PRODUCTIVITY MANAGEMENT (BEYOND MANAGEMENT)
Year:2020 | Volume:13 | Issue:51 |Papers Count:8

In order to achieve enhanced organizational performance, strategies have to be realigned with contingency variables like structure and environment. Petrochemical Projects in Iran have faced drastic environmental changes as a result of the Sanctions, fluctuations in oil price, exchange rate, and food products. Based on the contingency theory, achieving better project performance results is reliant on consideration of Business Environment in adoption of project strategy. Therefore, the purpose of the current research was to present the typology of the project strategy based on Business Environment Contingency influencing Iranian petrochemical Projects. To this end, this qualitative investigation was undertaken with an initial literature review to form the conceptual model which was further improved through inclusion of multiple project strategic details. Next, the case data related to 10 projects were purposefully selected from the petrochemical Projects. The research data were collected using interviews as well as triangulated data collection devices including document investigation and questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed via qualitative content analysis. Having selected the Miles and Snow business strategies as baseline of the project strategy, project strategy typologies were plotted in a two-dimensional matrix indicating fundamental/gradual environmental changes and internal/external project focus. These typologies were redefined for project level based on the interview results. The finding suggested that business environment difference in projects led to varying project strategies that required various entrepreneurial, engineering and administrative capabilities to manage the projects.

The logistics sector is nowadays known as one of the main pillars of economic development since it is the logistic performance that can have a knock-on effect on economic growth and competitiveness in both international and domestic trade. According to policy makers, implementing coherent and sustainable policies to integrate the supply chain is vital to ignite growth and development not only in economically prosperous countries but also in emerging economies. Economically underprivileged countries are normally those that suffer high costs in the logistics sector owing not only to transportation rates but also to unreliable supply chains that can hamper convergent and competitive functioning in the global value chain. Having realized the vitality of logistics sector, the present descriptive correlational survey aimed at investigating the effect of key components that can have a bearing on improved logistics performance in Post industry. To serve the purpose, a conceptual model of key components, along with five main hypotheses, was proposed based on a thorough literature review and consultation with experts in the post industry. The research population comprised all experts, managers and staff of the Islamic Republic of Iran Post Company from whom a sample of 402 was selected based on the Cochran formula. The collected data were analyzed via Structural Equation Modeling. The findings emerging from the study revealed that all components including knowledge management, human resources organization management, internal and external factors had positive and significant effects on the performance of logistics sector in the post industry. It is suggested that reinforcing the specified components and employment of the designed pattern can help the post industry to take a major step towards improving its logistic performance.

This research aimed at designing a model for the acceptance of innovation-based services of umbilical cord blood banks as a new approach in health marketing. It is an exploratory qualitative research based on the grounded theory and heuristic analysis. The research data were obtained through interview with a sample of 18 marketing professors and 20 customers of the Royan Institute Umbilical Cord Blood Bank who were selected based on theoretical saturation. The gleaned data were analyzed through open, axial and selective coding. To enhance research validity, the process of data coding was carried out under the supervision of 3 service marketing experts whose suggestions were applied. Moreover, the inter-rater reliability of the coding process and concept-mining was checked by asking another marketing expert to code the data whose findings revealed acceptable levels of reliability. Further, the importance of dimensions, entities and indexes of the model in each group was determined via Delphi method under the supervision of professors. The findings revealed a hierarchical conceptual model for acceptance of innovative services with 7 dimensions, including the quality of services, the characteristics of services, perception of acceptors, individual factors, innovation features, reference groups and sources of information, 22 entities and 93 indexes.

Owing to sanctions imposed on our country, it has become increasingly difficult but not impossible to improve organizational productivity. Achieving productivity entails flexible and accountable strategy adoption in the form of a comprehensive plan. The comprehensive industrial program underscores the importance of developing resource-based industries to gain competitive advantages and such a comprehensive plan is outlined based on getting a wider view and putting all relevant influential factors in perspective. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify the factors influencing the perspectives on productivity improvement in Saipa Automotive Group. Six factors influencing organizational perspectives (political, economic, legal, social, environmental and technological) were detected while investigating Asian countries of Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, China and India. The research population comprised ten managers of Saipan Research and Innovation Department who completed an open-ended questionnaire. The research data were analyzed using supersession software, Delphi and paired comparisons. Then, Super Dissociation software was employed to prioritize the effective factors which were found to be: political (0. 35), economic (0. 27), social (0. 14), legal (0. 13), environmental (0. 05), and technological (0. 03).

Although the use of electronic devices has enhanced and optimized internal organizational operations, reduced organizational costs and increased organizational profitability, office work productivity has been totally overlooked. Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) has been operationalized by Information Technology Center to enhance productivity of distribution efficiency of postal procedures, and thereby, to enhance customer satisfaction. Owing to the importance of cost reduction, the present applied quantitative enquiry addressed the effect of PDA on postal cost in Post Company of Islamic Republic of Iran. The research sample included   mailing zones of Tehran Post Company. The research data comprised information concerning the distributed postal packages during 2013-2016 collected from Post Company databases. The normality of the data was checked via Kolmogorov-Smirnov test; Cost derives were analyzed via ABS method, and cost saving from using PDA was calculated through Break-even method. Normal pair-wise comparison (correlated mean) was used, assessing normality of variables’ observations, and determining operation area including parametrical and non-parametrical statistics. Also, a novel model was presented, evaluating the effect of PDA on cost reduction in Mail Company. The results revealed that the use of PDA in the areas under scrutiny had increased profitability by affecting cost of administrative consumables, wage and salary, and personnel transportation. The implications of the study for enhancing equipment efficiency and effectiveness in Post Company will be discussed.

Industrial property protection policies are subsumed under technology entrepreneurial policies that share the characteristics of general entrepreneurship policies and small businesses. These policies are generally in favor of technology entrepreneurs who focus on increasing overall market returns and commercializing technology by removing barriers to transfer. The purpose of the current applied descriptive study was to investigate and rank order the constituent components of legal-policies protecting industrial property rights with a focus on entrepreneurship development. The research population comprised entrepreneurs of knowledge-based companies in Tehran from whom a random sample of 100 were selected in the winter of 2017. The theoretical background to the study was established via library research and the research hypotheses were tested via Friedman and one-sample t-test analyses. The results showed that among 20 components of protection policy, the most common ones included inventor and author compensation rights, ease, transparency, cost reduction and speed of registration and licensing processes, trademarks and logo registration, patent application support, online registration, infringement reporting and copyright protection. Moreover, the findings revealed that the most effective policy components protecting industrial property constituted the rights of the inventors and authors, the ease, transparency, cost-efficiency and rate of processes involved in registration, obtaining licenses, trademarks and logos, as well as protecting copyright, trademark ownership and patent application, expediting and updating of physical property registration of various assets.

The current descriptive correlational enquiry was conducted to investigate the extent to which talent management and organizational Intelligence were significantly correlated with entrepreneurship tendency of coaches in vocational and technical training centers in Hamedan province during the academic year of 2017-2018. The research population consisted of 171 coaches who were entirely selected as the research sample using a census method. The research data were gleaned via three standardized questionnaires including The Organizational Intelligence Questionnaire; Talent Management Questionnaire and Entrepreneurship Tendency Questionnaire. The content validity of the instruments was checked and their reliability were calculated through Cronbach's alpha which showed respectively high levels of reliability, . 96, . 97 and. 93, for the instruments. The collected research data were analyzed via SPSS software and Laserl along with Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicated that both organizational intelligence and talent management were positively and significantly correlated with coaches’ entrepreneurship tendencies. Further analyses revealed that organizational intelligence and its components were positively correlated with entrepreneurship tendency and its components. The same significant relationship was found between talent management and its components with the entrepreneurship tendency and its components. With respect to the mediating role of talent management, the findings supported a positive relationship between organizational intelligence and its components with talent management and its components.

The purpose of this applied descriptive survey was to investigate the effect of cultural and social capital on the establishment of knowledge management at Islamic Azad University in Tehran and provide a theoretical optimal model. The research population included all managers and personnel at Islamic Azad universityes of Tehran from whom a stratified sample of 384 was selected according to Cochran formula. The research data were collected employing the Bourdieu Cultural Capital Questionnaire, Nahapit and Kouchal social capital inventory and Ebrahimi Knowledge Management Deployment Questionnaire, all of which had already been validated by experts. The instruments were piloted and their reliability measures computed via Cronbach's alpha were found at acceptable levels of 0. 87 for social capital questionnaire, 0. 88 for social capital, and 0. 91 for knowledge management deployment questionnaire. The research data obtained were analyzed using regression and confirmatory factor analysis. The analytical results displayed that the components of social capital and cultural capital were significantly and positively correlated with and had significant effects on all aspects of the establishment of knowledge management at Islamic Azad University.