organizations is very similar to self-reported characters or dramatic characters due to their great attention to the external interactions of the organization and their interest in creating an appropriate image of the organization in a professional and public environment. The largest number of intermediaries belongs to companies that pay special attention to the two indicators of interaction with money and capital and interaction with the market and industry among the six indicators of the diamond model. The pioneering group pays special attention to all the indicators of the organization’ s diamond lifestyle. Behavioral characteristics of these companies include comprehensive attention to all internal and external stakeholders of the organization. Competitive group includes companies that pay attention to the three indicators of interaction with humans, interaction with technology and interaction with the market and show only relative attention to other three indicators. Focusing on pioneering behavior, those who challenge market seek to imitate their competitive behaviors by reinforcing human expertise and intra-organizational processes.

Objective Awareness of consumers’ decision-making styles is crucial for the effectiveness and development of a business marketing strategy in the tire industry. It helps to meet the needs of the consumers and transmit the desired value to them. Purchasing tire is a very rare purchase, and it takes a long time to repurchase. It is an essential resource for the car and it plays a strategic role in the safety and security of the passengers. Therefore, it is important for the consumers to be aware of the features and crucial role in the car. Besides, identifying the desirable style requires extensive research regarding the decision to purchase a tire. Thus, this study aimed to identify similarities and differences in consumers’ decision-making styles considering the cultural tendency of collectivism / individualism in regards with the purchase of car tires. Methodology The present study is considered applied in nature and is considered as a descriptive-survey research in terms of purpose and strategy. The statistical population includes all those who have purchased automobile radial tires from tire stores in Tehran between July and September in 2016. The required data were collected by means of a 35-item questionnaire based on a quantitative scale (Likert) from “ strongly disagree” to “ strongly agree” . Findings Analysis of variance showed there is no significant difference in terms of cultural issues among the following decision-making styles: "sensitivity to quality", "hedonism and the desire to purchase for entertainment", “ sensitivity to the new and up-to-date products” , and "willingness to purchase spontaneously". However, there was a significant difference among the following styles (at 95% level): “ consumers’ confusion due to abundant choices", "sensitivity to popular brand" and "habitual purchasing and loyalty to a brand” . Regarding ranking of decision-making styles among individualistic and collectivist consumers, "sensitivity to product quality", "sensitivity to up-to-date and new products" and "habitual purchasing and loyalty to a brand" were the most frequent styles among collectivist customers. In addition, "consumers’ confusion due to abundant choices", "sensitivity to popular brand", "tendency to purchase spontaneously" were the other frequent styles, respectively. Similarly, the ranking of decision-making styles among individualistic customers is completely consistent with the ranking among collectivist individuals. Conclusion The quality is more important than any other dimensions, and the quality of a product and the perception of the high quality of a particular brand are among the priorities of consumers of tire. "Consumers’ willingness to purchase new products" is the second high priority item in the decisionmaking of collectivist as well as individualistic people while purchasing tires. Although the "habitual purchasing and loyalty to a brand" is common among all the customers, it is of higher importance among those who are more inclined to collectivism because “ loyalty and integration” are crucial parts of collectivists’ culture. People who are more prone to individualism are less confused because they are the ones who make the final decision in selecting a product. Brand sensitivity is greater among collectivists because of their attention to individual identity. The "willingness to purchase spontaneously" is common because of the lack of importance regarding purchasing a tire for the consumers. In this case, tire sellers can have a big impact on choosing the type and the brand of tire. Therefore, building purposeful communication between sellers and buyers is important.

Objective Companies need to apply innovations in their products in order to achieve organizational goals, achieve competitive advantage, and improve organizational performance. Organizational learning, developing a flexible organization, supportive managers and specialized teams is essential to achieve product innovation and organizational survival. The main question of this research is: what are the strategies to increase the performance of the Iranian pharmaceutical industry market? This research seeks to provide solutions to improve the innovation power and marketing performance of pharmaceutical companies. To this end, this study examines the effect of flexibility capacity, organizational learning and product innovation on marketing performance. In this case, companies can strengthen their position in the domestic and international markets and gain a stable competitive advantage over other competitors. Methodology The present study is applied in terms of purpose and is survey in terms of method. The statistical population of this study includes 236 pharmaceutical companies on Darooyab website, where the data have been collected from senior managers of these companies. Applying simple random sampling and according to Cochran’ s formula, 146 companies were selected as the sample. The data were collected through a questionnaire. The research data were analyzed in form of structural equation modeling based on partial least squares method using Smart PLS2 software. Findings The results indicated significantly positive effects of organizational resilience capacity and organizational learning considering the mediating role of product innovation on the marketing performance of these companies. According to the investigations, the moderating effect of environmental disturbance has not been confirmed due to organizational flexibility capacity and organizational learning on product innovation. Conclusion It is necessary to create flexibility in organizational processes and decisions in order to respond quickly to discrete environmental changes. In addition, organizations need to use new paradigms and create learning capacity to empower to deal with turbulent and complex environments. Accordingly, companies will be able to create continuous innovation in their products in order to meet the everchanging demands of customers. Thereby, it can lead to an increase in the performance and competitive position of the organization.

Objective This study aims to integrate the two areas of study, namely mental models and perceived barriers to export. Based on the theory of mental models, the present study seeks to increase the richness of the perception of the experiences and perceived meanings of managers of Iranian dairy product companies on the barriers to export development. On the other hand, identifying managers’ mental model and determining the most important barriers to export in each mental model can be considered a guideline for export policymakers to plan according to the existing mental models and provide solutions for export development. Methodology This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of data collection. The statistical population of this research includes chief executives in business, sales and export departments of dairy product companies. Semi-structured interviews based on phenomenological approaches and projective techniques have been used to collect data. Using the theoretical sampling method, chief managers of twelve dairy product companies were the interviewed in order to reach saturation. To ensure data validity and reliability, revie participants’ reviews and multidisciplinary approaches were used through interviews with different groups of participants. Theme analysis and Maxqda 10 software were used to analyze the data. Findings The ultimate model of the study included the following six mental models of barriers to export: 1) market-oriented model: this mental model is made up of the sub-themes of "not being brand-centered", "poor marketing status" and "lack of competitive advantage". This mental model has been the most prevalent mental model among the managers; 2) government-oriented model: this mental model is made up of the sub-themes of "poor governmental support", "poor governmental policymaking " and "poor governmental interaction "; 3) resource-oriented model: this mental model consists of four subthemes of "poor company updating", "production capability", "financing problem" and "lack of government lobbies"; 4) profit-oriented model: this mental model consists of three sub-themes of "profit-oriented attitude", "lack of global export prospects", and "undesirable image of the country"; 5) infrastructure oriented model: this mental model is made up of the sub-themes of "economic instability", "poor transport infrastructure" and "country backwardness"; and 6) institutional-oriented model: this mental model focuses on companies’ conflict with Iranian organizations in the process of export and includes two sub-themes of "administrative complexities of the export process", and "tax burden and customs tariffs". Conclusion Given the importance of the role of mental models and managerial perceptions in decision making, including decisions about the company’ s export activities, one must first identify the managers’ mental model of export in order to have a proper understanding and analysis of export behaviors. In terms of frequency, market-oriented, government-oriented, and resource-oriented mental models were identified as the three leading mental models in dairy product companies, respectively. According to the managers participating in this study, Iranian dairy products do not have a competitive advantage in inter-regional markets in terms of quality, price, product variety, and packaging. Although changing the attitudes of managers and investors is necessary to expand the company’ s export activities, it is not enough to help grow and develop the export of dairy products in international markets. The government-oriented mental model, identified as the second dominant mindset in dairy product companies, highlights the important role of government policy making and support in creating or removing export barriers. In this mental model, the government must provide an appropriate platform for export development.

Objective This research aims to devel a scale to measure comfort and convenience of consumers’ shopping experience in shopping centers and malls so that the consumer can experience the same feeling of comfort in the malls as they have at home. The main purpose of this research is to answer the question of how can factors including weather conditions such as temperature, noise, air quality, music, amenities, product variety, structure, color, social cues, and familiarity of customers affect the feeling comfort while shopping. Therefore, the main question of this research is: What is the scale to measure "comfortable shopping experience" in shopping centers and malls? Methodology This study is applied in nature and implements descriptive-survey and correlational methods. Therefore, the research design is correlational and the evidence has been collected through survey. The research model has been investigated based on the collected data using descriptive and inferential analysis. The statistical population of the study includes all the buyers of the three shopping centers: Kourosh, Arg and Paladium located in Tehran, Iran during the fall of 2017. Findings The results of exploratory factor analysis have been reduced to five components and twenty-two indicators. These components were named according to the concepts of the items as: adaptation to family needs in shopping centers, fashion needs, amenities and facilities in shopping centers, pleasurebased needs in shopping centers and attractions of the interior environment of shopping centers. The first factor includes the following items: 1) compliance of the product with family needs, 2) variety of products, 3) products suitable for customer needs, 4) access to products all over the city and 5) appropriateness of the price of products. The second factor includes the following items: 1) new ideas and styles, 2) awareness of new products, and 3) new clothing styles. The third factor includes the following items: 1) large and ample parking lots, 2) very comfortable chairs and benches, 3) working hours of the shopping center, 4) ease of access, 5) playground for children, and 6) sufficient ATM devices. The fourth factor includes the following items: 1) the proper use of leisure time, 2) concert halls and sports halls, 3) variety of restaurants and fast food, 4) the cleanliness of the shopping center, and 5) the interior architecture of the shopping center. The fifth factor includes the following items: 1) mild music, 2) store size, and 3) pleasant and special perfume. Conclusion Based on the results of the research and the coefficients which were calculated for each component, the following are recommended to be taken into account by the marketing managers of the shoping malls in Tehran: focusing on the attractions of the interior environment of the shopping centers, focusing on amenities and recreational facilities in accordance with different age groups from children to the elderly, focusing on the pleasure-based needs of the wide range of the customers, providing the needs and immediate requests of the customers in terms of environmental facilities, products and services, finally focusing on adaptation of the environment, products and services to the needs of the families.

Objective While introducing new products, the producers disregard the consumers’ point of view and only focus on their own ideas. Being new to the consumer occurs when they do not consider the product similar to any of the products they have ever seen and they give it a distinct identity. Drinking yogurt is a new product class that has recently been produced by Kaleh Company with a specific brand of Lactivia in the Iranian market. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the factors that cause consumer to consider Lactovia drinking yogurt as a new product class in a distinct product class and also to identify the importance of these factors in product classification. Methodology The present study is applied in terms of purpose and is qualitative in terms of data collection method. The statistical population of the study included all citizens of the two cities of Sari and Tehran who were exposed to Lactivia drinking yogurt advertisement or who have consumed it. Finally, 39 individuals were selected based on non-probabilistic purposeful sampling method and using theme analysis the signs and the source that consumers used to assign the product class were identified. Findings A total of 13 product classes and 9 signs were obtained. The findings showed that in the process of classification of a new product, customers’ experience of using similar products, advertising messages and their relatives’ comments about the product as well as the mixed uniqueness of the product are the leading factors. Sixty two percent of those who have only consumed lactivia, consider it in the "diluted yogurt" class and "the shape of the product" was the most common sign they used to classify the product. Conclusion Product classification differs among consumers based on the product benefits and characteristics and according to the importance of the brand sign. If the product is highly important, “ the benefits and characteristics” of the product is the main factor in the classification; otherwise, the similarity with the existing products determines the product class. Increasing the perceived fit between the shape and the name of the product makes the consumers to assign the product into the category which is associated with its name. The incompatibility of the shape of the product with the existing classes can lead to the classification of that product as a new product. The creativity on how to consume a new product increases the likelihood that it will be considered as a new class. If product benefits are of high importance, the determining factor of the product class is the dominant characteristics of that product; otherwise, the shape of the product is decisive. The new product name is one of the most fundamental signs to classify that product as a new product. The difference in shape and color of the product packaging from similar existing products is one of the requirements for classifying that product as a new one. The inclusion of the parent brand on the product makes the consumer resist considering it as a new product.