نشریه کاوش های مدیریت بازرگانی
پیاپی 21 (بهار و تابستان 1398)

Because of the importance of brand in consumers' decision-making, market leaders have invested heavily in their brands. In the meantime, follower companies try to imitate the brands of market leaders. Consumers, with their ethical differences, also show different reactions to this imitation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the type of copycat (imitation) on the consumers' copycat avoidance with the moderating role of consumer ethics. In order to investigate this effect, the consumers of hypermarkets were surveyed through distributing a questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by using the structural equation model (SEM) and the PLS software.The results show that, when a company imitates the apparent features or themes of a brand (theme copycat), it leads to copycat avoidance by consumers. Also, customer's ethics moderates the effect of appearance imitation on the copycat avoidance, but it does not have a moderating effect on the relationship between theme imitation and copycat avoidance by consumers.

One of the most important issues that organizations have to deal with in the current competitive conditions is the awareness of the level of customer satisfaction with the performance of the organization, products and services. Importance-performance analysis is a useful tool in customer satisfaction surveys and management strategies. It can help stakeholders identify the strengths and weaknesses and determine priorities for improvement. The aim of this study is to assess the quality of transit services in Arvand free zone in terms of importance and satisfaction with the performance. This research is an applied study. The data were collected through questionnaires. In this regard, among 190 merchants, customs clearance agents and individuals active in the field of transport, 126 were selected by the stratified random sampling method. Using 25 quality parameters identified for transit services, an IP matrix was developed as an operating model for the pathology of customer satisfaction with the quality of regional transit services. The results show that a few variables including the efficiency of the transport network, use of modern railways, use of regular airlines, and reduction of official bureaucracy are of high importance but of low performance by arvand free zone. Hence, they require urgent attention so as to enhance customer satisfaction, which is a key variable identified for its effect on the service quality in Arvand free trade zone.

It is of particular importance for modern businesses to pay attention to corporate social responsibility. Managers’ proper understanding of social responsibility activities and awareness of their weaknesses in this area is to effectively improve the competitive position of the company and customer responses. In addition, perceived service quality and brand image are introduced as the concepts that affect customer responses. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of corporate social responsibility on the customer responses with a focus on the mediating role of perceived service quality and brand image in Tejart bank in the city of Shiraz.This study is of a descriptive-cognitive type. To collect the data, convenience sampling and 317 questionnaires were used. Chronbach’s alpha was computed for the reliability of the data with the satisfactory value of 0.970. For data analysis, the structural modelling equation method was used with the PLS software version 3. The findings of the study suggest that corporate social responsibility has a positive and significant relationship with perceived service quality and brand image. Also, the effects of perceived service quality and brand image are recognized as mediators in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and customer response. However, corporate social responsibility was found to have no direct effect on customer responses.

Nowadays, the issue of how to communicate with customers and maintain the relationship with them for long is of utmost importance because it affects the durability and stability of companies in the competitive situation. In order to survive in the competition arena, banks need both to attract new customers and to keep their valuable customers. To do this, they first require a tool to identify their valuable customers. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a tool that can make it possible for the banks. The aim of this study is to provide a model to investigate the factors affecting Melli bank’s CLV. The data were collected from 278 costumers of Melli bank branches in Challus. The effects of commitment multi-dimensional structure (including affective commitment and calculative commitment), loyalty (including attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty), and the switching costs of CLV in Melli Bank were examined. Partial Least Squares (PLS) were used to analyze the data and test the proposed model. The results indicate the significant and positive effect of "emotional commitment", "calculative commitment", "behavioral loyalty" and "switching costs" on the CLV of Melli Bank. Finally, some recommendations are provided for future research.

The effective rate of exchange is one of the most important factors in international competitiveness. The more it increases, the better the competitiveness of exports is. So, keeping or raising the real effective exchange rate has a positive effect on the country's trade balance, but reducing it will have a negative effect. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of exchange rate on the non-oil exports of Iran with the time series analysis approach. The data on the variables were extracted from databases for the period of 1991-2012, and the Dickey-Fuller test was used to evaluate the reliability of the variables. Also, the Granger causality test and the VAR model were used to test the hypothesis. The results showed that the variable of exchange rates had significant adverse effects on non-oil exports during the studied period; with an increase in the exchange rate in that period, non-oil exports declined. It was also shown that the impacts of GDP, the degree of economic openness and non-oil export facilities granted to the private sector were positive.

The growing increase of commercial banks has raised some concerns about customer switching especially for well-known and old banks. Among these banks, Mellat bank has a history of 38 years and a capital of 50 trillion. The problem of customer switching may result in decreased loyalty of its customers and their increased tendency for other banks. The present research focuses on the switching barriers and their impacts on the loyalty of Mellat bank customers in Tehran. It is a functional study based on description and correlation. The population of the study consists of all the customers of Mellat banks inTehran who have at least once used the services of this bank. According to the Cochran equation, the sample size was determined to be 385. The sampling method was clustering. A designed questionnaire was distributed among 480 customers of different branches of the bank in Tehran. The model fitness and the study hypotheses were dealt with by modelling structural equilibriums. The results showed the significant effects of different variables related to switching barriers (i.e. Switching Cost, Availability and Attractiveness of Alternatives, Social Benefits, Confidence Benefits and Special Treatment) on the customers’ loyalty to Mellat Banks of Tehran.

The aim of this study is to explain the factors influencing the selection of strategies for entering international markets. For this purpose, according to the literature on the types of entry, the strategies were divided into two broad categories of export and non-export strategies. In the next stage, the factors influencing the choice of strategy were identified in two categories including the company's specific factors and the barriers to entry. The statistical population of the study consisted of the directors, sales directors and marketing experts of companies trading in dried fruits in the West Azarbaijan province. According to the statistics obtained from the Chamber of Commerce, 32 companies were active in this province. Due to the limited size of the population, the whole population (i.e. directors, sales managers, and marketing experts) was selected as the sample determined based on the census sampling method. After deletion of questionnaires, were received. The data were collected from 61 questionnaires and analyzed through structural equations (i.e. the partial least squares approach) and the Smart PL S2 software. The results showed that certain factors including the company size, international experience, management characteristics, tariff barriers, geographical distance, and cultural distance affect the selection of export strategies to enter international markets. Also, product type and non-tariff barriers were found to be of no effect in this regard. These two variables, however, proved to have impacts on the choice of non-export strategies.

The present study seeks to investigate the impact of store atmosphere and service convenience on re-purchase behavior by the mediation of consumer satisfaction. Field data were collected using a questionnaire of 44 items in 2017. The statistical population of this study consisted of all the citizens of Tehran who had done shopping at least once at SHAHRVAND, ETKA and KOROOSH retail chain hypermarkets. The size of the sample, selected by the random cluster sampling method, was 400 customers. The results of the research showed that the store atmosphere and service convenience indirectly affect the re-purchase behavior through the mediating role of consumer satisfaction.  Also, the impact of service convenience was considerably more than that of store atmosphere. The impact of the conflict moderator variable was rejected in the relationship between consumer satisfaction and re-purchase behavior.

In recent decades, managers have experienced a period of significant global changes due to the developments in technology, marketing, globalization, and the new economic-political situation. Nowadays, corporations need to enhance their competition capacity and profit through the available models in the field of competitiveness and experts' comments. Research on competitiveness can always reveal new results. This article seeks to identify the factors that affect competitiveness in free trade zones. Through the available sources in the literature, those factors were spotted and listed. Then, based on those factors, a desirable pattern of competitiveness was made. In the last step, the pattern was evaluated using the Amos software. To do so, Arvand free trade zone was selected as a case to study, and the mentioned pattern was tested on it. The results showed that competitiveness is affected by such factors as authority privileges, natural and local privileges, foundational privileges, financial and economic privileges, and operational privileges. Among them, financial and economic factors have the highest rank, while operational privileges rank the lowest.

The aim of this study was to diagnose the setbacks in the agricultural exports of Iran in comparison with the leading countries in the field of agricultural exports. Thus, first, the setbacks in the exportation of agricultural products were explored and identified. Then, using the experiences of successful countries in export development and through a comparative study, the factors explaining the functional gaps in this regard in the country were analyzed. The required data were obtained from the existing documents, theoretical foundations and previous studies. After the data collection, the content analysis of the documents was conducted. The issues analyzed were based on the similarities and differences of the strategies and the development of agricultural exports in the studied countries in the form of components such as organizational structure, support and export incentives, strengthening of product competitiveness, trade facilitation, and investment development. Finally, after the pathological identifications of exports in the Iranian agricultural sector and the comparative study with different countries, certain practical strategies were presented for the development of farming exports.

The present study aims to design a model to manage the experience of banking service customers. The research method is qualitative. Data collection and data analysis were conducted based on the grounded theory method. This method was practiced through open, axial and selective coding. The data were obtained from field and library studies. Generally, the data were gathered as open codes through interviews with academic and industrial experts. Then, they were classified and filtered by setting up relations between the micro and the macro categories and, finally, validated and edited. The final model of the study was based on brand experience, service experience (service provider) and after-use experience. Also, micro dimensions and the corresponding propositions in banking industry were identified and discussed.

Compulsive buying is described as a chronic and repeatable purchase, which is an initial and primary response to negative events or feelings. The current research is an applied type in terms of its purpose and a descriptive survey in terms of nature. It aims to identify the individual, family and environmental factors affecting the behavior of compulsive buying among women in the city of Khorram Abad. The statistical sample of the study consisted of 384 people who were selected through the random sampling method. In order to identify the main factors affecting purchasing insanity, previous studies were reviewed and questionnaires were designed and analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling (LISREL) software. According to the results, all three main factors, namely personal, family and environmental factors, affect the behavior of compulsive buying. Also, all the studied variables except for age have an effect on shopping insanity. The corresponding hypotheses were, thus, confirmed.

The purpose of this study was to identify the mechanisms of coordinating the business service triads in the automotive industry and provide a model for that.  Studies about service triads have been emerging in management research in recent years. This research, as one of the first studies carried out in this field in Iran, was conducted with the exploratory approach and methodology of grounded theory through the analysis of deep interviews with 27 managers of the relevant companies. Open, axial and selective coding processes of 737 initial conceptual codes was done in a certain series of steps, and 82 main and minor categories and, finally, 20 major components of the model were identified and classified. The dimensions and relationships of these components were also analyzed.

Due to the competitiveness of production over the past years, managers have been trying to improve their business performance by increasing productivity and profitability. Maintenance plays an important role in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of production lines, reducing costs and improving quality. In this paper, a model is presented for the simulation of JIT production systems in different operating conditions with various maintenance policies. The simulation model is designed for a production line that includes five work stations. The results show that the use of CBM can improve the productivity and profitability of production lines.

Marketing, along with concepts such as competition and agility, is considered as a challenge in the field of services. Since retention of customers depends on how companies meet their expectations, accurate measurements and agile responsiveness to customers are urgently needed. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to provide a theoretical definition for service marketing agility and to develop a standard scale for measuring this variable. In this regard, first, a triangular fuzzy Delphi is implemented to determine appropriate measures. Then, with the exploratory factor analysis, the latent factors of service marketing agility are extracted. In order to determine the validity of the exploratory model, a confirmatory factor analysis is done to evaluate the indicators’ fitness. According to the results, there are 18 related items identified to measure the agility of service marketing. Also, human resource monitoring and empowerment, as dimensions of internal marketing agility, needs assessment and adaptation as dimensions of interactive marketing agility. In addition, procedural flexibility and flexible marketing mix have been found as the dimensions of external marketing agility.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of customer relationship management on customer responses (including responses to price, brand preference, brand development and purchase intention) at Tarma Café-Museum and to present a suitable model according to the results of the research. Twelve hypotheses were investigated in this study. The research is applied in terms of its purpose and descriptive-causal in terms of data collection. The statistical population of the research included the customers of Tarma Café-Museum in the city of Shoushtar. The number of customers was uncertain and unlimited. The sample size was, hence, determined to be 386 using the Cochran formula. They were selected by a non-random sampling method. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire whose reliability was measured by Cronbach's alpha, and its validity was measured by convergent and divergent validity. The data were analyzed using the SPSS and PLS software programs as well as descriptive and inferential tests including Normality Test and Structural Equation Modeling. The results of the structural equation model test showed that all the three aspects of customer relationship management, namely customer service, customer support, and marketing support have positive and significant effects on the four dimensions of consumer reaction, including the tendency to pay higher prices, the attitude toward brand development, brand preference and intent to purchase.

The capital of an organization is not just financial and physical capitals, rather personnel's knowledge capital is more important than that. In present time, knowledge as an important competitive advantage can play a key role in the success and decline of businesses. In competitive markets, many organizations deal with this issue. Therefore, the present study investigates the impact of marketing knowledge management on competitive advantage by considering the mediating role of variables of innovation capability and organizational performance. The statistical population of this research is the FMCG industry broadcasting companies in Iran. The 96 companies were selected by simple random sampling. Data were collected through standard questionnaire with 34 questions. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient and its validity was measured by divergent and convergent method. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed using PLS3 software to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that marketing knowledge management had a positive and significant effect on innovation capability, organizational performance and competitive advantage. Innovation capability also has a significant and positive impact on competitive advantage and organizational performance. Finally, organizational performance has a positive and significant effect on competitive advantage. Finally, practical suggestions were provided.