Interdisciplinary Journal of Management Studies
Year:2015 | Volume:8 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

Nowadays, paying attention to the environmental needs and desires of consumers and trying to satisfy them by designing marketing activities in an environmentally friendly way, is the best way to increase their satisfaction and finally, gain competitive advantage. Prior research has paid much attention to the consumer behavior and marketing activities of corporate organizations, but none has studied them in the area of green or environmental aspects. This study aims to fill this research gap. To do so, a sample consisting of 385 consumers of dairy food products in nine areas of Shiraz were selected and surveyed by stratified random method.Also, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test hypotheses and it was found that green promotion and green price, respectively, have a significant and positive impact on consumer green satisfaction; whereas the green placement and the green product had not affected consumer green satisfaction. Further, it was revealed that the green satisfaction has a significant and positive impact on consumer green loyalty and word of mouth, respectively.

Entering into the third millennium and current information age, organizations and people are increasingly using technologies and networks. In recent decades, technological progresses have rapidly dominated the world. In this vein, the emergence of the Internet in different aspects of life is considered to be the greatest development of the 21st century. The Internet, along with technological advancements in the workplace, has created new opportunities for individuals’deviational behaviours. As a result, organizations face serious challenges. Internet emergence in the workplace has created many opportunities for organizations, e.g., increasing the velocity of communications in the organization. On the other hand, employees can use the internet for personal and non-working purposes. Online activities with personal aims are called cyberloafing/ cyberslacking. Hence, cyberloafing management is highly important. In this paper, we analyse the importance of this subject, as well as the different aspects of this phenomenon. To do this, we discuss relevant literature and texts. We also show these aspects in an Antecedents Behaviour Consequences (ABC) model. In this model, personality, job demands, role conflict, organizational policies and organizational justice are considered as the antecedents. Cyberloafing as behaviour, productivity and exhaustion are the consequences.

The aim of the current study was to investigate the perceived psychic distance of potential tourists in relation to Iran as a tourism destination. The concept of psychic distance refers to perceived similarities/ differences between specific destination and tourist's home country. The members of couch-surfing virtual community participated in this study. The statistical data were collected by convenience sampling method. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying the dimensions of perceived psychic distance in relation to Iran. The results of exploratory and confirmatory analysis indicated that these dimensions include infrastructure, culture and legal distance. Furthermore, the result of one sample t- test revealed that international tourists perceive high psychic distance in relation to Iran as a tourism destination. In addition, the result of one-way variance analysis showed that tourists from ten of the world's regions perceived different levels of psychic distance in relation to Iran. Tourists from the Middle East region perceived less psychic distance compared to other regions. These findings have several managerial implications. First, development of Iranian tourism industry requires planning to reduce perceived psychic distance in terms of infrastructure, culture and legal aspects. Second, based on the lower psychic distance which is perceived by tourists from the Middle East, the Iranian tourism policy-makers can consider the region as a more accessible target market.

Risk management is one of the most important phases of project management and is the most recently used by many researchers. In this paper, a fuzzy based method was proposed which identifies different kinds of risks through the project life cycle.Then, the project risk magnitude can be obtained in regards to five factors, namely “severity”, “occurrence”, and “not detection” which form fuzzy FMEA and also two other factors namely project phase weights and risks weights. These two factors in addition to risk priority number (RPN) factors can lead to the application of better risk management. Based on the project risk magnitude, the appropriate risk response should be selected. The proposed model covers three parts of risk management process: 1. Risk identification, 2. Quantitative risk analysis and 3. Risk response planning. Finally, this model was applied by a numerical example, and project risk magnitude was calculated for an assumed company, to verify the proposed method.

Followership is a developing paradigm in organizational behavior which focuses mainly on followers. The goal of this study is to explore follower’s implicit followership theories (IFTs) which entail an analysis of follower’s views and perception about followership. For this purpose, based on a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews with employees of large public and private organizations, in Mashhad were analyzed by exploratory content analysis. A total of 25 categories of implicit theories were detected in 5 prototypes and 5 antiprototypes.Followership prototypes consist of constructive perception of work, job competencies, mighty arm of leader, moral virtues and initiation pattern; five antiprototypes were named as role deviances including destructive behaviors, obedience, incompetency, indifference and blue color. Reflecting on the findings, a 5 dimensional model was identified, with each dimension having its prototypes and anti- prototypes. Results showed that follower's IFTs differ from leader's follower' s implicit followership theories.

Islamic banking, as a major center for financial transactions in Islamic societies, plays a key role in the development of Islamic economics. The fundamental essence of Islamic banking system is based on the fact that although, Islam has forbidden the interest in transactions, but trade and profit is encouraged and supported. The actual implementation of the Islamic banking system due to its unique features can be the source of many benefits and advantages for Islamic countries; and it is more significant when we recognize that the banking sector is the largest body of Iranian service sector of economy. However, a significant proportion of the banking system has been Islamized in Iran. Therefore, this study seeks to use empirical evidence to conceptualize and examine the critical success factors for the implementation of Islamic banking system in the banking sector of Iran. To achieve this purpose using mixed method approach, the research framework has been designed and examined.The required data in the qualitative part of the study were collected after detailed literature review and research background- through in-depth interviews with banking executives and academic experts; then the quantitative part of the study for framework examination was conducted using survey. Based on this study's findings, the fitted model of critical success factors (CSFs) for successful implementation of Islamic banking in the banking sector of Iran is proposed. Finally, both applied and theoretical recommendations and directions are shown in this study.

Credit allocation through the usage of Portfolio optimization mainly seeks to maximize return and minimize the risk of the portfolio; but there are other important issues including sustainable development which is important for government/public sectors. This paper presents a novel credit allocation approach based on portfolio optimization and investigates the effects of selected indicators of sustainable development on credit allocation. In order to evaluate this case study, constraint mean-variance was used as the extension of Markowitz portfolio theory. Selected indicators were modeled as the mathematical model’s objectives and constraints. In order to show the applicability of the model, experimental results were given based on credit allocation data for National Development Fund of Iran (NDFI). The results show that sustainable development selected indicators exacerbate the return of NDFI portfolio from one side and from the other side, its effect on NDFI risk is somewhat similar but lighter.

Business cost is acknowledged as one of the priorities in SMEs research. In this study, the business cost of SMEs in Shanghai was primarily measured using Factor-Entropy analysis method. The purpose of this study is to effectively resolve the issue of simplification and assignment evaluation index system on business costs of SMEs in Shanghai. However, this study uses factor analysis to interpret the data on indicators, through a cross-sectional survey, considering the objective empowerment with entropy method. It was shown that factor-entropy method to evaluation index system has advantages. The samples selected involves 309 executives and managers of 16 SMEs in shanghai that are in support of the development funds of Shanghai SMEs in China in 2013. Finally, Factor-Entropy analysis method is a combination of subjective and objective evaluation method, which are the indicators of the main component indexes calculated entropy valves and sorting with scores. The results show that the impact of the external environment (Policies and market-oriented operation) in the Multi-target of Business-cost was significant and positive. The value obtained in this study is to provide an applicable unique measurement method to situations where the necessary information is insufficient for complex or fuzzy systems and relations, and mainly identify and evaluate information of business costs in small medium-sized businesses in Shanghai.