فصلنامه مدیریت بازرگانی
سال دوازدهم شماره 44 (تابستان 1399)

This study aims to explain the types of activities of the Headquarters among their subordinate businesses and their classification in terms of interventions and the Headquarters roles. In other words, this study seeks to answer the following questions: (1) what roles do the headquarters play in Iranian parent firms? and (2) what activities and interventions does each of these roles belong to? However, there has been no similar local study conducted in the country. Moreover, despite a more in-depth study of such phenomenon abroad, each researcher has addressed the activities and functions of the headquarters from a specific perspective, and there is no comprehensive study to investigate all the aspects and dimensions of this phenomenon.

This qualitative research is a multiple case study in terms of research strategy. The cases which were observed in this study were purposefully selected and included two headquarters in parent companies affiliated with one of the governmental institutions engaged in economic activities. In this study, various data sources such as archived documents, documentations, participatory observations and interviews with 15 senior managers in the headquarters were used and then the data were analyzed using content analysis method.

The research findings indicated 4 roles in the form of 22 interventions and more than 55 activities for Iranian parent companies. These roles include "Loss Prevention", according to which the headquarters seek to intervene in a way to prevent the loss and destruction of value in subsidiaries rather than seeking to create values; “Business Manager”, where the headquarters define the scope of their business activity and portfolio, therby create diversity in their competitive areas through integration and acquisition, as well as organic and domestic growth. It also designs the appropriate organizational structure and mechanisms at the macro levels; "Value Creation" which can be played in two ways: (1) direct influence and interference of the headquarters in businesses (creating vertical value / headquarters to business) and (2) indirect influence and intervention of the headquarters in businesses and building coordination between them (creating horizontal value / business to business); and finally "Value Destruction" which occurs in two ways: (1) the direct influence of the headquarters on business processes (destruction of the vertical values / headquarters to the business) and (2) the indirect influence of the headquarters in business processes (destruction of the horizontal values / business to business). Innovations in this research include determining the activities of "Parent Enterprise Bargaining Power with Government Institutions" under the intervention of "Enterprise Assets" as well as "implementing destructive and restrictive policies and laws" and "imposing pressure on businesses to obtain liquidity" under the intervention of "destructive intervention and restrictive measures".

The role of the business manager is an inherent duty of any headquarters. In addition to this role, the headquarters sometimes only prevent the devaluation where the headquarters intervene through planning, governing and controlling interventions. Among the four determined roles, "Value Creation" is the most important role that headquarters can play for the subordinate businesses. However, despite the senior managers’ desire, their interventions and activities in some cases lead to the destruction of values. It is bekieved that the main reason is the lack of comprehensive understanding of the headquarters reharding the subordinate business.

The aim of this study is to systematically study the research literature in the field of B2B sales performance, identify research gaps and propose suggestions accordingly. Nowadays, the evaluation of B2B sales performance as a valuable consequence of a job to achieve competitive advantage has been increasingly considered by researchers. In recent years, sales performance has become a systemic, multidimensional, and inter-organizational approach in terms of changing the nature of sales including the centralized and integrated long-term strategic areas of management and trans-organizational behavior. Sales performance has been proposed and various studies have been conducted in organizations to understand multidimensional phenomena related to seller performance, but there is no research to systematically review seller’s performance based on different sales approaches and propose a comprehensive picture of the related literature. For this purpose, the literature and studies conducted in this field need to be evaluated and reviewed systematically.

This research is among secondary studies based on systematic review. The articles published between 1918 and the beginning of 2019 were analyzed. 514 articles were investigated through examining the keywords in the related databases and according to the predetermined criteria. Quick review of the abstracts of the target articles helped delete the irrelevant articles, and then the content of the articles was quickly reviewed, and finally the fulltext of 66 articles were selected to be reviewed. In the stage of extracting evidence, the contents of the articles were carefully studied and analyzed based on the research questions. In the end, in the analysis stage and based on each research question, the results of each article were summarized in tables and then each table was evaluated and classified. In order to confirm and complete the seller's performance literature and extract the dimensions, the antecedents and the consequences of the seller's performance as well as in-depth and semi-structured exploratory interviews with experts were also conducted.

Since the 1910s, various studies have been conducted on the dimensions and components of the seller’s performance, its antecedents and consequences on an individual and unidimensional level. Moreover, since the 1990s, researches have examined the antecedents and consequences of the seller's performance at various, multidimensional and interorganizational levels and there is a convergence among the components of the seller's performance, measurement method, its antecedents and consequences in moving towards systemic, inter-disciplinary and inter-organizational thinking. In studies regarding sales performance since 1918, there have been four different approaches over time. The first approach is the uni-dimensional approach which considers the seller's performance at the individual level and focuses on the exchange that considers the performance of the result. The second approach is the uni-dimensional approach which is based on relationship sales and, in addition to the performance of the result, considers the relationship performance in the buyerseller relationship. The purpose of sales in this approach is to communicate effectively with customers. The third approach is the strategic approach to sales performance which is based on participatory sales and the seller participates in the strategic decisions of the organization and acts as a consultant and guide to customers. The final approach is a multidimensional and holistic approach based on organizational sales, and the seller's performance is examined in creating shared value between different actors within the organization and outside the organization (not just customers) and inter-organizational coordination and behaviors.

Through measuring sales performance simultaneously with the results of the sales organization, sales behaviors with internal and external actors and cultural evaluations, trust and shared interests in the organization's social and formal interactions are possible. Sales performance is influenced by various factors such as role variables, motivation variables, competence and ability, individual characteristics, organizational variables, environmental variables, skill levels, seller’s behaviors (adaptive sales, customer-centeredness, value-based sales, and ethical-based sales), sales technology, personality variables, inter-duty and interorganizational activities of the seller, and the seller’s attitude and knowledge. Among them, in recent years, personality variables, seller’s understanding, sales technologies, shared value creation behaviors, coordination and inter-organizational relationships have attracted a lot of attention. It is important to know how different personality traits of salespersons and the required social and competitive intelligence in today's business environment affect sales performance. Research has shown that if sellers perform well, they will have more job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and loyalty to the organization, and their participation in the organization's strategic decisions will increase and they will be effective in creating a sales-based organizational culture. The selling performance and its measurement in a fixed and specific situation is very complex. Different sales positions should be considered in evaluation of performance, and it is likely that measuring performance in a particular situation may not be applicable to another situation.

The imposed policies in countries, irrespective of the present dynamic domestic environment and global markets and the main players of the export environments in the field of production and export of industrial goods has caused reduction of the export performance of companies and questioned their effectiveness. Moreover, the inability to identify the main factors affecting the export performance of countries among the small and medium enterprises, lack of enough attention to the local characteristics of countries and the lack of proper management of the interaction environment lead to the impairment and weakness of export performance. Shortage of abstract maps or conceptual models to explore the most important influencing factors on exports, and the structural and dynamic communication between them is observed in governmental and academic export institutions. And it will have a negative impact on corporate export performance. Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, lack of a structure for management of the export ecosystem in the form of a macro system can have a negative impact on the export performance of countries and companies. Accordingly, the main focus of the present research is on the theoretical and practical gaps in the field of export performance and low focus on the management of dynamic interactions between the influential players in export performance. Therefore, it is necessary to examine and analyze the interactive relationship between these players in order to create a suitable platform for effective management of the export performance in companies. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the factors, at the company level, that affect the export of industrial goods in small and medium companies (regardless of the destination country and type of export market) as well as to analyze the relationship between these factors.

This study uses mixed-method (a combination of qualitative and quantitative data) and it is developmental in terms of purpose. In the first stage of the mixed-method research, the influential factors on the companies’ industrial performance which were extracted from the empirical background were clustered based on the qualitative approach and through Causal Cognitive Mapping method using Ucinet software. Accordingly, through judgmental sampling, in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 experts in the Iranian Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade. 

In this study, 4 clusters were identified regarding the industrial export ecosystem at the company level. These four clusters include knowledge hegemonic, production culture, market diplomacy and enterprise’ human structure. Cognitive hegemony cluster contains a) analysis of foreign competitors, b) analysis of political and economic stability in the destination country, c) commitment to implementation of marketing strategies, and d) raising awareness about the foreign market culture. Production culture cluster encompasses a) commitment to quality, b) learning-centeredness, c) commitment to apply up-to-date technology, and d) flexibility of production process. Market diplomacy cluster includes a) international image of enterprise managers, b) familiarity with the laws of the destination country, c) strategic alliance with the competitors, and d) appropriate communication with foreign distributors. And finally enterprise’s human structure cluster includes a) managers’ professional skills, b) employee’s knowledge and experience, and c) recruiting youngsters at management levels.  

Two main and fundamental findings were obtained in this study. The first finding refers to the clustering of the effective factors on the export performance of companies based on their homogeneity and correlation (as well as confirming the effectiveness of these clusters on the export performance of companies based on statistical analysis), and the second finding refers to examining the relationship between these clusters and sensitivity analysis of causal relationship. Regarding the first finding, it is believed that the industrial export ecosystem at the company level encompasses four clusters of knowledge hegemony, production culture, production diplomacy and enterprise’ human structure. Each factor affects the enterprise’ environment from a unique perspective and if the relations are properly regulated, one can witness the growth of industrial performance among enterprises.

In today’s competitive world, commercialization and the use of new ideas are vital. If a store fails to present its ideas to the market, it will fail. Therefore, it is important and necessary to have the ability to commercialize in e-shops that requires special attention in order to be successful. There is also a lot of competition among online stores these days and a store can be successful if it acts according to the requests of its customers. Customers ask for online and innovative purchase due to the many concerns and problems. Therefore, the present study aims to explain the commercialization model of the idea of ​​electronic sales in online stores in the city of Tehran. Hence, the most important question in this study is that what model can be used to commercialize e-sales ideas?  

Qualitative research methods and in particular the grounded theory (systematic approach) were used to achieve a rich description of the experiences, attitudes and perceptions of the interviewees towards the commercialization of the idea of ​​electronic sales. The statistical population includes the management ranks of companies in the field of e-sales and digital media in the country with sufficient knowledge of e-sales. The purposeful sampling was used and in this regard, the data were obtained through semi-constructed interviews with 12 people. Moreover, in order to ensure the reliability of the data, 2 more interviews were conducted. Thus, the final number of participants was 14. The data were then analyzed based on a systematic approach that included three stages of open, axial, and selective coding. It should be noted that due to the interpretive and in-depth nature of the research, the codification and analysis of the interviews were apllied using MaxQDA software version 11.  

According to the analysis of the interviews, 277 initial open codes were identified, which were reduced to 20 main codes and 5 selected codes. Finally, based on a systematic approach in the grounded theory, the identified codes were classified into six classes of causal conditions, contextual conditions, intervening factors, strategies, and consequences. The results showed that the causal conditions (knowledge and understanding of market needs, intellectual property support and adoption of marketing perspectives); main categories (creativity and ideation, applicability, idea support and risk-taking); strategic categories (education, research and development, management mechanisms and identification of customers’ needs); contextual categories (environmental studies, financial and human resources and organizational contexts); intervening categories (legal infrastructure, social, economic and cultural factors, and technology development) and consequential categories (sales and higher profits, customer satisfaction, innovation, and service development) can influence the commercialization of e-sales ideas.  

In short, it can be concluded that in order to be able to commercialize the idea of ​​electronic sales, it is necessary to gain sufficient knowledge of the needs of the market. In the commercialization of the idea of ​​electronic sales, proper management is necessary and it will lead to commercialization of the idea of ​​electronic sales. The environment of any company is the main and influential factor on the activities in that company, because the changes and the developments that take place in the environment of companies, both positive and negative, have a direct impact on the company’s activities. This is necessary in commercialization of the idea of ​​e-sales and there is a need for a positive perspective on the environment before commercialization. In order to commercialize the idea of ​​e-sales, its legal infrastructure must be respected. In other words, if these infrastructures are not followed, one cannot expect to successed. In the case of commercialization of the idea of ​​electronic sales, if there is no good sales and profit in the company, one cannot expect to successfully continue the idea of ​​electronic sales because the company cannot offer its products and services to customers. Therefore, the income would not compensate for the expenses.

Identifying the cooperation-competition incentives in the art-industry of Iranian hand-woven carpets and directing the competitors toward this phenomenon, and benefiting from the profits of this strategy have led to solving the problems in this art-industry and development and promotion in national and international market. Competitors can also take advantage of this network and work together to solve many of the related problems. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to design a model of cooperation-competition incentives in handmade carpet art-industry. The other objectives are to identify cooperation-competition incentives and to examine the relationships between cooperation-competition incentives in handmade carpet. Therefore, the research questions are: What are the incentives of cooperation-competition in handmade carpet art-industry? What is the nature of the relationship between cooperation-competition incentives in handmade carpet art-industry? and What is the model of incentives for cooperation-competition in handmade carpet art-industry?

This research is exploratory in terms of purpose and qualitative-quantitative in terms of approach. The statistical population of this study includes the producers of Iranian handmade carpets. In the first stage 32, in the second stage 6 and in the third stage 14 individuals were selected based on non-random and judgmental sampling. A field method, interview and questionnaire were used to collect data. In the first stage of the interview, the questions were semi-structured and based on the 5w+1h protocol. In the second stage, structured questions were designed based on interpretive structural modeling method in order to examine the causal relationships between the research variables. GMU version of interpretive structural modeling has been used to perform the operations in this study.

The findings showed that 10 main incentives are needed in the handmade carpets art-industry to join the cooperation-competition network such as creativity, standardization, saving, influence and mastery, unique resources, profit, marketing, establishment of communication, fame and credibility and dealing with problems. According to the proposed classification, it can be said that the creativity, standardization and saving are among the key incentives that play a key role in driving competitors towards cooperation-competition.

In general, the interpretation of the model of cooperation-competition incentives shows that in order to move the competitors of handmade art-industry competitors towards cooperation with each other, creativity has the greatest influence on other stimuli. In addition, in the second level, with the one-way effect of the creativity variable on the standardization, and in the third level, with the one-way effect of the standardization variable on the savings, it is observed that these three incentives are among the independent variables and are known to be the most key and causal factor in the model because of high influence and low dependency. At the fourth level, with the unilateral influence of these three incentives on the interaction between influencing and dominating role of the foreign competitor, gaining unique resources, gaining profit, marketing, communication, gaining fame and credit it is likely to deal with potential problems and challenges with moderate penetration power but greater dependency power. Thus, the results suggest that although all of these factors play a role in driving competitors toward a collaborative-competitive network, creativity, standardization, and savings are among the key incentives for collaboration-competition in handmade carpet art-industry.

There have been very few studies on joint ventures in Iran. However, in Iran, as a country with an oil-based economy, huge projects are being carried out in the field of oil, gas and petrochemical industries in the form of joint cooperation. Sharing complementary resources where they are unable to develop such resources by themselves causes companies to achieve the project objectives. Studying the factors affecting the success of joint cooperation, considering the greatness of oil, gas and petrochemical industry projects, can prevent from the failure of the project and can help achieve goals within the proposed framework for time, costs, quality and requirements can have great impact on the country economy. In this study, the aim is to investigate the direct effects of information exchange on the performance of joint ventures with two capital factors (mutual trust and mutual obligations) as the intermediary factors and also environmental uncertainty as a moderating factor on joint ventures of Iranian companies.  

The present study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of methodology. The statistical population of the study includes all the eligible companies of the industrial design and manufacturing group in the field of oil, gas and petrochemicals. Then, according to Cochran’s calculations, a sample size of 31 companies was determined and the researcher could contact with 32 companies. The data were collected using questionnaire and were then analyzed using structural equation modeling and Smart PLS software.

The results showed that the exchange of information not only directly but also through mutual trust and mutual commitment has a significantly positive effect on the partnership performance. Moreover, the results showed that environmental uncertainty has no positive or negative mediating role on the effect of information exchange on mutual trust and mutual obligations. But it has a positive effect on the effect of mutual trust and mutual obligations on partnership performance. Environmental uncertainty has also a negative effect on the effect of information exchange on performance.  

In partnerships, good performance is the result of improvements and capital changes in relationships between coalition partners. Managers need to be aware that mutual exchange of information initiates a cycle of relationship improvement, in other words, relational capital; because the exchange of information helps to start and build relationships and also mutual trust and mutual obligations. It means that partners need an active exchange of information in partnership and they need to make attempts so that they can improve relationships at the beginning and at different stages. In general, environmental uncertainty has significantly positive effects on the effect of mutual trust and obligations on performance, but has no effects on the effect of information exchange on mutual trust and obligations. To achieve high performance, it is first necessary to solve the information exchange problem. Following the partnership, the exchange of information improves the relationship between companies and leads to an increase in the quality of the relationship capital (mutual trust and mutual obligations), and this leads to the development of the coalition. Promoting mutual trust and obligations allows partners to collaborate in harmony. Thus, mutual trust and mutual obligations act as a mediating variable between information exchange and partnership performance.

Given the relative impact and effectiveness of psychological ownership among the buyers on customer satisfaction, loyalty, word-of-mouth advertising, and willingness to pay more, there are very only a few studies that are generally based on customer control over goods or services. Hence, it is difficult to respond to the reason and conditions for the creation of a sense of psychological ownership. This study, based on a qualitative approach, aims to determine the factors and conditions which develop a sense of mental ownership towards a company among the buyers. The researchers attempt to address the following questions: What concepts should organizations develop in order to form a sense of mental or psychological ownership among the buyers? What conditions are necessary for the formation of a sense of psychological ownership among the buyers?

The present qualitative study is exploratory in terms of certainty of information and is applied in terms of purpose. Various aspects of the concept of psychological ownership will be described and explained from the buyers’s perspective using grounded data theory. The statistical population of the study consists of Iranian industrial companies and the interviewees and industry and university experts were selected for the interview using the non-probabilistic sampling method. According to grounded theory approach, three coding steps were used in the present study: open coding, axial coding and selective coding for data analysis. The analytical tool of paradigm was used in all the stages of the research, from the beginning to the formation of the theory which includes the conditions, interaction and consequences. In addition, MAXQDA software was used to organize the findings.

10 main components and 27 sub-components were extracted and presented in the form of a theoretical model based on the grounded theory approach. The findings of the present study highlighted the determining concepts of buyers’ psychological ownership. Besides, the identification and conceptualization of various effective variables were emphasized.

According to the results of the identification of the conditions for the formation of psychological ownership from the buyers’ perspective in the present study, the final model shows that, in a holistic view, various aspects in manufacturing companies, especially the choice of structure of the product characteristics and company policies, the characteristics of the goods and services, social identities, participation in value creation and other factors are among the causal concepts in achieving a clear definition of psychological ownership from the buyers’ perspective. Based on the research results, creating a sense of satisfaction and the possibility of creating value with the participation of the organization and buyers, as well as creating a social identity for the buyers are the most important things to address. Yet, other factors such as market conditions and the nature of the goods and services are also important in establishing strategies.

Brand interest varies among men and women. Brand and brand reputation are more prominent among women, and it is stated that there is a difference in the degree of brand dependence in men and women. Since there is a significant difference in the cognitive process among men and women, focusing on product selection in the purchasing process, this study aims to investigate whether there is a significant difference between men and women in the final decision. Therefore, the customers’ decisions regarding the brands are examined using eye tracker and based on gender differences in the present study.

Eye tracker has been used as the main instrument in this research. In addition, the brand logo was examined as the visual symbol in the present study. The available data were first pre-processed using Tobii software and the Excel data output was analyzed using SPSS software. A sample of 53 undergraduate students at the Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, with the age range of 19 to 25, participated in this study. Besides, 51% of the participants were women.

The analysis of the questionnaire and the recorded results from the eye tracker device shows that 75% of the participants have changed their opinion toward the brand. And also, 65% of them were women. The average duration of fixation in men is longer compared to women, and men spend more time looking at brands. The results showed that the average duration of fixation in men who choose a well-known brand from their non-selected beverage group is higher than the choice for women. Moreover, men have spent more time looking at brand logos. The average duration of fixation is also almost equal in men and women while chosing a fake brand from their favorite group while making a decision.

As a result of this research, it can be said that the brand and its popularity have a significant impact on a person’s decision making when buying beverage. There is a significant difference in eye movement between men and women regarding famous brands. The duration of fixation over a brand is fewer in women, so women have a shorter cognitive process than men. The impact of the brand varies between men and women, and women are more affected by the brand. According to the results of this research, more women were willing to change their minds about the brand, so women are more likely to be attracted by the well-known brands.

Although studies have confirmed that people use consumption-related behaviors to show their achievements, wealth and superiority, analysis of the ways in which consumers express their arrogance tendencies has only received a little attention. “Consumer Arrogance” (CA) is a new construct in consumer literature. And it is a multidimensional trait that reflects the desire to use property to create social superiority over other people and plays an important role in explaining predictions of consumers’ behaviors. In addition, consumer’s arrogance has rarely been the subject of an independent study. Previous studies have investigated the development of measurement scales for consumer’s arrogance and consumer’s avoidance of arrogant brands from different perspectives. Given that deep understanding of consumer’s behaviors and how people’s perception of this behavior helps to predict and understand consumer’s behavior and it is an influential factor in consumer’s intention to buy, the present study aims to examine the consumer’s arrogance (CA) using phenomenological method. Therefore, the researchers will be able to explain how arrogant tendencies guide consumer’s behaviors.

This research is descriptive in terms of method which uses phenomenological method as the research method and cognitive phenomenological interview method for data collection. Purposeful or criterion-oriented (intensity and snowball) sampling was used in this study and the interviewees were selected with maximum variety from people with arrogant consumer behavior. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used in order to collect data. In addition, the following 4-step trading method was used to analyze the data which is summarized as follows: 1) Implementation of the collected data according to the written text; 2) 2. Selection of some parts of the written text of the data and encoding them using the open approach; 3) Categorization of the open codes and formation of themes; 4) Categorization, comparison, and making connections between the themes in order to describe the experience.

The findings indicated a five-dimensional construct for consumer’s arrogance including image-based consumption, exhibitionism-based consumption, consumer bragging, consumer superiority, and the need for uniqueness. The first four dimensions are consistent with previous researches in this area, and the need for uniqueness is a new dimension that has been added to the construct of consumer’s arrogance according to the individuals’ opinions. The first dimension is "image-based consumption". At this level, consumers try to use products and services with a well-known brand which are usually well-recognized, social and enjoyable and have high quality. The second dimension is “exhibitionism-based consumption”. This level also indicates non-verbal arrogance where people are actually involved in spending money to attract attention to their superior appearance and assets. These strategies are consistent with people who are less introverted and more manipulated by others and seek confirmation by the others. The third dimension is "consumer bragging". This is the most common way that people can express the superiority of their achievements which is through verbal statements. The fourth dimension is "consumer superiority" which indicates the true beliefs of people who are superior to others because of the acquisition and use of better property, regardless of the actual validity of that property. The fifth dimension is the "need for uniqueness" where people talk about the uniqueness and exclusiveness of their product and property. 

This study provides a concept about the construct of consumer’s arrogance (CA) that reflects the individual’s tendency to use, exploit, and display their property as a means of expressing a superior image of themselves. In fact, consumer’s arrogance (CA) is a multi-dimensional construct that reflects people’s desire to express their assets and their ability to acquire them and to transfer self-confidence through assets that indicate success. And they believe that their findings and property are acquired because of their desirable characteristics.

Despite the relative acceptance of the functions of the dissemination of high quality information on social media, on the formation of a desirable mental image for the users and the significant impact of this mental image on users’ intention to buy in the domestic tourism literature, the quality and features of the content of published information on social media have received little attention by the researchers. Therefore, given the application and benefits of social media in various industries such as tourism industry, it is important to publish high quality information on social networks in order to gain a competitive advantage in the tourism industry. Moreover, there are very few studies investigating the impact of the quality of published information regarding the tourist destinations on social media on the formation of tourists’ mental image and the intention to buy. Hence, the purpose of this article is to provide answers to the following questions: “what are the factors influencing the formation of tourists’ behavioral image of tourist destinations on social media?”, “which of the following factors have the greatest impact on tourists’ behavioral image of tourist destinations on social media?”, and “what are the decision-making rules to predict the tourists’ behavioral image of tourist destinations on social media?”

This research is descriptive-survey in terms of the purpose is based on consecutive exploratory research in term of strategy. It also uses both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis. In the first phase, based on the literature review and using the Delphi method, the conceptual research model was extracted and finalized according to the experts. And then, quantitative data were collected by distributing the questionnaires among the selected sample of the tourists. In the second phase, using Rough Sets Theory, the decision rules were extracted from the collected quantitative data. The research was conducted in the city of Tehran in autumn and winter of 2018. The statistical population of the qualitative part of the research consists of university experts and tourism industry activists, and 11 individuals were selected to take part in the present research based on purposeful sampling (considering some prerequisits such as academic knowledge or practical experience and expertise in social media marketing). In the quantitative part of the study, the target population includes the tourists who use social media to choose and buy their trip.  

Related tourism information, up-to-date and comprehensiveness of the published information about tourist destinations and the facilities and travel amenities on social networks, are reported to have the strongest effects, respectively, on the formation of a cognitive mental image of tourist destinations among the tourists. In addition, attractiveness of the information and value-added information about tourist destinations and the travel facilities and amenities on social networks, are reported to have strong effects on the formation of an emotional mental image of tourist destinations among the tourists. The amount of information and the design of a website about tourist destinations and their facilities and travel amenities on social networks are considerd to have weak effects on the formation of cognitive and emotional mental image of tourist destinations among the tourists. The findings indicate that the cognitive image created from tourist destinations, in the minds of the tourists, affects the formation of emotional image of the tourist destination. There is a positive relationshipbetween the quality of tourism information on social media and the destination image. Moreover, tourists use social media as an effective source of tourism information. The relevance of tourism information has a significantly positive impact on the formation of the cognitive and emotional image of the destination. Up-to-date tourist information has a significantly positive effect on the formation of cognitive and emotional image of the destination. The comprehensiveness of tourism information has a significantly positive effect on the formation of the cognitive and emotional image of the destination. And finally, attarctive and invaluable information have a relatively significant effect on formation of the emotional image of the tourist destination.

Among the possible models of the Rough Sets Theory in the present study, it is shown that the relevance, up-to-date and comprehensiveness of destination information on social media should be the first priority of the owners and managers of tourism pages on social networks. Besides, it is necessary to focus on the production of attractive and valuable information content related to tourism on social media, with an emphasis on the functional features of content and visual, phonetic and other sensory attractions.

The main issue in this study is to investigate the effect of different characteristics of individuals including demographic characteristics and personality traits on the motivational components of gamification design in loyalty club within banking industry. Innovation and the scientific contribution of the present study to gamification systems in the field of banking can be evaluated from two perspectives: determining how the customers with different demographic and personality traits are attracted by the motivational components of gamificatin by conducting a research, and what kind of reward do they expect to receive? This shows the importance of personalizing gamfication-based systems to increase customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Moreover, based on the results, designing strategies and guidelines for gamification-based systems are provided so that designers can develop appropriate strategies to improve interaction with people. Identifying and applying different demographic and personality traits can increase motivation to participate in customer club activities. 

The present applied research is descriptive-survey in terms of data collection method. In this study, using mixed method approach through interviews with experts and specialists and using questionnaires, the effective components in personalizing gamification were determined and localized in order to biuld efficient interaction with bank customers. In the initial interview phase, 15 experts from related fields, 3 bank deputies, 3 bank managers, 5 faculty members of the Higher Education Institute of Banking and the Central Bank Monetary and Banking Research Institute, 2 banking experts and 2 from Specialists in the field of gamification were selected. It is worth mentioning that Hekmat Iranian Bank was selected as the study case for the present study. To calculate the scores of the five personality types, the standard ten-question version of the BFI questionnaire was used, in which two questions were assigned to identify each attribute, one considering the pros and one the cons of the personality type. It should also be noted that all the analyses and calculations were performed using SPSS v.23. 

There is a significantly positive relationship between age and participation in the lottery, and the results of this study showed that older people are more likely to participate in the lottery. In contrast, such people are not interested in receiving cash. Older people tend to receive large money in a lottery at once, rather than earning cash steadily. It is also noteworthy that there is no significant difference between men and women accordingly.  But in the case of "discounts on the purchase from chain store products" and "discounts on the use of leisure and tourism services", women are reported to be more likely to seek such rewards and the difference is statistically significant. Men, on the other hand, have higher scores in "benefiting from the priority of using banking services", which is why men are often interested in using banking facilities but women mainly welcome discounts and auctions. There is a significantly positive relationship between being an extrovert and the reward of "benefiting from the priority of using banking services". On the other hand, it has a relatively positive relationship with the “discounts of chain stores and recreational and tourism discounts”. It is worth noting that the extroverts in this study did not show any intention to participate in the lottery. In contrast, being compatible is significantly attributed to the lottery bonus. There is a significantly poisitive relationship between being conscientious and "discount on the purchase of chain store products" and there is a relatively positive relationship between being conscientious and the "discount on the use of recreational and tourism services". Interestingly, being psychoanalytic has a negative relationship with all the items except lottery and the use of the priority of using the bank services. It should be noted that most of the coefficients of this personality trait are at the moderate level.

Extroverts are more likely to prefer the motivational components of luck, privilege, and awareness. The results of this study show that people who are compatible are motivated by the motivational component of luck and lottery. On the other hand, due to their tendency to cooperate and being altruistic with others, there was a negative relationship between participants with a compatible personality type and the motivating component of social interaction and communication. Regarding people with conscientious personality trait, motivational components of the badge and ranking table will motivate them, which can be considered as a result of the sense of responsibility and conscientiousness to perform the assigned tasks and receive job completion marks. The results also show that people with psychotropic personality trait have a relatively strong relationship with various motivational components such as epic concepts, feedback, countdown and awareness. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is no correlation between these motivational components and personality traits and these connections are mainly due to the small number of people with this personality type in this study. It should be noted that people with low mental health and high emotional stability have "emotional maturity, self-confidence and stability in their plans and emotions" and most people introduce themselves as a person with high emotional stability in the community because of their desire to show off. Respondents with a high level of imagination and experience were more interested in the motivational components of virtual rewards and competitions due to their sense of invention and curiosity.

Although there is no distinct TV channel dedicated to teleshopping products in Iran, there is a growing number of advertising programs broadcasted among most of the TV channels everyday. This is applied to local TV channels as well. The residents of the city of Ardabil, have shown to be more willing to teleshopping because of less availability of new products and the long distance to hhe capital city or other metropolices. Such a tendency is growing among the citizens of Ardabil. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to identify the factors that can affect the consumers’ teleshopping behavior in Iran and in the city of Ardabil. For this purpose, the following variables were considered as the determining factors in the teleshopping behavior according to the literature: dependence on television and exposure to television, exposure to teleshopping and dependence on teleshopping, the effects of tele-participation and trans-social interaction.

The statistical population of this study includes the citizens of the city of Ardabil who are over 18 years old and also have the experience of teleshopping. A standard questionnaire was used to collect data to measure the variables. The questionnaire was distributed both online and face-to-face. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the research model and to test the research hypothesis. SPSS and Smart PLS specialized software have also been used to analyze the data.

The results showed that exposure to television can have a positive effect on dependence on teleshopping. Dependence on teleshopping programs can be achieved through raising awareness of the people’ needs by watching the contents of TV programs. It is believed that dependence on television has a positive effect on dependence on teleshopping. People can increase their dependence on television in order to achieve their personal and social goals. Exposure to television can lead to exposure to teleshopping. In other words, the time spent on watching TV programs can affect the hours of watching teleshopping programs. Dependence on teleshopping programs can have a positive effect on building a friendly and social relationship with the teleshopping show hosts. Accordingly, teleshopping programs can be considered as an ideal tool to search for trans-social interactions. Such programs display fewer contents to attract viewers and trans-social interactions play a crucial role in attracting viewers in this case. The positive effect of dependence on teleshopping leads to tele-participation effects. Given the positive effect of the viewers’ tele-participation on the trans-social interactions with the hosts of the teleshopping program as well as the positive effect of the trans-social interaction with these hosts on the exposure to teleshopping, it can be stated that the viewers’ participation with the participants of the program (such as public comments in the street, short messages, phone calls from other viewers) can lead to increased trans-social interactions. Finally, the exposure to teleshopping has had a significantly positive effect on teleshopping behaviors. In other words, the more the viewers are exposed to teleshopping programs and the more time is spent on watching teleshopping programs, their behaviors will more likely lead to purchasing through teleshopping programs.  

Today, teleshopping has become one of the most widely used tools in marketing and advertising for a variety of reasons such as reduction of costs, quick and easy access to services, transparency and provision of comprehensive information. However, a review of research literature shows that such a concept has not been fully studied due to its advent, especially in Iran. The results obtained from the estimations of the research model confirmed all the hypotheses of the present study and it was found that these factors can play a positive role in the development of consumers’ teleshopping behaviors in Iran.