فصلنامه مدیریت بازرگانی
سال سیزدهم شماره 47 (بهار 1400)

Different and conflicting perspectives on the development of the country including the implementation of the resilient economy, relations with the West, securing the interests of the West, or ending the ties with the West, establishing relations with Arab countries and strengthening or ending the relations with neighboring countries, sanctions, uncertainties in the global prices of oil products, currency rate fluctuations, inflation rates, and etc. have hindered a coherent and strategic decision. It has led to numerous uncertainties in the selection of international strategic partner(s) in the oil industry. Therefore, the present research aims to provide a comprehensive framework to help identify and analyze the uncertainties affecting the selection of strategic partners in the context of the resilient economy in the National Iranian Oil Company.

In this study, the most important uncertainties of oil projects were identified using thematic analysis technique and interviews with 15 experts. They were then classified according to the context of resilient economy. Finally, factor analysis was used to confirm the proposed classification.

The most important uncertainties of oil projects in the context of resilient economy belonged to the three general categories of uncertainty about the work environment (inflation, environmental safety and health standards, differences in political views and opinions, geological complexities and the number of wells which are need to be drilled, as well as frequent changes in macro-laws and policies), uncertainty about the guiding values (currency rate, global oil price, international issues and sanctions, changing market conditions and customer needs, as well as the lack of access to foreign equipment and machinery), and uncertainty about the options of the related project (insufficient technology or equipment, lack of interaction between the partners, bargaining power of the partners due to the exclusiveness of the technical knowledge, lack of operational experience among the partners, lack of timely completion of the facilities according to the project schedule so that the delay in commissioning of the facility will strongly affect the project economy).

After developing the model based on thematic analysis technique, LISREL output showed that the proposed model can provide an acceptable fit because the calculated chi-square value is equal to 1058.77, the ratio of chi-square to degree of freedom is lower than 3 (2.63 in this study), and the average squares of estimation errors is lower than 0.08 (0.012 in this study).

Although organizational identity is not a new concept, it has recently been considered by the researchers in the field of strategic management, which is because identity is effective in shaping the outputs of the strategy creation process and identity can be regarded as the generator of strategies. It can also be regarded as a screener or enabler as well as a factor influencing the strategy. Given the scattered researches in the field of relationship between these two concepts and with the aim of drawing a clear path for the researchers, the purpose of this study is to identify prominent concepts in establishing a link between organizational identity and organizational strategy based on previous research and to provide a coherent framework regarding the influence of organizational identity on organizational strategy.  

The present research is developmental-applied based on purpose, qualitative based on the nature of data, and documentation based on data collection methods. The research method is analytical-descriptive and the qualitative data have been collected using the meta-synthesis qualitative research method according to Barroso and Sandelowski’s seven-step method.  

Among all the 414 identified original texts, 11 outstanding concepts were extracted in 4 main categories including competitive concepts, reference concepts, relational concepts, and temporal concepts.  

Based on the findings of the present study, organizational identity in terms of creating a competitive image, openness to environmental challenges, and defining the scope of competition has a competitive link with strategy; on the other hand, it has a reference dimension in interpretation and adaptation strategic actions by creating an emotional link. Moreover, based on the relationship between identity and strategy, organizations will have different degrees of openness toward adopting different strategies such as establishing working relationships with people outside the organization, depending on the type of orientation of organizational identity. Finally, organizational identity, relying on its sustainability characteristics, can act as a barrier to strategic decision making and delay its adoption.

The purpose of this study is to find mechanisms for adopting and implementing diversification strategies in Iranian multi-business companies in the form of content, context and process models. The owners of multi-business companies will be able to adopt an appropriate strategy in dealing with the future investment opportunities based on these mechanisms. They can also properly manage the organization and reduce the risk of value degradation through recognizing and examining various causal, underlying, and intervening conditions of this strategy. Therefore, the main question is that “what is the nature of the diversification strategy mechanisms in Iranian multi-business companies”.  

This research is an exploratory research in terms of purpose and has been conducted based on descriptive and survey appraoch. The data were collected through a qualitative method and in-depth interviews with senior managers. They were then analyzed using the systematic grounded theory method. The statistical population includes the managers and senior experts in the field of strategy in Iranian multi-business companies who participated in the diversification process and decisions in their organizations. Theoretical saturation was obtained uisng integrated purposeful and snowball sampling after 25 in-depth interviews. In this study, the interviews were conducted with the managers from Golrang Industrial Group, Golestan Industrial Group, Kourosh Investment Group, Ariana Industrial Group, Padideh Paydar Holding, Middle East Investment Group, and Rahmani Industrial Group. The data were collected from March 2017 to March 2019.  

The results of the data analysis indicates that the causal conditions of individual incentive (the concepts such as seeking power, maximum role-playing in the success of the company, fulfilling social responsibility - especially the first generation, as well as gaining prestige and social prestige); organizational incentive (the concepts of growth of human resource development, division and balance of power in the organization, the organizations’ intellectual assets such as brand, and the organizations’ knowledge assets); economic incentive (the concepts of limited size and growth of the existing industries, achieving development prospects, financial and cost convergences, wide range and the possibility of taking advantage of opportunities in other industries, exploiting macro-opportunities and the transformation of political-economic threats into opportunities, political-economic constraints for the initial business, non-outflow of liquidity, and exploitation of special opportunities); reduction of risks (the concepts of diversifying the flow of profitability, avoiding the threats and confrontations with powerful institutions, bankruptcy, covering business fluctuations, avoiding threats to the immediate environment); as well as intervening conditions can shape the degree of stability of the macro environment, the facilitating institutions, the status of supporting laws and policies, and the environment which is prone to special opportunities, business diversification in the context of maturity in the organizational life cycle, organizational resources, capabilities of the organization, senior managers’ strategic skills and thinking as well as the organizational strategic orientations. This phenomenon is implemented through option-making, option-selecting, defining entry strategy, holding, institutionalization, and systematization. It can also lead to positive consequences such as higher financial performance, reduction of risks, strength, growth and development and etc.  

Completing the value chain including front and back integrations and entering into other core value chain businesses, is regarded as a major part of the organizations’ diversification activities. The diversification is successful in immediate businesses because the company is relatively familiar with their business principles and models. The transformation of intra-company services such as business services and advertising into independent businesses due to competency and vacancy indicates endogenous growth and diversity. These factors, along with supporting other companies and heterogeneous diversification, can form diversification strategy. For the successful implementation of the diversification strategy, it is necessary to pay comprehensive attention to the 27 important categories and the related concepts, and to use them properly with full awareness.

Retailers are one of the most fundamental parts of the supply and distribution chains. They have different explicit and implicit distinguishing features. These features can be considered as marketing or competitive tools that provide managers with useful information so that they can select their marketing combination accordingly. Understanding of their features and purchasing behaviors can significantly affect the companies’ sales. Regarding the retailers’ different intentions to buy a product, producers should inspect the appropriateness of the product features in different retail formats. This research aimed to evaluate the appropriateness of retail format with different product features in Iran.

At first, a theoretical foundation of different product features and retail format was reviewed, and the factors affecting the choice of the product by the retail format were extracted. Then, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 experts and store managers, and the collected data were analyzed using the content analysis method. At the interview stage, the expert and the individuals were selected for the interview if they had at least one of the criteria influencing the accurate answers. Finally, an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system was developed by MATLAB software to assess the appropriateness of the retail format with product features.

The findings of the qualitative content analysis stage showed the four characteristics of appearance, intrinsic, competitive, and price as the system inputs; in the inference stage, the findings showed the difference in the appropriateness of each type of retail with these characteristics. The results also showed that product characteristics play an important role in determining and deciding on the retail format and hence, each format will need to be aligned with the characteristics of its own appropriate product.

The results showed that the appearance is appropriate for convenience retailers, the competitive and intrinsic feature for supermarkets, the intrinsic and price feature for the flea market format, the competitive and price for hypermarkets, wholesale, as well as discount retailers, the appearance and intrinsic feature for specialty retailers, and finally the appearance and price features are appropriate for sales machine to increase the probability of sales. Producers can start producing the goods after they considered the features of the products which are accepted by the desired stores and paid attention to the products criteria which are suggested by the retail format and ultimately sell the product. This might make it easier for the products to enter a store and be placed on the shelves; in addition, because the store managers are regarded as one of our desired groups that are responsible to choose the product features and besides these managers choose the features based on the target customers’ opinions, ultimately the product circulation in the store shelves will increase.

Boards are mainly concerned with communication issues as well as how to overcome the uncertainty associated with the strategic decision-making process rather than simply the old challenge of "conflict of interests" and their legal and structural solutions. In fact, although structural and legal issues are important in corporate governance, they are not sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of the process of corporate governance from a theoretical point of view and implementation of good governance in practice. That is because the interactions between the board members as well as the interactions between them and other stakeholders of the organization can play a more important role in this regard and should be the focus of attention. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a systematic review on all the articles published in the field of corporate governance using a behavioral approach in order to create a big imge for the researchers to design an appropriate conceptual model and conduct empirical research accordingly. The main question of this research is: “what concepts have been studied by the researchers in the field of corporate governance using a behavioral approach”.

The present research is based on a meta-synthesis approach. It is a qualitative appraoch to present a combination of research findings with the aim of creating a conceptual framework and summarizing the concepts in order to provide easier access for exploitation in future experimental research. The study population included all the articles related to corporate governance which have been published in the reliable international journals such as JSTORE, Emerald, Science Direct (Elsevier), Scopus, Springer, Proquest, and Wiley until the end of 2018. In the preliminary stage, 140 articles were extracted. Then, the respective abstracts were studied and those articles that did not comply with at least one of the characteristics of the behavioral approach to corporate governance were eliminated. These characteristics include: 1- they should be 1- about the service duties of the board of directors, 2- about the interactions or decisions of the board of directors and the senior management team as well as dealing with the issues such as power, trust, feelings, participation, and etc, 3- using a theoretical basis other than theory of representation, 4- about the demographic characteristics or competencies of the board members, and 5- about the board processes and their dynamics using the raw data. The Journal Impact Factor and SiteScore indicators were used in the last stage of the article screening process.

After identifying 140 related articles and coding 78 selected articles with the average journal impact factor (JIF) of 4.34, 1722 content codes were registered to identify the concepts in this field. 139 concepts were identified as a result of open coding process, which were categorized into 25 subcategories and 9 main categories. Then, by performing axial and selective coding according to the grounded theory principles, the conceptual framework of "corporate governance based on a behavioral approach" was developed. The category of duties and outcomes of the board of directors including the control and service delivery task, was considered as the central category. Accordingly, the board should support and direct CEOs while keeping their distance and challenging them. The stakeholders, on the other hand, are regarded as the main trigger for the board duties. In fact, the external stakeholders as well as the internal stakeholders expect the board to be accountable and create value that can lead them to perform control or service tasks. On the other hand, the structure of the board as well as the demographic characteristics and competencies of the board members are considered as the intervening variables. In other words, there is a relationship between the structure of the board as well as the demographic characteristics and competencies of the individuals. In addition, the underlying conditions, depending on the contextual factors of corporate governance, can cause distinct changes in research variables in different research environments and are different from the intervening factors. In a conceptual framework, the underlying factors are divided into three levels of: company, industry, and macro (national). These factors affect the board processes. Moreover, the action and reaction strategies are the events that are performed by the actors during performing the board tasks. These strategies begin from the first moment the board performs its duties and continue until the organizational goals are achieved. Finally, the board tasks will result in organizational consequences including financial consequences, strategic changes of the organization, as well as social performance consequences for the organization, which is considered as the result within the conceptual framework.

The researchers should move away from the control tasks of the board of directors and pay more attention to the service tasks including the participation in the organizations strategies. They should also investigate the impact of underlying factors such as corporate ownership structure as well as environmental uncertainty on power relations. In addition to demographic factors, it can highlight the competencies of the board as well as human and communication capital and their role in the quality of the decisions. They should also develop contingency models that provide a more comprehensive explanation of the dynamics of the boards through studying cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes as well as paying attention to different factors such as power, trust, and feelings.

Obesity and overweight among children is one of the most important public health issues. The promotion of food and beverage in the media can influence children’s food preferences, consumption, and consequently their health status. Although children magazines are regarded as an informative and trusted source for parents and free from advertising charges, they do use covert marketing techniques to deliver food products within the content. The inclusion of non-branded food products in the content of media programs affects children's attitudes and perceptions. Most studies have analyzed the content of media such as television, and therefore they disregard the role of magazines in highlighting food products. The aim of this study was to increase the awareness and informed participation of the editorial boards of children’s magazines, public health advocates, nutritionists, and the parents about the use of promotional techniques in advertising unhealthy food products in the content of the children’s magazines.

In this study, content analysis method is used with a focus on 5 active children's magazines in Iran over a six-month period. At first, the journals were manually coded by two researchers based on the analysis unit whether each magazine has indicated a reference or display of food options. Accordingly, food options in the magazines were categorized based on the healthiness/unhealthiness and the respective nutritional group. Unhealthy category included nine food groups of chocolate and sweets, snacks, high-sugar ice drinks, fast foods, desserts, high-fat or sweet bread products, high-fat dairy, high-sugar and high-sodium cereals, as well as miscellaneous items. The healthy foods include six groups of carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, proteins, dairy products, fats, and miscellaneous items. Then, the type of advancement used in the advertisement of unhealthy food products was identified.

The results suggest that Nabat Magazine with 55 cases (38.4%) had the highest rate of advertisement of unhealthy food; but, Dooste koodakan Magazine had the lowest rate with 18 cases (12.5%). In total, 143 unhealthy foods were repeated in these magazines. The unhealthy food products can be ranked as follows: chocolate and sweets (30.7%), desserts (18.8%), high-fat or sweet bread products (13.2%), miscellaneous foods (13.2%), fast foods (8.4%), snacks (7.7%), high-sugar ice drinks (4.2%), high-fat dairy products (3.5%), as well as high-sugar and high-sodium cereals (0 %). The technique of emotional attraction (44.6%) was the most applied technique which was followed by the food attraction technique (28.7%), and the visual elements technique (27%). Pleasant techniques, joy techniques, and play/adventure techniques were the three most implemented techniques among the marketing promotion techniques in children’s magazines.

Based on the effective role of using promotional techniques in the acceptance of unhealthy food products by children and sometimes unintentional use of these techniques in the content of the magazines, the results of this study can be used by health activists, managers of children’s magazines, and the parents in order to prevent the process of obesity among the children. According to the ranking among unhealthy food products, the highest rate belonged to chocolate and sweets with 44 cases. Easy access to these items for children and advertisements in media (magazines) can lead to the acceptance and desire for these products among children. Authors should be aware that sometimes food products are used in order to attract their audience and communicate with them to convey scientific, literary, religious concepts, etc. Eventually, it should be acknowledged that references to unhealthy foods in the form of recipes, pictures, stories, and games in the magazines contain effective messages whose repeated occurrence might lead to an inclination towards unhealthy items by the children

Discount stores are widely available in our country today. Despite the rapid popularity of discount stores across the country, few studies have been conducted to investigate customers’ behavior in these stores. The consequence of such study gaps is that there is no proper understanding of customers’ attitudes toward discount stores and the shopping experience. Although the most important reason for buying from discount stores is the amount of discounts, there is only little knowledge about the customers’ attitude towards such discounts. The present study seeks to properly understand the customers’ attitude towards these discounts and their experience of buying from these stores by evaluating the behavior of the customers in the discount stores in Tehran.

This research is among the exploratory researches in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in nature. This research falls into the inferential category in terms of the type of analysis and inductive content analysis in terms of the level of analysis which pays attention to the hidden content for interpretation. In this study, a qualitative research interview was used to collect the data and MaxiCode software was used to manage, encode, and develop the coding matrix. 18 customers of discount stores in Tehran participated in the present study. According to the requirements of the qualitative content analysis, the participants were selected using purposeful-judgmental sampling method among different classes of Tehran urban society e.g. different ages, genders, social status, educations, and personalities. The collected data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis (Siye and Shannon directional content analysis).

In terms of the attitude towards discount stores, four main categories were identified including the reasons attributed to the discount, emotional passions, social stereotypes, and perceived value of the purchase within a total of 36 codes. The investigation of the codes with previous researches showed that there are some differences between the findings of this research and the previous findings.

In addition to price discounts, ease of access, variety of products, and the quality of services are also important in evaluating the purchase value of the discount stores. In case of social stereotypes about the customers, buying from the discountstores in social judgment can be considered as an indicator of a person’s ability and social class which affects the shopping experience and emotional passions. Customers’ descriptions of the reasons attributed to the discount were reflected and the management suggestions were provided in order to change the customers’ attitudes.

Despite significant success in international festivals, Iranian cinema industry has failed to gain a share of the global markets. This interdisciplinary research, while examining the factors affecting the entry of Iranian cinema industry into international markets, tends to find out the flourishing context for the products of Iranian cinema, the steps it has taken to gain a share of the international markets, and what planned measures should be taken into account for this purpose in order to determine its distance from the involved countries and to provide the necessary solutions to advance the goal of internationalization. The macro-factors affecting all businesses in general and the specific factors of the cinema industry have been examined and finally, the consequences of such strategies have been clarified. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive model for the entry of Iranian visual and cinematic products into the international markets.

This research is "fundamental" in terms of purpose and is "exploratory" in terms of result which has applied a "qualitative" approach. This research is based on the systematic model proposed by Strauss and Corbin on grounded theory; for this porpuse, 23 interviews were conducted with the experts including directors and film agents, international activists in the field of video distribution and professors of media management and marketing management during 2019 and 2020.

The proposed model provides a comprehensive image of the current situation of Iranian visual products and cinema industry in terms of the possibility of entering into the international markets. For example, any shifts toward making expensive films cannot give us the power to compete with the dominant cinema and it does not comply with the style and history of cultural-artistic films for which Iranian cinema is known in the world. Meanwhile the lack of infrastructure and necessary laws for the field of film export, lack of copyright in Iran, inability of Iranian film and cinema to compete with the mainstream in the world, lack of attention to producing films based on the audiences’ taste, technical requirements, content requirements, lack of required capital, the lack of professional business and international marketing managers, and, of course, the legal requirements are among the main barriers to the entry of Iranian films into the international markets. Therefore, necessary efforts should be made in the management structures to transform the Iranian cinema market into an organic market in accordance with international standards with a focus on the decision-making institutional context in the field of cinema and the role of national production and wealth. They should establish communication between traditional business owners and startup innovators. Within the ideological attitude of the government, the procedures should shift from a negative to a positive view, and with an economic (business) priority to make it possible to adapt the films to the target market and gain economic benefit. There is also the need for a change in the attitude and the plan of the senior institutions in order to shape the bases of co-production and to change the attitude of Iranian cinematographers in exploiting new technologies for a more professional production and distribution of the films.

Unilateralism, lack of a collective spirit, and lack of professionalism have prevented the right action for Iranian cinema to enter international markets. Ignoring the need for cinema to become industrialized, ignoring the power of its media, and relying solely on marketing and commerce have prevented Iranian cinema from gaining a share of the global market. However, the entry of Iranian films into the international market as the indicator of culture and art can represent the national identity of the country and help maintain the country credibility in the field of public diplomacy. In addition, the commercial performance of the cinema, provided that its industrial cycle is completed, will be an important source for the growth of non-oil exports and help the independence of the country's economy from oil exports.

Given the importance of gamification activities in online stores, successful online marketing strategies include finding different ways to increase brand appeal and brand value. The majority of the businesses apply gamification activities in order to achieve loyalty and desirable consumer behaviors; the managers in this area, however, have paid little attention to other possible outcomes of this concept. Since the previous studies have examined the effects of gamification activities in accordance with the behavioral outcomes such as customers’ loyalty and the brand-customer relationship, which is an important behavioral precondition, has not been addressed, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of gamification marketing activities on the dimensions of brand appeal from the customer-brand perspective based on the analysis on Digikala online store.

The present study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in terms of data collection. The statistical population of this research included the customers of Digikala online store. Non-probability available sampling method was used for the selection of the participants. Based on Jackson’s formula, the sample size was estimated at 221. A questionnaire was used to collect data whose validity was confirmed through content validity and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as well as combined reliability coefficient. Descriptive data analysis was performed using SPSS software and the hypothesis were tested based on structural equation modeling using SMARTPLS3 software.

The results of the present study showed that the experience of gamification marketing activities has a significantly positive effect on functional value and hedonic value. Besides, hedonic value has a significantly positive effect on the obsessive as well as harmonious brand appeal. In addition, functional value has a significantly positive effect on harmonious brand appeal, but it does not have a significant effect on obsessive brand appeal.

In addition to valuing the gaming and entertainment experience for the customers, gamification activities support the creation of a functional value as well. On the other hand, the gamification experience by the customers can create a feeling of pleasure, joy, and excitement while interacting with the company’s activities such as shopping or reviewing the website. Moreover, creating values such as efficiency and cost-effectiveness of goods or services can lead to a kind of appeal that emphasizes the desire for autonomous internalization of the brand in the individuals’ identity and is consistent with other customer activities. Besides, when customers experience the feelings of pleasure, joy, and excitement in the process of buying or interacting with the company, it leads to the formation of a sense of appeal which creates an obsession in interacting with the brand; thus, they would sometimes tend to buy things for no special reasons. Consequently, in the process of buying or interacting with the company, the customers might experience feelings of pleasure, joy, and excitement which lead to the formation of sense of appeal in them which is also in harmony with other aspects of their lives and is automatically internalized in their identity.

In recent years, children have been the focus of attention due to social and cultural changes. This has led children to become involved in purchasing decisions and to become consumers. Meanwhile, due to the children’s low ability to process information, companies face challenges in introducing their products to this group of consumers. The aim of this study was to understand the effect of packaging colors (chromatic color versus achromatic color) on brand memory in children. Therefore, we are looking for a response to the following questions: What is the effect of chromatic color packaging on children’s memorization of business brands? What is the difference between chromatic and achromatic packages? Finally, this study examines the effect of children's age and educational level on brand memorization and also their effect (age and educational level) on the relationship between packaging color and brand memorization.

This applied research was conducted based on the survey method and the data were collected through an experimental design. The statistical population of this study included the children aged six to twelve years of primary schools in Qazvin province and a sample of 372 children was considered using simple random sampling. In order to evaluate the effect of packaging color on brand memorization, in the first test, two packages of orange juice, a red (chromatic) and a gray (achromatic) package were made by Photoshop software and presented to the children. In the second experiment and in order to measure brand recognition, four brands were designed on four cards (two cards with chromatic colors and two cards with achromatic colors). Only two brands were shown to the children at the beginning of the experiment. The children were then asked to select the letters they had already seen. The data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS software as well as chi-square test, cross-puzzle, and logistic regression.

The results of the study showed that chromatic color is more desirable for children and are more successful in brand memorization. In addition, the younger children are more likely to be influenced by chromatic colors in brand memorization.

If the children and teenagers are regarded as the target population for a company, choosing the color of the packaging is considered as a strategic decision for that company because it allows the children to recognize the brand. Color as a powerful tool and an important visual stimulus can influence children’s shopping behavior. According to the research results, chromatic packaging color can play an important role in brand memorization in children and this issue is different in children of different ages. Therefore, the companies whose target market includes children can use this issue in their differentiation strategies

Resilience against negative information can be regarded as an extra-role behavior. Such behaviors occur when consumers tend to use a particular brand without considering their own interests. On the other hand; resilience against negative information can strengthen the intention to buy. Since resilience against negative information and the consumers’ identification with brand are flourishing in the marketing literature as well as consumers’ behavior, this phenomenon has not been studied in the research literature regarding the consumer. Moreover, it is important to pay attention to the proportion of brand-consumer value as a strategic advantage. Furthermore, none of the existing patterns regarding the consumers’ behavior and marketing have investigated the relationship between the parameters of brand-consumer value fit on determining consumers’ identification with brand attractiveness, resilience against negative information, and customer-customer similarity. On the other hand, the international and local studies in the field of consumer-brand identification have only examined the relationship between brand-consumer value fit and consumer identification with the brande, perceptions of the brand, and perceived value. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to reflect on the antecedents of resilience against negative information among the consumers of digital goods.

The data were collected using survey method and were then analyzed using correlation method. The statistical population of the study included 453 consumers of both mobile phones and televisions in the city of Semnan. In order to collect field data, a questionnaire based on the Likert Scale was used. Finally, structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The research findings showed that the brand-consumer value ratio has a significantly positive effect on brand attractiveness. In addition, customer-customer similarity has a positive effect on brand attractiveness and consumers’ identification. Besides, consumers’ identification has a significantly positive effect on resilience against negative information and brand loyalty. Finally, there was no significant relationship between brand loyalty and resilience against negative information.

Based on the social identity theory, it can be concluded that the value of brand-consumer and customer-customer similarity through determining the consumers’ identification with the brand and brand attractiveness is regarded as an approach to expand the deep relationships with the brand. Such relationships can also lead to resilience against negative information

Given their ability to attract potential customers, mannequins have been regarded as an element of effective visual merchandising in providing appropriate information to customers in clothing stores. Visual merchandising refers to a retail strategy that maximizes the aesthetics of a particular product to increase sales rate; it is the art of displaying the product in an attractive way for customers. Mannequins, especially in shop windows, can play a significant role in creating brand identity in the mind of the consumer with the intention of attracting consumers to the store, brand, or product that may lead to purchase. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the mannequin type (with head or headless) on intention to buy through the moderating role of store type and customers’ intention among female students.

The research was performed using an experimental method and 2 × 2 × 2 factor design based on text- and image-oriented scenario. Data were collected from a sample of 240 university students and were evaluated using variance analysis method. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of three explanatory variables (independent & moderator) on intention to buy. These explanatory variables include the type of mannequin (with head or headless), the type of store (physical or online store), and customers’ intention (purchasing or siteseeing) as nominal scales; besides, the dependent variable, the intention to buy, was regarded as a five-point continuous scale from very little to very much.

The results indicated that the type of mannequin could have a significant effect on the intention to buy, so that mannequins with heads could lead to greater intention to buy among customers. In addition, the type of store and customers’ intention could also moderate such effects. Moreoer, the average intention to buy was higher in a physical store compared to an online store. In general, results of interactive effects have shown that the highest rate of intention to buy was observed in the following situations: a) the customer intends to buy and the mannequin has a head, b) the customer intends to buy in a physical store, c) the physical store and the mannequin has a head, and d) the physical store, the mannequin has a head, and the customer intends to buy.

The use of mannequins with a head in both physical and online stores increases the intention to buy among all customers compared to headless mannequins. According to the statistical population, the result could be generalized to ordinary customers as well

The purpose of this research is to further develop a model of buyer-seller relationship in industrial markets based on the buyer’s approach in supply chain of Iran oil industry. Given the increasing competition in industrial markets (B2B), the buyer- seller relationship is considered as an appropriate model for establishing and maintaining a long-term relationship with customers.

This mixed research is applied, fundamental, and developmental in terms of orientation. And it is a descriptive survey in terms of data collection. The qualitative phase of the present study concerns with the identification of themes and components of the buyer-seller relationship; it also includes the development of the primary and secondary parameters accordingly. In the quantitative phase of the present study and based on the literature review and results of the qualitative research, the conceptual model was developed, and then evaluated using structural equation method (partial least squares). The statistical population for the qualitative phase includes managers and purchasing experts working in companies affiliated with the National Iranian Oil Company who had at least ten years of work experience in the field of purchasing with a bachelor's degree or higher. At this stage, the snowball sampling method was used. In other words, the interviewees were asked to introduce other experts in the industry.

The results indicated the positive impact of the quality of buyer-seller relationship on the customer’s perceived value and attitudinal loyalty. Moreover, the relationship quality has a positive effect on behavioral loyalty (intention to repurchase) through the mediating rooe of attitudinal loyalty. On the other hand, the positive effect of the customer’s perceived value on attitudinal and behavioral loyalty was supported by the findings of this study. However, the direct effect of relationship quality on behavioral loyalty was not supported among industrial customers. Besdies, the negative effect of market turbulence (mediating variable) on the association between relationship quality and customer’s perceived value was also confirmed.

A few studies have investigated industrial marketing, especially the area of buyer-seller relationships in industrial markets. The present study contributes to the literature by developing a local model of buyer-seller relationship, its dimensions, as well as the customer’s perceived value among Iranian industrial buyers. The innovative contribution of the present study refers to the empirical examination of the impact of relationship quality and the customer’s perceived value on attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Furthermore, market turbulence was identified and examined as an intervening variable in the buyer–seller relationship model for the first time in this study