JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH
Year:2018 | Volume:10 | Issue:19|Papers Count:16

The purpose of this study is to identify the barriers of adopting e-commerce in small and medium enterprises. The target population consisted of the managers and the staff of the active companies based in the Industrial town of Bushehr city. Due to the lack of complete information from the population, an unlimited number of cases were taken into consideration. Questionnaires were used to collect the required data. For data analysis, the structural equation modeling approach, the partial least square and the SMARTPLS software were used. The results showed that certain barriers have a negative impact on the adoption of electronic commerce by small to medium sized enterprises. These barriers are 1) "institutional barriers" including lack of time, lack of knowledge and certainty of benefits, costs, lack of enthusiasm for innovation, and inadequate staff education and technical skills, 2) "technical barriers" including lack of compatibility with products, services and business methods, lack of proper security and low-level hardware and software technology, and 3) "environmental barriers" including insufficient competition, limited use by customers, inadequate support from the government, limited use by partners and suppliers, and the weakness of the laws of electronic commerce.

Internet development has intensely affected marketing processes. A majority of companies focus on this huge source of consumers to sell their goods and services. With the growth of the Internet among the general public and the rapid growth of multi-channel retailing, consumers are constantly exposed to marketing stimuli that promote online purchasing. The Internet is an alternative buying channel serving as a convenient shopping channel that allows the consumer to shop at his or her leisure, offering 24 hour/seven days a week shopping. This approach has created new opportunities for impulse buying in the Internet domain. Despite the rapid progress of buying on the Internet, there is no noticeable research on the evaluation of the factors that affect Iranian consumers’ impulsive buying behavior on the Internet. Consequently, the goal of this research is evaluation of effective factors in the intention for online impulsive buying among the website users of “kharide gorohi takhfifan”. The data were collected using a questionnaire for assessment of a conceptual model. The data analysis by the Lisrel software demonstrated that impulsiveness and website quality have a positive relationship with the intention to buy impulsively. However, there was no positive relationship confirmed between website quality and impulsiveness.

Iran, despite having a high potential for exports, holds a small share in international markets and, despite the upward trend since the third Development Plan, is still far from optimal conditions. Given the importance of developing non-oil exports, government stimulus programs for export and making them effective are considered as one of the main strategies in line with the policy of macro-economic growth. This study aims at evaluating the effect of government development programs on export performance as well as assessing the performance of construction materials exporters with an emphasis on stimulus programs. For this purpose, 38 top exporting companies in the field of construction materials in 2014 were chosen as the study population. The data were gathered by questionnaires and analysed by the structural equations method with SPSS and LISREL software programs. The result indicated that the manager's perceptions of the export market, export knowledge export strategies, and stimulus programs using variables determined about 71 percent of the export performance of these companies. According to the derived coefficients, export strategies variable had the greatest effect. Also, a one-percent increase in the government stimulus programs could increase the export commitment for 0. 29%, the export strategies for 0. 22%, the export performance for 0. 29%, the manager's perceptions of the export market for 0. 33%, and the export knowledge for0. 51%.

Providing electronic banking (E-banking) services is of a noteworthy role in continuing the competition in the market. Increasing expectations of customers for ideal services in the field of E-banking and the presence of rival trades show the importance of this issue. Satisfying electronic customers requires identifying and analyzing of the factors that largely determine the loyalty of customers. Hence, the current study examines the individual and organizational factors that affect electronic loyalty (E-loyalty) with the role of electronic satisfaction (E-satisfaction) mediation. To this end, based on the already performed studies and considering the banking conditions in Iran, a model was designed to specially focus on factors such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitudes toward use, and organizational factors including technology, organizational structure, organizational strategy, organizational culture and business processes. In order to gather the data and test the model, an electronic questionnaire was designed and delivered to the users who had an experience of E-banking services. As many as 352 acceptable questionnaires (with the acceptable reliability of 0. 94) were used for the analysis. The results of the data analysis by the method of route analysis suggested that the chosen individual and organizational factors, except the organizational strategy variable, lead to E-satisfaction, which, in turn, influences the E-loyalty of customers.

Nowadays, companies are seen as a part of the relationships network from which competitive advantages can be gained. This study aims to analyze the role of dynamic capabilities with regard to the external relationships of organizations with competitive advantage. For this aim, a mix method was used, and a questionnaire was served to quantify those relationships. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire was checked by different methods. The questionnaire was distributed in the 13th international construction fair in Tehran through random sampling. As many as 352 were completed and returned for quantitative analysis. The findings showed that external social capital affects competitive advantage much more indirectly than directly. It was also shown that dynamic capabilities play a significant complementary and mediating role in this relationship. Government supports, enforcement inefficiency, and demand uncertainty are the environmental moderating variables that have impacts on the research model.

Due to its highly changing nature and variety, competition nowadays requires capabilities that can provide competitive advantages for firms. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of dynamic capabilities and innovation capabilities on competitive advantage. Sensing, learning, integration, coordination and reconfigured capabilities are taken into account as the dynamic capabilities, and exploitation and exploration capabilities were taken into account as the innovation capabilities. As for competitive advantage, three dimensions including cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategy were taken into consideration. The sample consisted of 217 companies which manufactured heating and cooling systems in Tehran. They were selected by Sampling Available. The research is an applied study and, in terms of data collection, it is a descriptive and correlational study. To analyze the data, the structural equation model was used. PLS measurement, correlation test, mean comparison of one group and comparison of the mean of two independent groups were conducted too. The findings indicate that, to achieve a cost leadership strategy, all the dimensions of dynamic capabilities are of positive and significant effects. However, to reach the differentiation strategy, only the sensing capability has a positive and significant effect, and both dimensions of innovation capability have a positive and significant effect on the dimensions of competitive advantage.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of consumers’ service encounter expectations on their service encounter perceptions in healthcare service (especially in cosmetic surgeries). PAKSERV scale was used for measuring service encounter expectation and perception. CFA analysis was conducted to test and validate the dimensions of PAKSERV scale. The data were gathered from more than 200 health clinics in Tehran city. All the respondents were consumers of cosmetic surgeries in these clinics. Finally, all the analyses were conducted by using 317 questionnaires. A confirmatory factor analysis successfully confirmed all the dimensions of PAKSERV scale. The results show that consumers’ expectations have a considerable impact on their perceptions in service encounters. It is also revealed that consumers’ perceptions from services are much lower than their expectations, and that they experience low-quality services which may cause dissatisfaction from healthcare services. Tangibility, reliability and assurance are the key issues that they expect, which have not been met successfully in cosmetic services. Furthermore, it should be noted that for providing high-quality services and achieving customers’ satisfaction, healthcare services (i. e. cosmetic clinics) should consider costumers’ expectations with respect to the aforementioned criteria.

Market orientation is one of the major research streams developed in strategic marketing during the past ten years. This research aims at the effect of internal and external market orientations on organizational performance. With regard to intermediate variables, competitive advantages and the dependent variable of organizational commitment are evaluated. The statistical population of this research consists of the managers of small and medium sized enterprises in the Complex of Industrial Parks in Mazandaran Province. Totally, 220 managers are selected as a sample, using available non-probable sampling. Also, questionnaires have been used to collect the data. The analysis of the survey model has been done using the Lisrel software. The results show that internal market orientation leads to the development and improvement of organizational commitment. It is also found that the competitive advantage obtained from the positive effects of internal and external marketing helps small and medium industrial companies to improve their organizational performance.

In recent years, information technology has changed the practical methods in all corporations especially in the tourism industry. Nowadays, information technology is considered as one of the most important factors of everyday running processes in the tourism industry as the result of facilitating such important activities as producing, gathering, processing, applying, and communicating information. Therefore, to realize the importance of e-tourism industry, identifying the barriers of its application can be the first step, which contributes to the process of comprehensive development of the tourism industry. The research has offered a model by combining qualitative (Delphi) and quantitative (the second order of the confirmatory factor analysis) approaches which can be used by managers as planning and decision making guidelines. The statistical population was divided into two categories. The first was tourism experts and senior managers. The sampling method was snowball, and the sample size was 10. The second was the staffs and managers of ICHHTO. Its sampling method was simple probability, and the sample size was 60. For the purpose of this research, seven main barriers and 21 secondary barriers were identified by reviewing the literature and using the Delphi technique. Then, the main research model was structured by using SMART PLS. Also, the economic barriers were recognized as the most effective barriers, and software, educational and behavioral barriers were recognized as the most influenced ones, based on the created model by using the FISM technique. As the results indicated, tourism planners and managers are able to take proper actions to develop E-tourism.

In recent years, information technology has changed the practical methods in all corporations especially in the tourism industry. Nowadays, information technology is considered as one of the most important factors of everyday running processes in the tourism industry as the result of facilitating such important activities as producing, gathering, processing, applying, and communicating information. Therefore, to realize the importance of e-tourism industry, identifying the barriers of its application can be the first step, which contributes to the process of comprehensive development of the tourism industry. The research has offered a model by combining qualitative (Delphi) and quantitative (the second order of the confirmatory factor analysis) approaches which can be used by managers as planning and decision making guidelines. The statistical population was divided into two categories. The first was tourism experts and senior managers. The sampling method was snowball, and the sample size was 10. The second was the staffs and managers of ICHHTO. Its sampling method was simple probability, and the sample size was 60. For the purpose of this research, seven main barriers and 21 secondary barriers were identified by reviewing the literature and using the Delphi technique. Then, the main research model was structured by using SMART PLS. Also, the economic barriers were recognized as the most effective barriers, and software, educational and behavioral barriers were recognized as the most influenced ones, based on the created model by using the FISM technique. As the results indicated, tourism planners and managers are able to take proper actions to develop E-tourism.

Nowadays, in the world of hyper-competition, every supplier has to maintain and improve its position against other domestic and foreign suppliers and take advantage of brand equity. However, the problem is that industrial suppliers do not recognize what creates and promotes the industrial brand equity that they hold. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of firms’ capacity and collaborative values on industrial brand equity. In terms of data gathering and analysis, the method of the study is descriptive and based on correlations. The research population consists of the manufacturing companies operating in the industrial estate of Bushehr province. According to the statistics received from the manager of Bushehr industrial estate during 2015-2016, the total number of the active manufacturing companies in the industrial estate of Bushehr was 169. Considering the limited population, a sample of 118 companies were selected. To test the hypothesis, the mean, standard deviation and the correlations among the variables were calculated by using the SPSS software. Moreover, the proposed structural model was run by utilizing the LISREL software, and all the hypotheses were confirmed.

Directing subsidiaries is one of the key tasks of a holding company, and the alignment of this task with overall firm directions, reflected in strategic roles, is crucial. This study aims to investigate the effects of such roles on the types of directing subsidiaries or parenting styles. The present research is a developing study from the viewpoint of results, a descriptive one from the viewpoint of goals, and a quantitative study from the viewpoint of data. To do the research, after the research model was generated and the corresponding hypotheses were extracted, a questionnaire including 30 questions was made to determine the parenting strategic roles and the parenting styles. The validity and the reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed. The statistical population of research included 500 Iranian corporate parents. The sample size was determined by the Cochran’s formula as 81 units. The questionnaires were distributed through simple random sampling. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling was done using partial least squares and path coefficients. The results confirmed that parental roles have a significant influence on parenting styles. There were also proofs for the influence of both mentioned variables on corporate parent financial performance.

This study aims at the effect of traditional service quality and electronic service quality on the competitiveness of Saderat banks in the city of Khorramabad. In terms of purpose, the research is an applied one, and, in terms of method, it is of a descriptive causal type. The study population consisted of Saderat bank customers selected in a sample of 384 people. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire whose content validity and reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha. In this study, to investigate and test the hypotheses, the data was analyzed using the SPSS software. The results showed that the quality of traditional and electronic services has a significant positive impact on competitiveness. Of these two types of services, electronic services proved to have a significantly greater impact than traditional services on the competitiveness of Saderat banks. On the other hand, it was found that the reliability of traditional service quality, components privacy, and quality of service more significantly and positively impact competitiveness of the banks, as compared to other dimensions. Thus, according to the results, it is necessary to pay special attention to the quality of electronic services.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of innovativeness, risk taking and proactiveness on performance with the mediating role of readiness to serve in governmental banks in Mashhad. From the viewpoint of objectives, the study is an applied piece of research, and the method of data collection is a descriptive and statistical. The population of the research consists of the managers and deputies of governmental banks in Mashhad. The sample size comprises 128 managers and deputies who completed the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used for the data analysis. The results confirm the mediator role of readiness to serve in the efficacy of innovativeness, risk taking and proactiveness in performance.

The most important support for knowledge-based start-up businesses is their financing, as the most important challenge of those businesses lies in the financing stage. With the advent of Web 2 and social networks, crowd funding has risen as the latest method of external financing. So far, many exploratory empirical studies have examined various aspects of this method mostly based on the features of advanced countries and superior crowd funding platforms in the world. Hence, it is necessary to study crowd funding and to develop the method in Iran too. This paper aims to provide propositions, crowd funding business models, and a typology of actors of this method in Iran by analyzing the exploratory empirical data obtained from active crowd funding platforms in the country. The analysis is conducted of the empirical data of five active platforms and 307 campaigns. The results show that the internal platforms, although recently launched, have been able to attract 24771 funders and to raise approximately 20, 379, 773, 066 Rials. The success rate of crowd funding in Iran is 54 percent, and platforms with reward and donation models have the highest success rates. Since this paper is an exploratory study based on empirical data, only nine propositions have been made.

Nowadays, purchase decision making is much more complicated and even more important than in the past. Consumers’ decision-making style is a constant and effective pattern of responses influenced by culture. National culture and subcultures have significant impacts on consumer's values, attitudes and decision making. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of subcultures on consumer's decision-making styles in Tabriz and Sanandaj. In terms of data collection and analysis, the research method is descriptive and correlational. To test the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling and Amos22 are used. The results show a difference between the consumers in Tabriz and those in Sanandaj in terms of the relationships among brand loyalty, brand sensitivity and hedonic shopping styles.