نشریه مدیریت بهره وری
پیاپی 59 (زمستان 1400)

The organizational theory has changed through a transmission from prior economies to knowledge-based economies which are currently considered as the most sustainable economies. Due to the basic role these companies in technological development and economic growth, it has become vitally important to maintain and develop them. The objective of the present study was therefore to scrutinize the components of development drivers at knowledge-based companies in the southeast of Iran using a phenomenological approach. Semi-structured and in-depth interviews were employed to collect the research data which were analyzed via Colaizzi's Phenomenological Method. The research population consisted of experts at universities and science parks, executive elites, and bureaucrats of the Iranian administrative system involved in policy-making from whom a purposive sample of 13 was selected and interviewed. The initial model of the development drivers of knowledge-based companies was thus extracted in two levels. Further, 41 subcomponents of the model were identified under 11 components. Then, the questionnaires were distributed among 107 managers of knowledge-based companies in southeast Iran during the quantitative phase of the research. The results of the confirmative factor analysis indicated that all components and subcomponents were verified

Most of lean methods are attributed to manufacturing industry where a tangible product is produced. Thus, lean concepts and methods should be reassessed prior to their application to service processes. Application of lean thinking principles through minimizing wastes in service organizations can provide the bedrock for enhancing organizational productivity. Thus, the current inquiry set out to identify the productivity-enhancing lean service dimensions through Grounded Theory. To this end, the existing literature on lean service was extensively reviewed in the initial phase of the study and 32 faculty members in the field and experts in in Iranian service were interviewed.  Having encoded the research data obtained based on Strauss and Corbin Grounded Theory, 30 concepts and 7 categories were extracted which identified the dimensions of lean service with supporting factors for the first time. The findings indicated workforce, customer, management, information system, continuous improvement, technology, and operation management as lean service dimensions. Applying this model to service organizations is assumed to assist the managers to manage their services more adequately by diminishing the waste and costs, and thereby, promoting productivity.

The main concern of organizational managers is to maintain effective human resources and one way to achieve the goal is to create and increase the staff career satisfaction. Two antecedents of career dissatisfaction, however, are feeling overqualified for one’s organizational position and plateau. The study set out to investigate the effect of overqualification on Najafaabaad public office employees’ career satisfaction with the mediating role of career plateau and relative deprivation. The research population comprised 370 department staff from whom a proportional sample of 169 was proportionally selected based on Morgan table. The research variables were measured via a number of questionnaires designed by Maynard et al. (2006), Callan et al. (2011), Greenhaus et al. (1990) and Wickramasinghe and Jayaweera (2010) whose reliability measures were confirmed through Cronbach's alpha and combined reliability. The data collected were further analyzed via Structural Equation Modeling and Pls Software. The findings bore on the significant reducing effect of overqualification on employees career satisfaction in the workplace.

Although Iran is a developing country, social responsibility has not yet found a strong footing in Iranian organizations and companies. Hence, this study aimed at designing a social responsibility pyramid at Social Security Organization from its stakeholders’ perspective. To this end, an open-ended analytic interview was conducted with 20 experts at different levels whose views were analyzed using a thematic approach in MaxQDA software version 12. Further, the relationships among themes initially identified in the qualitative stage were determined via Interpretive Structural Modelling and using manual calculations and Excel Software. The findings from the designed social responsibility pyramid indicated service improvement and voluntary optional activities as the first level variables, economic and financial activities as those of the second level, political activities, education and research as the third level and finally regulations, organizational components and organizational culture as the fourth level variables. The study underscores the new insights that can be drawn from a constructive phenomenological approach about social responsibility in the specific context of the social security organization and can offer implications for its stakeholders.

An agile supply chain is capable of overcoming dynamic markets and environmental challenges. Therefore, the purpose of this applied descriptive-analytic research was to promote agility in project-based organizations’ supply chain. The research population consisted of a number of experienced experts at Khatam Al-Anbia construction sites from whom a purposeful clustered sample of experts from five sites were selected to participate in the study. The data collection instruments included three questionnaires the validity of which had been initially confirmed by 35 experts with acceptably high Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0/841, 0/810, and 0/792, respectively. The first questionnaire was employed in the initial phase of the study to identify effective components in agile supply chain and the second questionnaire was employed to identify the final criteria.  Further analyses of the data through inferential statistics, SPSS and EXCEL software underscored five major factors and 28 components of agility of supply chain. Next, the data obtained from the third quesitonnaire were analyzed via Demetel Technique to determine the criteria relationships in agility model with Amos-18 software used for model fitting and path analysis. The selected components were categorized into four dimensions of competency, speed, and resilience and information technology. Having delineated the interrelationships among these dimensions and with agility, we obtained a supply chain agility model for Khatam al-Anbia construction site with good fit. The findings indicated resilience and information technology and their sub-components as the most effective components in agility with speed and aptness coming next.

Growing global pressures for higher industrial sustainability has persuaded organizations to implement new managerial techniques at all organizational levels to achieve supply chain sustainability. However, such novel management practices should be measured in terms of the extent to which they may promote sustainability performance. The purpose of this study was, thus, to examine the dynamic behavior of LARG supply chain management practices and their impact on sustainability in the auto parts supply chain. Expert views were utilized in the present study to prioritize the LARG practices to achieve sustainability through fuzzy DEMATEL and the fuzzy analysis network process to present an integrated approach to LARG practices. Finally, the system dynamic approach was employed to assess the sustainability performance of LARG supply chain management practices. The finding indicated theAuto parts Supply Chain, Fuzzy Analytic Network Process, Fuzzy DEMATEL, System Dynamics, Sustainability significant role of improvement scenarios in the implementation of comprehensive quality management and punctual production, and thereby, in supply chain sustainability. The proposed model can assist industrial managers and decision makers to identify and adopt effective practices on sustainability in LARG supply chain management.

Achieving higher organizational performance standards entails not merely vivid illustration but also implementation of policies and actions. The purpose of the present study, hence, was to identify risks involved in operationalization of organizational strategies and to offer a pattern to predictively control their occurrence. To achieve the purpose, interviews were conducted with experts in the field to delineate probable risks and the results were interpreted through Soft System Modelling. Further, effective preventive activities to control the risks and promote successful implementation of organizational strategies were explored. Next, factors common in the activities were categorized through Exploratory Factor Analysis into three groups to promote efficient management of strategic operationalization. The findings discriminated probability measurement of strategic implementation, alignment and proportion exploration and implementation of strategies as three effective activities that can control implementational and operational risks. This led to a tripartite-stage pattern of organizational strategy operationalization capable of diagnosing viable flaws of the proposing and implementing strategies.

an indispensable part of economic development programs in today's economies is considered to be Knowledge development. The competitive world economy has highlighted the role of knowledge for economic development policymakers than ever before. The experiences of leading prosperous countries that have reached economic development show that knowledge development foundations play a key role in increasing competitiveness in the global economy. Therefore, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of economic knowledge development is a prerequisite tool for making the right decisions to increase national economic competitiveness. To achieve this goal, international and regional institutions have attempted to design measurement methods to assess the knowledge-based economy since the 1990s. The main feature of existing models is their exclusive focus on the specifications in developed countries. The current study, however, deals with achieving an efficient measurement method for the knowledge-based economy in Iran. The proposed model is reliant on four main bases, 12 dimensions and 43 measurable indicators using a comparative method and a questionnaire. It comprises features such as comprehensiveness, measurability, efficiency, comparability, etc. and can be used as a native model to measure the comparative readiness and development of Iranian knowledge-based economy foundations.

The current study was undertaken to identify evaluation indicators of LARG supply chain in Saipa Yadak Company initially through fuzzy screening and further to weight and prioritize them through fuzzy best-worst method. The research population comprised 20 senior managers at Saipa Yadak Company with at least 10 years of administrative experience within the supply chain management sector. The enquiry started with an extensive review of existing literature on the theoretical foundations and interviewing experts to identify indicators of LARG supply chain via fuzzy screening procedure. Having screened the indicators, we designed a paired comparison questionnaire which was piloted and distributed among the experts. The data obtained from the questionnaires were weighted and ranked using fuzzy best-worst method. The findings identified accountability, environmental function, speed of knowledge and technology, participation and support, human resource management, relation with suppliers and customers, competency, flexibility, and, cost and operation control as the most important indicator of the LARG supply chain, respectively. In addition, each indicator was weighted and prioritized to provide support for managers of at automotive industry through LARG supply chain evaluation and assist them in selecting effective solutions to reduce supply chain risks, and thereby, to facilitate decision making.

Takafel Insurance is a relatively new but growing sector of Islamic financial industry that has intrigued many researchers and executives. Yet, owing to the low public confidence in this type of insurance, many researchers and executives are still skeptical about relevant issues like its performance and productivity. Therefore, the present descriptive-analytical inquiry set out to compare the productivity of TAKFEL insurance industry against conventional insurance based on Fuzzy Hierarchical Analysis Method. The research population of included two groups of research experts as well as senior managers at insurance companies, organizations active in the insurance sector and associations active in the insurance industry of East Azerbaijan Province from whom a sample of 47and 15were selected to participate in the first and second phases of the study, respectively. Two questionnaires were employed to collect the research data concerning identification of the productivity indices affecting the evaluation of different types of insurance in the initial phase of the study as well as finding out the importance of each of the indicators in the second phase. One-sample t-test and fuzzy hierarchical analysis were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed the higher productivity of conventional insurance with asset return as the most important among the productivity indices.