Interdisciplinary Journal of Management Studies
Year:2021 | Volume:14 | Issue:2|Papers Count:10

Due to the explosion of data in recent years and the increase in its commercial application, big data and its analytics have attracted the attention of governments, academics, and practitioners, especially that of the startups. At the same time, regarding the recent nature of the phenomenon, entrepreneurship literature lacks a thorough understanding of the contextual challenges experienced by big data startups. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the literature of big data entrepreneurship by identifying the environmental challenges of big data startups and exploring the priority of these challenges in the context of Iran, a developing IT market country. For this purpose, our research method is comprised of two phases: identifying the challenges of big data startups' using in-depth interviews and questionnaire, and prioritizing such challenges based on experts' assessments using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. Our findings revealed that lack of particular laws and policies for big data, lack of transparency, data mismanagement, financial challenges, technological and educational weaknesses, unawareness of big data advantages, and lack of willingness for utilizing it are the most significant challenges of big data startups in a developing context. The paper concludes with some policy and managerial recommendations for creating a supportive environment for startups.

The shopping experience in Omni-channel distributions is influenced by the physical environment of the buyer, delivery time, and the cost of production to distribution of the goods which have a significant impact on customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. This study presents a system dynamics approach to identify the variables affecting the three aspects of customer satisfaction, cost, and delivery time, as well as the relationships among these variables in omni-channel distribution. By reviewing previous studies and expert opinions identifying important variables, followed by generating different scenarios in the Vensim software, the optimal values of the important variables are estimated. It is observed that by approaching the values of the fourth scenario – increase in the amount of market competitiveness indices, customer referral rate, marketing costs, technology etc. and decrease in the maintenance costs – the highest customer satisfaction and the lowest cost and delivery time can be achieved.

The effectiveness and efficiency of any organization is dependent on the empowerment of its human resources as well as the presence of an ethical climate and organizational support. Hence, this article aims to analyze the impact of employee empowerment, ethical climate, and perceived organizational support on employee turnover intention directly and indirectly with the mediating role of job satisfaction. The data related to a sample of 215 employees of one of the biggest universities in Mashhad, Iran, was obtained using a questionnaire, which was then analyzed by Warp PLS 4. Results show that job satisfaction has a negative effect on turnover intention. Moreover, the positive effect of employee empowerment, ethical climate, and perceived organizational support on job satisfaction and the negative effect of ethical climate and perceived organizational support on turnover intention are supported. Results also support the point that job satisfaction mediates the effect of ethical context and perceived organizational support on turnover intention. The current study contributes to the present organizational literature on the social exchange theory and human resource outcomes. Guidelines are provided to the managers on how to address job satisfaction and turnover intension.

With the increasing significance of startups in recent times, practitioners and academicians have considered the growth hacking strategies by which these firms could obtain competitive performance gains and play an important role in the world economy. So far, studies have mostly focused on the technical dimensions of these companies, while the business promotions they require and the way they should be leveraged strategically have remained neglected. Thus, the current study attempts to present a qualitative study that could help explain the growth hacking strategies. We employed a multiple-case study approach in this paper and investigated the growth strategies of 13 Iranian startups via semi-structured interviews with their founders. The comparative analyses – with above 90% inter-rater reliability of the coders – concluded in the formation of five groups of growth hacking strategies, namely the growth hacking funnel of acquisition, activation, revenue, retention, and referral. This study developed a deeper understanding of the significance of growth hacking strategies and the mechanisms by which they leveraged towards strengthening the business value.

Women's empowerment is related to women's decision-making power, easy access to information, and resource control. Women entrepreneurship is in the initial stage in Pakistan. The present study primarily focused on the challenge of women empowerment through entrepreneurship in Pakistan. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data through the survey method. The target population of the study was 120 women of the main cities of Pakistan. The target population was divided into two categories (housewife/ entrepreneur cum housewife). The results highlight that entrepreneurship played a significant role and increased the decision-making power of women entrepreneurs as compared to the housewife. However, women entrepreneurs are facing various obstacles such as less governmental support, complicated bank loan procedures, lack of entrepreneurial education, and market awareness. The governmental support in place of smooth and easily accessible bank loans for women requires enhancing their confidence and control over resources similar to the men. The result highlights that women entrepreneurs have strong decision-making power, fewer mobility issues, autonomy, financial independence, and empowerment. This study will help policymakers to formulate strategies to overcome the obstacles of women entrepreneurship to attain empowerment through entrepreneurship. A women empowerment model is proposed to be followed.

The use of conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) models in real-world problems are limited because of some restrictions that must be considered in the model such as imprecise or vague data in inputs and outputs as well as additional information or assumptions. One way to handle this problem is by using fuzzy DEA with assurance regions (FDEA/AR) models. There is a common approach in almost all the suggested methods for solving FDEA/AR models. However, in this paper, we show that in some DEA/AR models, applying this approach can be led to inappropriate results. Four theorems are given to provide some sufficient conditions for a DMU to be the DEA/AR efficient. These theorems can be used to check the accuracy of the presented methods for solving FDEA/AR models, too. Moreover, a new method for solving a generalized FDEA/AR model that includes established DEA models such as CCR model (Charnes et al., 1978), BCC model (Banker et al., 1984), FG model (Fä re & Grosskopf, 1985), and ST model (Seiford & Thrall, 1990) is proposed. These models are constant, variable, non-decreasing, and non-increasing returns to scale models, respectively. The proposed method is applied to evaluate the performance of manufacturing enterprises.

This article investigates the dynamic effects of foreign direct investment uncertainty on financial development in Nigeria and the interacting role of financial inclusion and economic growth. We used the annual time series data of Nigeria covering the period 1970-2018. Through advanced econometric techniques, we first substantiated stationarity level and co-integration among the scrutinized variables, which is genuinely done for reliable findings. Following that, we applied Gregory and Hansen (1996) co-integration test, Non-linear ARDL as the elasticity estimator, and Diks and Panchenko (2006) causality test for the analysis. The Empirical evidence postulates the asymmetric nature of foreign direct investment uncertainty to financial development. We also found a non-linear uni-directional causality running from economic growth to financial development, foreign direct investment uncertainty to financial development, and financial inclusion to financial development. In the end, the authors proposed the needed policy recommendations to strengthen the Nigerian financial sector.

Managing mutual relationship with the customer is a decisive task in every sector. Many earlier research outcomes evidenced this as a major drawback, particularly in the banking industries, as they are not using this asset as a competitive advantage for retaining their customers. Taking this as a core issue, this study concentrates on evaluating the consequence of customer relationship management practices on customer loyalty with 779 respondents who were the clients of public and private sector banks located in India and were selected using simple random sampling technique. Various quantitative techniques were carried out and the results emphasized that the CRM has a positive influence on loyalty through customer knowledge management, customer satisfaction, and customer trust, and all were all found as significant drivers to customer’ s trustworthiness. This study recommends bankers to provide reliable services to their customers and make them satisfied, as it is the forerunner for creating loyalty.

Trade-offs between production factors such as marginal rates of substitution are significant aspects for decision makers and managers. Due to the complexity of processes and the presence of undesirable measures in many real-world applications, in this study, the relative efficiency and marginal rates of substitution are calculated in two-stage structures including weakly disposable undesirable intermediate measures. Actually, an approach based on the directional distance function is provided for this purpose. Therefore, the effect of the changes of a measure in other measures such as the effect of the changes of intermediate factors on the output of the first stage and second stage is measured by maintaining efficiency, and the rate of these changes is calculated. To elaborate in details, marginal rates of substitution in two-stage processes are dealt with using the proposed two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach while undesirable intermediate components are presented. A real data set is also used to clarify the proposed method herein.

The purpose of the present paper was to investigate the moderating role of job engagement in the impact of SHRM practices on the employee retention of Guilan Technical & Vocational Training Organization, and therefore, to provide an empirical and practical contribution in order to enhance employee retention through job engagement. The statistical population consisted of 372 managers and employees, and the optimal sample was determined by Cochran's formula to be 189. The results revealed that SHRM practices and dimensions have a significant impact on employee retention, and job engagement has a moderating role in the impact of SHRM and all its dimensions except performance appraisal on employee retention. The findings also indicate the moderating effect of job engagement in the relationship between SHRM practices and employee retention for three types of job engagement, namely vigor, dedication, and absorption. The association between the demographic variables and the factors also investigated. This study provides an empirical and practical contribution to improving employee retention through job engagement. The theoretical implications, future directions, and limitations are also discussed.