JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH
Year:2019 | Volume:10 | Issue:20|Papers Count:17

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the impact of supply chain management practices on financial performance of large manufacturing firms in Khuzestan province. The population of this applied research consisted of 180 large manufacturing firms and with using Cochran's formula for limited society, 123 firms were selected. Statistical unit of society were the production / finance managers of said firms and research questionnaire was distributed to them for each firm. The data collection instrument is Thatte (2013) and Inman et al, (2011) questionnaire and which its content validity was evaluated through experts and academics and its construct validity was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation models and SPSS 18 have been used in order to analysis the data. The results indicate that, supply chain management practices can improve supply chain responsiveness, lead to enhanced competitive advantage and improved financial performance. Also supply chain responsiveness can increase competitive advantage and competitive advantage have positive impact on financial performance.

Franchising is a fastest growing and dominant form of retailing throughout the world. It is a favorable strategy for managing entrepreneurial growth. Building up and maintaining a sustainable relationship with franchisees is a crucial challenge that franchisors are faced with, and paying attention to franchisees' expectations is one of the key success factors for franchisors. However, an important distinction among the different elements of expectations has been overlooked in the franchising literature. Expectations are comprised of both normative (macro-level) and predictive (micro-level) elements. This study aims to investigate the concomitant influence of the (dis)confirmation of both the normative and predictive expectations of a franchisee in relationship with his/her franchisor. For this purpose, the data collected from 304 franchised units within the insurance sector were analyzed using structural equation modeling by Lisrel 8. 5 and SPSS 22. 0. According to the results of hypothesis testing, the positive effects of perceived support and communication openness on relationship satisfaction are significant, and the negative effects of perceived support and communication openness on perceived conflicts are also significant. Furthermore, the results indicated that the (dis)confirmation of both the normative and predictive expectations of a franchisee mediates the impact of the perceived support and communication openness on his/her perceived conflict and relationship satisfaction.

Currently, in the banking system, defaults in the repayment of loans have become one of the biggest problems, and banks and financial institutions have faced many problems such as the increase in the volume of outstanding receivables due to the lack of an appropriate system for allocating facilities. Considering the importance of credit risks, commercial banks used to apply judgment methods for determining those risks. However, the use of these methods was not efficient enough due to limited human abilities and, at the same time, various factors affecting credit risks in contrast to statistical methods as well as artificial intelligence methods. For this reason, this article measures the efficiency of logistic regression models and artificial neural networks in detection of bank customers’ credit status in the period of 2009-2013. The results indicated that the total accuracy rates of the Artificial Neural Network model and the Logistic Regression model were 87% and 77. 2% respectively, and the error types I and II were reduced significantly in the neural network. According to the results, statistical models cannot be expected to properly evaluate the credit risk of customers with classical assumptions such as the linear relationship between variables. Therefore, application and integration of artificial intelligence techniques is strongly recommended in this regard.

In the new age, a plethora of products and services can be acquired online. In In the modern era, a plethora of products and services can be acquired online. In this context, customers’ decisions as how to buy are affected by several different factors. Following a purchase, the company must take appropriate measures to improve customers’ loyalty so that their repurchase intention can be enhanced. The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of electronic service quality and electronic improvement on customers’ loyalty and repurchase intentions in the context of online shopping. The statistical population of the research includes the customers of several selected online stores in Iran with a random sample drawn from the population. The results of the research indicate that information security and website performance affect electronic service quality while accountability, compensation, and communication influence electronic improvement. Furthermore, electronic service quality and electronic improvement, in turn, affect customers’ loyalty and online repurchase intention. Finally, electronic loyalty is found to have a significant impact on online repurchase intention.

This research aims to examine the relationship of corporate social responsibility with organizational performance by considering the mediating roles of competitive advantage, corporate fame and customer satisfaction in food companies located in the northern Iranian city of Amol in year 2015. It is a descriptive-survey research conducted on 196 executive managers of food companies in the city of Amol selected as the study sample through random cluster sampling. A questionnaire is used to collect the data, and the SEM technique based on covariance (Lisrel v. 8. 8) serves to analyze the data. The research findings show that the construct of competitive advantage has the strongest relationship with organizational performance as compared to the constructs of corporate fame and customer satisfaction. This is while corporate social responsibility has the greatest effect on customer satisfaction based on the structural model. Also, the constructs of corporate fame and competitive advantage are found to have insignificant effects on the promotion of organizational performance and, consequently, on customer satisfaction. These findings provide managers with deep insights into the factors that create and reinforce organizational performance in stagnant economy by improving the indexes of corporate social responsibility.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of social customer relationship management (SCRM) on the relationship of the senior managers and experts of independent organizations in Fars province with customers. Social customer relationship management includes variables such as customer orientation, use of social media technology, customer engagement initiatives, relationship information processes and capabilities of social customer relationship management. Using a questionnaire, the data were collected from 150 marketing professionals. The reliability and the validity were tested by Cronbach's alpha and the content validity test. To analyze the data, structural equation modeling was performed using the Warp Pls14 software. The results showed that the application of the variables of social customer relationship management has a significant positive impact on customer relationship performance. In general, all the study hypotheses were confirmed, but relationship information processes proved to have no impact on social customer relationship management capabilities.

In modern societies, there is no doubt about the importance of the role of governments in economic systems. In any economic system, the state and the market regulate and guide the economic processes. Other than these, there is another important element involved, namely institutional context. In fact, institutional context is an intermediate link between the state and the market to mediate their interactions. Institutional context determines the boundaries of the state and the market. The aim of this study is to investigate the impacts of political, economic and social institutions on the volume of domestic trade in Iran. To achieve this goal, the XLSTAT PLS software was used to prioritize political, economic and social institutions on the domestic trade volume of our economy. The results indicated that political, social and economic institutions have the greatest effects on the volume of the domestic trade. According to the results of the model, the indices of economic, social and political institutions respectively at the rate of 0. 42, 0. 379 and-0. 435 percent are suggestive of their significant effects on the volume of the domestic trade. Due to the negative effect of political institutions in this case, it is proposed that the development of e-government policies to control corruption as well as the transparency of activities in line with policy makers to improve the institutional indicators be taken into consideration.

Playing the music in stores is one of the new methods to attract more customers and to increase their stay in the shop. Nowadays, large retail shops use this method. In a retail environment, music can serve as a strong emotional stimulus. This study, conducted in the field of consumer behavior, is about the role of music in persuading people to do more shopping. The research methodology is survey, and, in terms of purpose, the study is an applied one. The results were obtained using structural equation analyses. The study population consists of the customers of large stores in the city of Arak who were purchasing and, at the same time, listening to music playing in the stores. According to the results, music affects shopping, as an important behavior, by giving the customers a good feeling and making them spend more time in the store and buy more goods.

In today's competitive business world, several factors influence consumers’ purchasing behavior. In recent years, viral advertising has emerged as one of the most effective and efficient methods that can create awareness and interest as well as enhance testing and product acceptance. Viral advertising operates through the voluntary transfer of a provocative message of a brand from one person to another via the Internet in order to influence or persuade the message receiver to transfer it to others. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of messages with emotional contents (i. e. anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness and surprise) and the credibility of viral advertising (i. e. trustworthiness, expertise, attractiveness) on consumers’ shopping behavior. The study population consisted of 320 Internet users in the city of Ahvaz selected by the accessible sampling method. The data were collected through valid and reliable questionnaires sent to the Internet users by e-mail along with a short advertising video. The results of the data analysis conducted by using the structural equation model and the Amos software showed that the emotional content and the credibility of the viral advertising messages in all the three advertised products has a positive and significant impact on the purchasing behavior of the customers. Also, the results showed the negative and significant effect of emotional contents on the consumer purchasing behavior in two other products, namely life insurance and electrical insecticides.

The purpose of this study was to model the factors that affect the knowledge networks in knowledge-based companies. Methodologically, the research is of a hybrid-exploratory type. By combining quantitative and qualitative methods and relying on experts' opinions, the factors influencing the formation of knowledge networks and their relationships to knowledge-based companies were identified and ranked. In order to analyze the data, the content analysis method and the structural interpretation model were used in qualitative and quantitative stages respectively. The results of this study showed that the development of management processes has the greatest impact on the formation of knowledge networks, and the most influential factors are at the first level of the model. These factors include the type of knowledge, cultural factors, organizational structures and communication mechanisms. It is suggested that, in the field of research and technology and even in other operational areas, the current dispersal schemes of knowledge management be replaced by inter-organizational knowledge networks and the model developed in this research.

The concept of ‘ consonance of human behavior’ is an extension of the general concept of consonance from the physical world to the realm of human behavior. Humans try different practices to coordinate viewpoints and behaviors in order to understand and imagine the world, in which they sometimes face some cognitive dissonance. In terms of data collection, the present study is a survey, and, in terms of data analysis, it is descriptive. The statistical sample consisted of 390 consumers of Kaleh dairy products in the city of Urumieh selected by using Cochran sampling formula. The structural equations’ modeling was done to analyze the research data with the Smart-PLS software. The results of the study showed that wisdom of purchase, impulse buying tendencies, hedonic consumption tendencies, perceived service quality, and anticipated satisfaction have negative and significant effects on cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance, in turn, has a positive and significant effect on the consumption value and predicted satisfaction. There was no correlation found between cognitive dissonance and perceived service quality.

Nostalgia is a pleasant feeling coming through the positive memories of the past evoked upon facing stimulants such as anxiety, objects, places, etc. One of the functions of nostalgia is to bring back a feeling of serenity or comfort when a consumer experiences anxiety and loss of psychological balance (i. e. psychological discontinuity). The main goal of the present study is to analyze the effect of psychological disruption on the nostalgia evoked in consumers. The study also seeks to examine how a person extinguishes his or her anxiety by finding nostalgic products for consuming. Thus, at first, the average anxiety rates of a control group and a test group are compared. After examining the difference between the two groups a control group of 191 students were picked for data gathering and hypothesis testing. Then, by using the method of structural equations and the PLS software, the data were analyzed and paraphrased. The results suggested that psychological discontinuity of a consumer has a significant and positive effect on nostalgia, and the consumers who experience psychological discontinuity tend to consume nostalgia products more.

The aim of this study was to identify the indicators of competitive ability in an electronic banking system. To conduct the research, a qualitative method and semi-structured interviews were used. The data were collected from forty electronic banking experts and managers in the Iranian banking system. Then, the collected data were analyzed with open coding and axial coding methods. The results of the analysis were used to identify the primary indicators of competitive ability in the electronic banking system. In the next step of this research, Delphi technique was used to consult electronic banking experts about the primary indicators derived from the semi-structured interviews and the theoretical literature. In the final stage, seven indicators were confirmed. They include quality of services, improvement of service channels, service innovation, use of new technologies, advertisement, customer-orientedness, and bank reputation.

Employing an endorser as an effective marketing tool has been in variation in our country. For a while, the use of celebrities in advertising was prohibited, but, in the last few years, one can again see the massive presence of celebrities in corporate advertising. The use of endorsers, as the main focus of advertisement and corporate promotions, is one of the most effective strategies to influence the perception of the audience about an organization. Selecting effective endorsers can have different aspects, and extensive research has been conducted on this topic. Despite the wide range of studies in this field, there is a lack of a comprehensive model in Iran's theoretical literature. Therefore, we have conducted a qualitative study, in which the literature is reviewed, experts in the advertising industry of Iran are interviewed, and the main contributing factors in choosing effective endorsers are proposed. There were fifteen interviews performed. They suggested seven main themes in this regard. The themes included congruence with the ad, congruence with the audience, congruence expertise, attractiveness, familiarity, trustworthiness and likeability. Finally, considering these themes and the relevant theoretical background, a model is proposed for ad effectiveness through selecting appropriate endorsers.

This research aims at the effects of service quality, perceived value, and customer’ s satisfaction on the consumer’ s intention for brand’ s loyalty, trust, and commitment. In terms of the data collection method, this study is a descriptive survey. The study sample consisted of 384 Internet customers of Irancell lines in Tehran Province. The limitation of the research was the costly access to and, sometimes, unavailability of liable telecom industry customers. There were thirteen hypotheses to investigate. According to the results of the confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, one hypothesis, i. e. the effect of quality on brand commitment, was rejected. One of the applications of the study in management is the significance that should be given to the role of brand consumers’ behavioral intention. In precept can be of benefit for many industries and organizations. The innovation of this research is to propose a model and investigate it with a large set of variables. The study shows that providing high-quality services and offering goods at reasonable values can lead to high customer satisfaction and commitment. This occurs by creating a mental image of the company that induces customer’ s loyalty.

As businesses currently face the challenge of keeping up with rapid changes in such areas as technology, the concept of ‘ brand’ has become one of the few resources to provide a long-term competitive advantage (Lindemann, 2003). One way of dealing with the turbulence in the world of business is to accentuate historical elements and, thereby, achieve stability and confidence. It has become trendy for consumers to seek consolation in the past. History can make a brand relevant to the present and, prospectively, the future. ‘ Brand heritage’ is a new concept in the branding process that links past, present and future. Brand heritage is also one of the associations that marketers can use to differentiate their brands from those of their competitors. It ultimately helps them to create a unique image for their offerings. Using brand heritage as an advantage calls for the constitutive elements of brand heritage. This article explains the concept of Brand Heritage Constitutive Elements (BHCE) and its role in business development. The concept is investigated with reference to Momtaz match brand as the subject of a case study.

One of the significant challenges of companies is achieving a competitive position and promoting competitiveness. Coopetition, which means the simultaneous cooperation and competition of companies, is a strategy which has attracted the attention of many companies for the last two decades. The strategy has been used to achieve, maintain and promote competitive positions. Iranian automobile companies have also used this strategy following their global competitors. However, as some studies indicate, it has not been modeled in Iran’ s automotive industry yet. Indeed, it is not obvious what type of coopetition model is implemented in Iran. This paper aims to identify and explain a coopetition model in Iran’ s automotive industry using qualitative methodological tools and the grounded theory. The statistical population of this study is SAIPA Group, and the sampling method is theoretical sampling. Until theoretical saturation was reached, 15 experts and managers of this group were interviewed, and more than 10 documentaries were reviewed. The results showed that the coopetition pattern in SAIPA has two main parts. The first part includes coopetition drivers which involve two general categories of internal and external drivers based on resources and capabilities, and the second part deals with the type of cooperation between automakers and competitors.