Interdisciplinary Journal of Management Studies
Year:2013 | Volume:6 | Issue:2|Papers Count:8

The decline of attention to the facade of modernity and the inclination toward spirituality and theism in the third millennium is the evidence of human natural tendency toward spirituality, theism, and faith. This is, also, to some extent connected to discussions of identity and semantics in organizations. This paper tries to review the works of researchers on spirituality and theism along with specific focus on the conception of theism and spirituality in Quran and Nahjol-Balagha; providing suggestions and implications applicable to organizational issues. The review reveals that spirituality and theism are significant for one’s sense of integrity, consciousness, and organizational identity.

Because of the need to develop specific measurement scales for different services industries, this study aimed to empirically develop a reliable and valid model specifically for measuring mobile telecommunication service quality. A multidimensional measurement model (MS-Qual) has been proposed based on an extensive literature review and then, to assess the model validity, convergent and discriminant validity have been established based on the survey data gathered from 363 of Iranian mobile phone subscribers. Findings of this study showed that customers form their service quality perceptions based on their evaluations of seven primary dimensions including: network quality, value-added service, pricing plans, employees‟ competency, billing system, customer services, and service convenience. This study has several practical implications. First, practitioners could use developed MS-Qual scale for measuring and managing service quality in the mobile telecommunication sector. Second, this study showed that customers‟ evaluation of value-added service, pricing plans and service convenience are most important factors in their overall perceived service quality. Mobile phone operators could use these results to set their priorities for the development of service quality, to better utilize their resources.

Innovation strategy is the basis of success in innovation and performance improvement. This paper represents a model related to the most important innovation strategies which have a significant impact on performance of industries. Then, it examines the relationships between innovation strategies and diversity and development of the performance. So, the empirical research was carried out in Iranian construction industry and practical data were gathered out of 7 main industry institutions and 93 construction SMEs by questionnaires to examine paper objectives. The findings show that innovation strategies such as proactive, analyzer, futuristic and aggressive strategies influence on the performance development of the industry. Also, strategies such as proactive, risk taking and futuristic ones are the most effective innovation strategies in the performance diversity. Results of this study suggest that to achieve performance diversity and development, construction industry's policy makers and top managers should implement and promote proactive and futurity strategies, simultaneously, across the industry.

The comprehensive assessment model considers the financial and non-financial aspects as balanced scorecard. Also, for more comprehensive results of the investigation, four aspects of the balanced scorecard were used and then by using fuzzy Delphi technique and experts' opinions, the standard aspects of each were achieved in two stages. To determine the importance of each aspect of BSC, the process of fuzzy hierarchical analysis was employed. The results showed that among the four aspects of balanced scorecard, the financial index has the greatest significance, the customer index is in second place, and the third place belongs to growth and learning, and internal processes are in fourth place. In the next stage, the companies studied in the previous level were ranked by fuzzy VIKOR technique according to the indices. The results reveal that company A has the best performance among the ten companies from the perspective of four indices.

This study investigates the effect of co-production on customer loyalty (attitudinal and behavioral separately) and factors which may boost co-production in an Iranian bank. To investigate co-production in banking services, the proposed model of Auh et al. (2007) was applied. Given the fact that many banks try to get the status of their main customers, co-production was examined due to its potential to create value for customers and make them more loyal, therefore, it encourages them to extend business with those banks. The results of their search have been achieved thorough 415 bank customers, and structural equation modeling (SEM) method was used to analyze the data. The results indicate that co-production positively influences attitudinal loyalty (p<0.01) while not behavioral loyalty, and the higher degree of communication (p<0.05), client expertise, affective commitment, and interactional justice (p<0.01) increase the level of co-production. Among these factors, affective commitment has the greatest effect on co-production. Finally, the results suggest that bank managers should consider co-production as a means to make customers more loyal in the current competitive market.

The objective of the present study was to identify managerial competencies. This study reviewed existing managerial competencies in a cultural context resulting in the development of a broad based psychometrically sound leadership questionnaire. The unit of analysis of the research was a theoretical and experimental research related to managerial competencies, provided from seventeen Iranian and non-Iranian databases. Two Islamic books, Nahjul-Balaghah and Nahjul-Fasahah, were selected to focus on Islamic management and naturalization of competency modeling in Iran. In sum, the 137 data (135 researches of databases and 2 books) were analyzed through content analysis. The total number of 380 concepts relating to managerial competencies was classified into the 82 competency clusters (sub-core competencies). The factor analysis (principal components analysis with Varimax rotation) of sub-core competencies resulted in an 8-factor structure of core competencies labeled value, analysis, decision-making, knowledge, adaptation, performance, leadership, and communication. Face and content validity as well as Kappa reliability of the new managerial competency model were established for this new measure. This analysis resulted in the development of the Managerial Competencies Questionnaire (MCQ) composed of eighty-two items, which will be useful for researchers, students, educators, managers, and organizations.

A key challenge to brand managers is how to gain a better understanding of the relationship between brand and customer loyalty constructs. Researchers have recognized that brand identity plays a key role in brand management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of brand identity and brand identification on brand loyalty through perceived value, customer satisfaction, and trust. To test the study hypotheses, a questionnaire was distributed among cellular-phone customers in Iran’s northeastern city of Mashhad. The collected data were subject to correlational analysis and path analysis modeling. The results revealed that both brand identity and brand identification have indirect effect on brand loyalty through perceived value, trust, and satisfaction. Thus, it is concluded that social identity perspective, when used in conjunction with other existing perspectives, may be useful in predicting the brand loyalty mechanisms.