فهرست مطالب

International Journal of Management, Accounting and Economics
Volume:2 Issue: 9, Sep 2015

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1394/08/24
  • تعداد عناوین: 15
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  • Adel Azar, Ahmad Khani Nozari Page 945
    Efficiency is one of economic concepts, which its enhancement has always been at the focus of politics and economy practitioners in order to improve standard of living, prosperity, peace, and human security; so that all economic schools and communities relatively emphasize this notion and suggest proper political advices to increase efficiency of various factors. Nowadays, regarding the qualitative and quantitative development of cities, the role of municipalities in urban management increasingly highlighted; thus, measuring the efficiency of municipalities is necessary for planning and better performance of municipalities. The present research tried to measure the performance of municipalities exceeding one hundred people through using DEA method and constant return to output-based scale (CCR-O) and variable return to output-based scale (BCC-O) in 2010; regarding municipalities’ relatively stable revenues, permanent revenues, semi-stable and totally unstable revenues as two inputs; and costs of urban and administrative services, as well as urban construction (including 1. Improved urban traffic; 2. Improved urban environment; and 3. Establishing entertainment and income-generating facilities) as five outputs. Obtained results indicate that 16 of 44 understudy municipalities i.e. 36.36% and 17 municipalities (38.64%) are efficient in CCR and BCC methods, respectively. The mean efficiency of the first method is 86.97% and 27.87% for the second method. Moreover, once municipalities totally ranked and an efficient virtual model introduced for inefficient municipalities, the main cause of inefficiency assigned to their extreme deviation from sufficient municipalities in costs of building cultural and sport places, which requires the highest attention at change average of 240%.
    Keywords: Performance evaluation, efficiency, municipality, data envelopment analysis (DEA), urban costs, urban revenues
  • Mohammad Ali Nasimi, Somaye Amiri, Samira Pali, Mohammad Hassan Nasimi, Samaneh Nasimi Page 967
    Customers relate to various markets with distinct decision making styles. Such styles may be somewhat time independent. The present study was conducted to take a thorough look at Sproles & Kendall’s model of decision making styles among mobile phone customers, with a focus on store location, recommendations and criticism by others, and power of parents. To this end, it was attempted to develop a data collection instrument through the latest changes in the questionnaire for decision making model of purchase as well as experts’ and consumers’ comments and judgments. After the conduction of a random sampling, 385 questionnaires were handed out to mobile phone users out of which 369 were usable. In order to analyze the data and test the hypotheses, structural equations modeling was utilized. The results indicated that habitual and store location styles were the most important ones.
    Keywords: Sproles, Kendall's model, store location, recommendations, criticism by others, power of parents
  • Narjes Jamali, Mohammad Reza Feylizadeh Page 977
    In a competitive environment changes rapidly occur therefore managers of organizations facing some challenges such as identifying important factors affecting organizational optimum usage of available resources. Thus, organizational performance evaluation is a crucial task to do and sensitive process in any industry. the objective of this study is to construct an approach based on the balanced scorecard (BSC) and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) for evaluating the aircraft maintenance department in Iran. The BSC concept is applied to define the hierarchy with four major perspectives (i.e. financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth), and performance indicators are selected for each perspective. A Fuzzy AHP (FAHP) approach is then proposed in order to tolerate vagueness and ambiguity of information. A FAHP information system is finally constructed to facilitate the solving process. The results provide guidance to the aircraft maintenance department in Iran regarding strategies for improving department performance. The results show that financial indicator (0.305) and learning and growth indicator (0.255) have higher impacts on the objective. The constructed information system is suggested to be a good tool for solving other multiple-criteria decision-making problems.
    Keywords: Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Performance evaluation, aircraft maintenance evaluation
  • Olasunkanmi Owolabi, Merus, Bashir Adesoye Bello Page 994
    This study empirically investigates the agriculture-economic growth nexus in Nigeria. An economic growth model for Nigeria is specified and estimated through the use of Ordinary Least Squares as well as Johansen Cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model on annual data spanning from 1980 to 2012. The empirical result suggests that Agriculture is positively associated with economic growth in Nigeria. Results from this study also indicates that increasing the population of agriculture labour force will impact positively on economic growth. However, Infrastructure and human capital are found to be the key determinants of Nigeria‘s economic growth in the period under review. This study suggests that Nigeria policymakers should develop strategies that are geared towards infrastructure and human capital development in order to maximize the potential of the agricultural sector.
    Keywords: Agriculture, Infrastructure, Human Capital, Economic Growth, Nigeria
  • Ruhollah Tavallaei, Sajad Shokohyar, Seyedeh Mehrsa Moosavi, Zahra Sarfi Page 1005
    The main purpose of this study is to present a new Business Intelligence Maturity Model according to the prior models and their available components to review the level of Business Intelligence maturity in organizations. The business maturity helps all organizations to get safe and effective operations without extra troubles and, executive expenses and trial & error through reporting and data analyzing. Today we can strongly claim that applying the business intelligence solution in an organization makes it more powerful and discriminates it from the others by the increase in competitiveness. This solution causes organizations to use competitive advantages and pioneer through available information. This is a practical research in which we use a survey descriptive method and matter. The result of the study is to create a new model in order to study the level of business intelligence maturity in the banking industry which has maturity levels including initial, immature, controlled, managed and mature, and effective infrastructures on BI system which contains technology, organizational culture, and rules.
    Keywords: Information system, Business Intelligence, Maturity Model, infrastructures
  • Morteza Soltani, Morteza Khavari Page 1020
    Regarding to interpersonal and informal nature of word of mouth, this advertising practice always is considered as a reliable communication source and a potential power playing a critical role in customers’ decision making process. According to the prominence of word of mouth in the customers’ decision making process, the present research tried to study some features of listener (background knowledge, purchase involvement) and some features of the speaker or the source (expertise, experience, evidences, and reliability) that cause listener to apply it encountering word of mouth by proposing a model. This is an applied study in term of goal and a descriptive-correlation study in term of methodology. Research statistical population included students of one of Tehran major government universities. Data collected using questionnaire and analyzed by structural equations model using Smart pls2 software. Research results showed that four features of listener are directly related to applying word of mouth by listener. Further, the two factors of purchase involvement and listener background knowledge only moderate the relationship among experience, reliability and the evidences presented by source by using word of mouth.
    Keywords: Word of mouth, purchase involvement, background knowledge, source expertise, source experience
  • Ehren Lee Sze Tseng, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1037
    In recent years, mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have been taking over our lives’ as a consumer. Mobile devices had become a necessity to us as a whole. From this aspect, market retailers seized the opportunity to triumph over e-retailing by introducing mobile technology to retail store known as m-retailing. Mobility is one of the key contributing factor in providing the finest marketing tool to create the best customer shopping experience in retail store. The report seeks to understand the impact of mobility in retail towards customer’s shopping experience.
    Keywords: Mobility, Mobile Retailing, Marketing, Management
  • Tan Rich Sun, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1048
    The purpose of this paper is to study the factors that may influence impulsive buying behavior. A good store environment will encourage customers to patronize the store and this can be achieved through effective marketing activities, well-trained salespeople, and promotional activities high in emotional influence value. As a result, customers are more likely to purchase unplanned products due to the attritional value from the marketing activities.
    Keywords: Physical store, buying intention, impulsive buying, store environment, store layout, salesperson
  • Angel Wong An Kee, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1055
    Content marketing evolves to be a powerful marketing tactic in the digital, fast moving, information driven world. It is not a new strategy but more and more enterprises begin to engage in content marketing gradually. So what are the reasons of the rise of content marketing in today’s society? This paper discusses about the use of content marketing in businesses and how it brings benefits to the companies. The conclusion summarizes six strategies companies use during the implementation of content marketing in their businesses.
    Keywords: Content marketing, implementation, benefits, information
  • Ng Choi Teng, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1065
    The current research paper looked into the concept of organizational individualism and collectivism and its effect on managing change. This paper focused on the factors underlying the concepts of individualism and collectivism that influence change to take place or be resistant to it altogether. Our capacity and capability to change is very important in any organization because change is what helps us to survive. Culture is one of the landmarks to adaptability. Since change happens at different levels in the organizations, the benefits and drawbacks from individualism and collectivism are explained. Moreover, a discussion on the application of these two strong cultural views in particular organizations is made to show if research depicts well on the cultural factors that influence organizational change.
    Keywords: Organizational individualism, organizational collectivism, factors influencing change, organizational change, culture
  • Fong Mun Yee, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1075
    The study aims to let those who have altruistic impulses to know deeper about how marketing strategy can actually be applied on non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As there are misunderstandings that marketing is only available to corporates, some of the NGOs have lost their opportunities to raise more funds and as a result help more people in need. For this purpose, the paper includes the study on how marketing strategies are being used by NGOs. Besides, the study of conventional marketing is also being written on paper in order to clear up the misunderstandings. This paper uses some of the organization’s examples to help provide discussion. Throughout the study, the formulae to formulate, implement and evaluate is the same. However, the ways to formulate make the differences as the purposes of NGOs and corporates are different. As a conclusion, this study will cause NGOs to realize the importance of marketing towards their mission and also their way to sustainability.
    Keywords: NGO marketing, conventional marketing practices
  • Teoh Shulyn, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1088
    Globalization has become progressively prominent in the early 21st century as many U.S-based companies look to grow by expanding their marketplace in other countries. Due to the saturated domestic market, many retailers have chosen to work outside of their home country because globalization has given them the access to the new customers and new capital useful in global marketing. International retailers will face many challenges when they work outside their home country, such as, cultural differences, business negotiation patterns, rules and regulations and many more. This report includes other major factors that affect the international retailing.
    Keywords: Globalization of retailing, cultural differences, strategies to success in international retailing, business negotiations
  • Wong Fui Yeng, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1110
    Global retailing is a sizzling topic nowadays as retailing has evolved into a global, high-tech industry that plays an important role in the global economy. This leads to a trend of the retailing activities practiced by many of retailers to look for expansion in new locations around the world in order to gain more profit and bigger market share. This paper will be discussing the global retailers and their global franchise opportunities as well as the diverse offer and technology for global expansion. On the other hand, the challenges faced by global retailers in international expansion are also discussed in this paper. Lastly, it is important for global retailers to recognize on how to get the globalization right in order to be a successful global retailer.
    Keywords: Global retailing, global retailers, global franchise, technology for global expansion, diverse offer, challenges of global retailers, globalization right
  • Wong Ai Jean, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1122
    The purpose of this paper is to validate the interdependency between a business and society. It explains the importance of carrying out strategic CSR of shared value rather than just plain practicing philanthropy. In other words, companies need to integrate social responsibility into their core business in order to succeed not only by profit but also changing the world to be better. Besides that, this research also puts two companies into discussion on how they take CSR strategy to a different level that maximizes profit whilst having a strong standing position in the market.
    Keywords: Contemporary CSR, shared value, successful companies, sustainability
  • Teoh Kae Nging, Rashad Yazdanifard Page 1130
    Organizational change refers to the transformation of an organization from its current state to its desired future state. Organizational change helps to maintain a competitive position as well as the companies’ sustainability in a competitive market. There are different kinds of leadership styles that have strong relationships with the growth of change. This research reviews the different leadership styles, including commanding, supportive, inspirational, logical, transformational, transactional and servant. Different leadership styles take up different kinds of roles and use different actions when implementing organizational change. In conclusion, this research concludes that different changing processes require different leadership styles.
    Keywords: Leadership, Culture, Motivating, Organizational change