نشریه کاوش های مدیریت بازرگانی
پیاپی 28 (تابستان 1401)

Nowadays, the global market has become a highly competitive place where both quality and innovation play vital roles in the survival of companies. Companies can improve their competitiveness by increasing their innovation. Competitive advantage and organizational performance can be improved by the institutionalization of innovation in organizational culture. So far, very few studies have examined the relationships among the dimensions of innovation and different aspects of a company's performance and, in particular, competitiveness. Previous studies have not examined the concepts of competitiveness and innovation performance in the textile industry; therefore, the scale of competitiveness and innovation performance in these studies does not provide an accurate picture of the status of these variables in the industry. In addition, most previous studies have not explicitly addressed the performance of product and process innovation. Despite the research view that quality management practices improve performance in areas such as innovation and business, there is no complete research that covers the quality management, innovation performance and competitiveness of companies in the textile industry.Given that the textile industry in the world is an industry with intense competition and the active presence of large transnational corporations, competition in it goes beyond the national borders of countries and puts a lot of competitive pressure on companies active in this field. The textile industry is one of the most important and influential components of a country's economy, which has undoubtedly faced several challenges due to the globalization of the economy, including lack of competitiveness. Obviously, in such a situation, in order to maintain the position and create added value for customers, companies active in the textile industry are forced to improve their quality and ability to innovate. Therefore, considering the importance of competitiveness in today's competitive economy, the purpose of this study is to find whether total quality management and innovation performance have significant impacts on the competitiveness of companies in the textile industry.

The present study is an applied research work in terms of purpose and a type of descriptive-correlative study in terms of data collection and analysis. A standard questionnaire was used to measure the impact of total quality management on firm competitiveness by the mediating role of product and process innovation. The statistical population of the study consisted of the firms active in the textile industry. The available sampling method and Cochran's formula were used to obtain the sample size. Structural equation modeling was also used to test the research hypotheses and examine the relationships among the latent factors.

The significant coefficients obtained for total quality management with product innovation, process innovation and competitiveness are 6.81, 7.94 and 5.41, respectively. Therefore, TQM has a significant impact on product innovation, process innovation and competitiveness. The coefficients of significance for product innovation and process with competitiveness are 7.75 and 6.54, respectively. Therefore, product and process innovation has a significant effect on competitiveness. The significant coefficient obtained for the indirect effect of TQM and competitiveness through the mediating variables of product innovation and process innovation is 52.77 and 51.92, respectively. Therefore, TQM has a significant effect on competitiveness. As a result, the mediating role of product innovation and process innovation in the above two variables is proved.

Quality management is considered as a precondition and a basis for product and process innovation in order to have real competitiveness. To improve their competitive position in the market, companies must focus on developing strong competitive capabilities. This study provides evidence for a relationship between two sources of competitive advantage, namely quality management and product and process innovation. In particular, quality management practices, such as leadership and top management support, training and participation of employee, information and learning, process management, and customer focus, enable companies to innovate in products and processes. Innovation performance strategy has been one of the main drivers of company competition that should be implemented as an integral part of a business strategy. Therefore, companies should focus on improving product innovation and process innovation to improve their business performance and competitiveness. The globalization and the rapid development of technology have made innovation a key factor in the success of international business. Innovation is the source of competitive advantage in international markets and is a vital predictor of a company's export performance. It is essential to improve competitiveness in international markets, enabling companies to take advantage of economic benefits and overcome the size constraints of domestic markets.

Businesses must constantly evaluate their performance in order to determine their position and survive in a dynamic and highly competitive environment. In this environment, achieving superior performance requires the adaptation of companies' services and products to the needs of customers and markets, which can be facilitated by several variables. Recent research shows the positive and critical effect of variables such as business model innovation and organizational learning capability. Through business model innovation, organizations can take the advantage of changing customer demands and expectations. Also organizational learning is an ability to absorb and transform new knowledge and apply it to the development of new products with a competitive advantage and a high production speed. On the other hand, organizations must have a great ability to respond and be willing to provide new products and services that are created through strategic agility and entrepreneurial orientation in order to improve the firm performance directly and indirectly through business model innovation and organizational learning capability. So, they will achieve better performance than their competitors. This study aims at the direct effects of entrepreneurial orientation and strategic agility on the firms’ performance and the indirect effects of these two variables on the firm performance. In this regard, the mediation roles of business model innovation and learning capability are taken into account.

This article is applied in term of purpose and descriptive in term of method. The data collection tool is a questionnaire with 18 specialized items. The managers of 96 production and service companies in Rasht industrial park (Sefidroud) participated in this research. The structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was used to analyze the hypotheses. Also, the Smart PLS-3 software was applied to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of the variables.

Firm performance refers to the companies’ ability to compete with their rivals, improve their market share and gain the competitive advantages. But according to the rapid changes in the external environment, we have to consider more dynamic variables to respond to the chaotic and unpredictable environment so as to improve company’s performance. In this regard, business model innovation can redesign organization’s operations and activities to adopt the key factors of success and gain competitive advantages. Also, organizational learning capability can lead to higher firm performance by making an easier path for a free information flow through creating, transferring and integrating knowledge and experience. This is because finding a solution for the changes of unfavorable conditions needs a flexible and quick reaction that can be solved by these two factors. This study shows the direct effects of business model innovation and   organizational learning capability on firm performance. Moreover, other variables such as strategic agility and entrepreneurial orientation can affect the firm performance directly and indirectly through business model innovation or organization learning capability. In other words, strategic agility is introduced as the best solution to respond to the external environment and the rapid changes because it enables companies to change their competitive characteristics and adapt themselves to market trends. Also, entrepreneurial orientation includes risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness which can provide a better atmosphere for firms to foster an innovation- and change-driven environment in order to pioneer a new business, enter a new market and capture opportunities before their rivals can. The results of this study show that strategic agility and entrepreneurial orientation have positive and direct significant effects on firm performance.  Through these two factors, the condition of adapting to a change gets easier business model innovation and organization learning capability can get a better chance to be accepted by employees. Therefore, strategic agility and entrepreneurial orientation affect the performance of firms indirectly through business model innovation and organization learning capability. These hypotheses are confirmed in this study. 

This study investigated a few critical dynamic variables including business model innovation, learning capability, strategic agility and entrepreneurial orientation in order to maximize the firm performance in an environment with rapid changes. Better performance leads to better market conditions and helps the company to survive or become the leader of its own industry. Therefore, the results of this research can facilitate the path of organizations toward getting superior performance by creating a sustainable competitive advantage, higher market share and inaccessible competitive position. Although this study makes a number of beneficial contributions, it has some limitations. Specific national context is one of the limitations. To generalize the results, we have to apply this research in different cultural contexts. Next, we have not considered the moderating effect of turbulent environments. For future studies, researchers are suggested to consider this variable too. Moreover, a longitudinal study may lead to richer findings.

The management consulting industry, with a total global value of approximately $ 285 billion, is one of the largest and most flourishing markets in the professional services industry. An analysis of the last five decades indicates that the development of the management consulting industry has been closely related to the developments in the global economy during the past years. Management consulting as one of the sub-branches of knowledge-based business services has had a higher growth than the other sub-branches in this field.So far, just a few studies have been conducted on the success factors of strategic management consultants and their consequences. The issue of management competency has widely been considered by researchers, but the competency of management consultants have been less addressed. The purpose of this study is to investigate the competencies of strategic management consultants. The research method is qualitative and in accordance with the emerging Glaser’s grounded theory. The experts in this research consisted of 21 professionals in the field of management consulting, especially strategy consultants, who were selected through purposeful sampling, and semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The MAXQDA software version 10 and the triple coding approach were used for data analysis. As many as 992 codes were found in the first stage (open coding). After the elimination of the repeated or poor codes, 525 pure codes were left. The results indicated that strategic management consultants should have a set of general and specific competencies. General competencies are divided into three groups including individual and characteristic competencies, managerial competencies, and consulting competencies. Specific competencies are a set of competencies related to strategic management and management consulting. A total of 25 key competencies were identified, and their relative importance was analyzed based on the number of repetitions of the categories and their frequency. These competencies were eventually demonstrated in a model called the Strategy Consultant Competency Circle, which can serve as a good basis to assess strategy consultants and assist clients in selecting the best consultants.Among five major competency categories, strategic management competencies are the most frequent. This category includes competencies as the deep knowledge of strategic management, strategic thinking, change of management skills and environmental mastery, which means being aware of the best practices of the industry, knowing about competitive environment and consumer behavior, and so on.Specific consulting management competencies are in the second rank according to frequency. This category includes competencies such as leading the leaders, project management, problem solving, flexibility and organizational coexistence (i.e, to be approved as a member of the organizational family). Of course, theses competencies are common among all the management consultants in any field such as strategy, HR, marketing, and so on.The third category includes characteristic competencies such as being achievement-oriented (i.e. management consultant should be a model of success), learning appetite, self-control, being loved, self-confidence, intelligence and personal maturity.The fourth category includes general management competencies such as basic management skills, ability to integrate, general information, knowledge of management and organization, and at last economic intuition.Finally, there is the category of general consulting competencies. They are vital not only for management consultants but also for consultants in other fields such as psychology, legal, and so on. This category includes effective communication, verbal skills, professional ethics and mindfulness. So, we have 25 competencies in five categories. The proposed circle model has several various remarkable benefits. First, it helps to understand the basis and origin of competencies. Second, it shows, to some extent, the ability to compare the competencies of strategy consultants with other groups of individuals with whom they have some commonalities, such as strategic managers, management consultants in other areas, consultants and managers. Third, this model provides a good blueprint to determine the competencies of groups related to strategy consulting. For instance, in the case of a human resources consultant and based on this model, four parts of the circle can be used exactly (although the objective examples of some of these competencies may be different). It is also enough to remove the strategic management competencies and identify and replace specific human resource management competencies.The present study clearly shows that the effectiveness of strategy consulting depends on the acquisition of a wide variety of competencies. It is now possible to better understand why a high percentage of strategy consulting projects fail. Acquiring the 25 competencies proposed for strategy consultants requires the implementation of various training and development programs, the gap of which is currently well felt in our country. Therefore, the major suggestion of this research is to launch professional training courses for strategy consultants to provide the human capital needed in this field.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in online marketing has created a revolution in this field, which has attracted the attention of many investors and marketing managers in this field. AI marketing uses artificial intelligence technologies to make automated decisions based on data collection, data analysis, and additional observations of audience or economic trends that may impact marketing efforts. AI is often used in marketing efforts where speed is essential. Since little research has been done on this issue, and the purpose of this research is to identify the applications of artificial intelligence in various aspects of online marketing and prioritize these applications. The present research is thematically one of the first studies that applies artificial intelligence in online marketing. There has been no comprehensive and continuous view of the entire chain of attraction, persuasion, sales, and after-sales services. Thus, this research provides a comprehensive view of its audience by examining all the members of it. This research was been conducted using a mixed method. In the qualitative stage, there were ten semi-structured interviews with experts in online marketing, artificial intelligence, and e-marketing. With the content analysis method, forty applications of artificial intelligence in online marketing were enumerated in four sections. They were categorized based on the marketing mix. The marketing mix refers to the set of actions or tactics that a company uses to promote its brand or product in the market. a typical marketing mix of price, roduct, Promotion, and Place. In the quantitative stage, using a questionnaire and the best-worst analysis method, the applications identified in the qualitative stage have been prioritized using the opinions of industry experts and the students of prominent Iranian universities familiar with artificial intelligence and online marketing. Best Worst Method (BWM) is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) based on a systematic pairwise comparison of the decision criteria used to evaluate a set of alternatives with respect to a set of decision criteria. The salient feature of the BWM is that it uses a structured way to generate pairwise comparisons, which leads to reliable results. Product design and value creation, pricing and cost design, advertising and customer information, and product distribution were identified as four general areas in which 40 applications were classified and prioritized. Finally, nine applications were identified in the field of product design and value creation, nine applications in the field of pricing and cost design, and 16 applications in the field of advertising and customer information. In the field of sales place and product supply method, six applications were identified and ranked. Making advertisements in accordance with the previous behavior of users and customers' feelings in relation to advertisements had the highest priority. Also, the distribution of forces in distribution branches in accordance with the forecast of work pressure in each branch had the lowest priority. This study suggests that, in order to use artificial intelligence in online marketing, various types of artificial intelligence should be applied in the marketing mix matrix. A comprehensive review of the most appropriate solutions for the organization is needed to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the solutions in the organization.Considering the prioritization of different parts of the marketing mix, it should be noted that businesses should pay special attention to the use of artificial intelligence applications in online marketing in the field of advertising and customer information. Then, a focus should be placed on product design and value proposition, which leads to market knowledge and user interaction. After these two areas, pricing and cost design have almost the same weight as product design and value proposition, which shows their equal importance in this sector. The developed framework provides a comprehensive view of artificial intelligence in online marketing and helps organizations comprehensively identify solutions and prioritize them. Therefore, using the methods found here can solve a large percentage of marketing problems and guide businesses to achieve their marketing goals.This research can also be used as a tool to comprehensively evaluate the performance of organizations in using artificial intelligence in online marketing. By designing a scoring model based on the weights obtained in this study, it is easy to determine the status of companies in different industries and with different conditions in the use of artificial intelligence in online marketing and in accordance with the priorities. This approach will also help many traditional companies that have some online marketing techniques to design and optimize their marketing system as optimally as possible.

The alignment of marketing and business strategy and their relationship with the organization’s financial performance are research domains which are still investigated despite having a long history. This is due to the different aspects of the topic and the different results in various organizational contexts and time periods. Although marketing and business plans are similar, there are differences between their characteristics. The present study attempted to analyze the relationship between the alignment of marketing and business strategies with the organization’s financial performance in a five-year period from 2014 to 2018 in a group of companies registered in Tehran Stock Exchange. The configuration theory in strategic management was used to develop the conceptual model. The marketing strategy was divided into the configurations of aggressive, mass, minimizer, and value-related, and the business strategy was divided into the four configurations of prospector, low cost defenders, differentiated defenders, and analyzers. Research hypotheses involved the relationship between the combination of configurations and the organization’s financial performance. One of the well-known tools for identifying marketing strategy is the self-typing paragraph approach. The Miles framework was used to identify the business strategy. To measure the performance, a questionnaire was used with six factors including sales growth volume, market share status, net profit growth status per share, operating profit margin status, net profit margin, and P/E ratio. The list of the Iranian stock exchange companies was used to select the companies. These companies were filtered based on three conditions. The first condition was the existence of an independent marketing department in these companies, the second condition was the existence of a competitive or semi-competitive environment, and the third condition was the companies’ lack of a joint venture investor. Thus, 108 companies cooperated with the research. First, marketing and business strategies and organization’s financial performance were identified. Then, the companies were divided into two groups including aligned and non-aligned groups. After that, the mean test was used for the statistical comparison of the performance of the aligned and non-aligned states. As the results revealed, the mean performance of the aligned states significantly differed from that of the non-aligned states. In the field of marketing strategy, the post hoc test showed that the mean performance of the aggressive strategy was higher than in other strategies. The value-related and mass strategies had a higher mean performance than the minimizer strategies but were not different from each other. In the field of business strategy, the prospector strategy and the differentiated defenders had higher mean performances than the low-cost defenders and analyzer. In general, the statistical results rejected the equality of mean performance in different combinations of business and marketing strategy.According to the research findings, four bodies were identified. The first body was the combination of the low-cost defenders with the minimizer strategy. In this body, the company's main focus was on maintaining the market share. These businesses reduce their risks by delaying the introduction of the product in the market until the product is established by others in the market. Adequate quality, low price and very wide distribution strategy are pursued by them. They generally focus on the product line and use the least amount of professional marketing staff. The second body was the combination of the differentiated defenders with the value-related strategy. In this body, the ratio of operating profit to sales was high. Also, the integrated chain of communication with customers was active, and the company used a relatively conservative and somewhat risky approach to activities. The company paid only some attention to market share and focused on maintaining the market. The company paid attention to capacity building, as compared to its competitors, and implemented the market-product strategy. The company considered its marketing strategy combination to be innovative, and high-quality products and the main value were in close relationship with the customer. They conducted mediocre marketing research and generally demanded a fair price. Their distribution strategy was somewhat selective, and they used moderate advertisement. In fact, the focus was on customer orientation, and there was a tendency for niches markets. The Third body was the combination of the analyzers with the mass marketing strategy. In this body, the ratio of the operating profit to sales was high. Also, an integrated chain of communication with customers and suppliers was active, and the company used a relatively conservative view. The company paid some attention to market share and focused on maintaining the market. There was a lot of focus on market-product strategy, but serious attention was also paid to cost reduction. The company was dominated by the engineering-oriented view. An extensive data analysis was performed every day for optimal decision making and long-term planning. These businesses generally produce high-quality products that follow market innovation and use very wide distribution channels. The fourth body was the combination of the prospectors with the aggressive strategy. In this body, the operating profit margin was taken into consideration, the integrated chain of communication with the customers and suppliers was active, and the company used a very risky view. The company paid serious attention to the market share. It was a leader in terms of innovation, diversity and capacity development, compared to its competitors, and fully implements the market-product strategy. The development of new markets was a priority and the company had an entrepreneurial outlook. These businesses usually produce innovative and high-quality products, and have a very close relationship with the customer and conduct a very extensive marketing research. This research is done to identify and encourage market segments where buyers tend to pay high prices. Buyers in these markets are selected with a selective distribution strategy and are contacted with through intense and focused advertising. These results indicate the proximity of marketing and business strategies and the direct effect of marketing strategy on the organization’s performance. The research contributes to managers’ knowledge of successful and high-performance alignments. Therefore, organizations can intensify marketing activities and reinforce their alignment skills.

The services sector plays an increasingly important role in the global economy, so the value chain analysis can be helpful in this situation. Due to the different substance of the service, features of the service and its intangibility. In today's specific business environment, the Gabriel model has to be updated to Mach whit situation for evaluation and analysis. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to present a comprehensive services value chain model especially for bank.Metholology: In this research, qualitative content analysis was done to meet the purpose of the study. The codes are extracted from the literature and interviews with bank professionals. This part of the research is interpretive, and its direction of is development-applies, The approach is inductive-deductive, and the time horizon is cross-sectional. The statistical population in the qualitative section, like previous studies in this field is selected from through purposeful and judgmental sampling, and the sample size was determined based on theoretical saturation. In the quantitative part, the best-worst weight of each component of the value chain was determined, and the proposed model was evaluated in the supervision of Mellat Bank. The orientation of this part is development-applied. It introduces a new value chain in the field of services. The study approach is hybrid (inductive-deductive), inductive in that it tries to extract the components of the service value chain using previous studies, which can ultimately provide a model. It is deductive in the sense that the model is finally evaluated using a descriptive-survey method. The strategy of the present study is exploratory and mixed in that both quantitative and qualitative methods are used. This research is exploratory-descriptive according to its nature and goals. It should be noted that this research is also cross-sectional in terms of time.  After filtering the codes, some of them are removed and finally 107 codes were classified into index, concept, category and dimension. Finally, supply chain management, agility, marketing and sales management, corporate governance, and information and communication technology (ICT) were added to the value-added components of the Gabriel model. Next, the best-worst method (with the Excel 2016 software) was used to reveal the contribution of each value to the creation of components. ICT had the highest contribution, sustainability had at least According to the assessment, reliability and credibility, corporate governance, information, and communication technology and delivery system management are close to the minimum desired weight. Finally, Mellat Bank's status in the value chain was evaluated. The greatest gap between the current weight status and optimal is related to human resource management and supply chain management. This study provides a theatrical model that expresses valuable activities at the level of the banking industry and contributes to the literature in the field. The results of the quantitative section showed that the components of Mellat Bank are in relatively good conditions. Since this model tries to consider all the value-creating components in the field of banking services, it is recommended that bank managers and experts use the proposed model when making decisions so that they can maintain a competitive advantage in the right direction. Considering the value-added components mentioned in the model, banks can have the best performance in relation to the customer, provide their services, and attract and retain investors. The main function of the model is in the banking industry, but, because of its general nature, other service industries can also benefit from the results. Enriching the value chain with concepts such as sustainability, globalization, cooperation with competitors, intangible assets, flexibility and agility has led to the evolution of the value chain into a value network. Therefore, the value components obtained in this research should be cyclical and non-linear to lead to profitability and sustainability. The results of the quantitative section showed that information and communication technology with a weight of 12.16 was the most important factor, and stability with a weight of 2.79 was the least important one. Information and communication technology is a tool to achieve a competitive advantage, it has been developing rapidly in recent years, and it has already led to significant changes in the way businesses are run. This technology is at the heart of the banking sector. It has become necessary to pay attention to it in order to gain a competitive advantage. According to reliability assessments, corporate governance, information and communication technology and delivery system management are close to the desired minimum weight. The largest gap between the current and the optimal weights is related to human resource management and supply chain management.

Nowadays, paying attention to the various plans and functions of companies has caused transformation and dynamism in the field of business. In this regard, companies are faced with fundamental and new challenges to maintain their survival, including the challenge of the simultaneous managing the level of profitability and responding to the problems and social expectations of their customers. This approach requires strategies such as implementing social responsibility in the company, which can help both the sustainability and profitability of the company in the long run and the community. Today, the issue of corporate social responsibility has become one of the main topics of interest for researchers, experts and stakeholders in the field of business. Despite the extensive studies in this field, the impacts and consequences of social responsibility operations in companies and food industries have not been investigated. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility on the behavioral intention of customers to repurchase from Pegah's Bazaar-Gostar food distribution company in Ilam.

The present study is quantitative in terms of paradigm, applied in terms of purpose, and descriptive-correlative in terms of data collection and analysis. The statistical population of this study included all the customers of Pegah's Bazaar-Gostar food distribution company in Ilam (N = 1208). Using the stratified random sampling method with proportional assignment, 415 customers were selected. The main tool for data collection was a standard questionnaire whose validity was assessed by a panel of experts. Its construct validity and reliability were also evaluated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient and a composite reliability test. In order to analyze the data in descriptive and inferential sections, SPSS version 26 and SmartPLS version 3 were used. For this purpose, in the descriptive statistics section, the frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation as well as minimum and maximum were calculated. In the inferential statistics section, structural equation modeling (measurement model evaluation, structural model evaluation) was done. A measurement model was used to evaluate the validity and reliability of the latent variables of the research, and a structural model is used to test the hypotheses in the framework of the proposed research framework.

As the results showed, the behavioral intention, corporate image, customer satisfaction and corporate social responsibility dimensions variables had an above-average status. Besides, the latent variables of corporate image, customer satisfaction, economic responsibility, ethical responsibility and philanthropy responsibility had positive and significant effects on the behavioral intention of customers to repurchase from the Pegah's Bazaar-Gostar food distribution company in Ilam. However, based on the results, the positive and significant total effect of the latent variable of legal responsibility on customers' behavioral intent was not significant. Finally, it was also shown that 71% of the changes in the customers' behavioral intention to repurchase from Pegah's Bazaar-Gostar food distribution company in Ilam could be explained and predicted by the variables of corporate image, customer satisfaction, economic responsibility, ethical responsibility, legal responsibility and philanthropy responsibility.

The results of this study clarified the role of the social dimension of companies to improve their performance; therefore, company executives and managers should pay more attention to psychological and social issues, such as corporate image, customer satisfaction and the dimensions of social responsibility, to attract the consent of their customers. In this regard, it is recommended that companies participate in social activities like helping victims of natural disasters and charities. Such tasks as approving and implementing ethical and behavioral regulations can support customers with fair payment. Finally, more attention is to be paid to advertising and and use promotional activities to create a positive corporate image of companies in the minds of customers. In order to increase customer satisfaction with Pegah Company, the managers are suggested to receive customer comments and suggestions periodically on how to provide services and compare it with previous periods to identify weaknesses and strengths. In order to improve the mental image of Pegah Company customers, the managers  are suggested to pay more attention to advertisements and information and take steps to create a positive image of the company by using promotional and incentive activities. In order to increase economic responsibility, the managers of the company are recommended to support their employees and customers with fair payment.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role for both economic growth and employment opportunities. Considering that SMEs can expand their market coverage through exporting, governments encourage SMEs to explore the international market for potential business growth. However, this has never been an easy task. SMEs need to achieve competitive advantage in order to compete with other industrial players around the world. Competitive advantage is one of the most important factors affecting the success of any firm in international markets. Previous studies have long discussed the role of the competitive advantage of firms as a determinant of export performance, but there are few studies on the determinants of firm competitive advantage and its potential mediating role in the relationship between marketing capabilities and export performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of four essential export capabilities including product innovation, market intelligence, pricing and marketing communication on a firm’s export performance with the mediating role of competitive advantage. In this paper, we aim to shed light on the research gaps by investigating the essential capabilities associated with competitive advantage that may lead to SMEs' international performance and whether competitive advantage is a mediator to link these capabilities to SMEs' international performance. Understanding the essential capabilities which contribute to competitive advantage will guide SMEs that intend to explore international markets to assess their readiness. Policy makers and entrepreneurs can focus their capability development programs on capabilities strongly associated with competitive advantage for exporting SMEs.

The population selected for the study consisted of the exporting firms in the food industry based in Tehran Province. The sample of the study was calculated using the Cochran formula with 95 firms randomly drawn from the respective population. Regarding the purpose, the study is an applied work carried out with a descriptive-survey research method, and the data were collected through a questionnaire. The Hypotheses of the study were tested using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). More specifically, we applied complete bootstrapping setting with 5000 subsamples, mean replacement for missing values and two-tailed test for hypothesis testing. SEM is particularly useful for testing complex models and when researchers need to incorporate latent variables. More specifically, we opted to apply the Partial Least Squares (PLS) SME approach, using the SmartPLS 3.2.8 software. The unidimensionality and reliability of the dataset were assessed through different procedures. The construct reliability was assessed by the degree to which the items were free from random errors and, therefore, they would yield consistent results. The reliability of the measures was also calculated using the composite reliability (CR) index and the average variance extracted (AVE) index. For all the measures, both indices were higher than the evaluation criteria, namely, 0.7 for the CR index and 0.5 for the AVE index.

Theoretically, this study provides empirical evidence on the determinants of competitive advantage and the mediating role of competitive advantage. The RBV theory suggests that only capabilities which are valuable, rare, inimitable, non-substitutable can be source of competitive advantage. In line with this argument, we examined whether all the four essential capabilities are ‘valuable’ to competitive advantage. In this sense, this study extends the findings of previous research on the relationships among organizational capabilities, competitive advantage and international performance. The results revealed that two of the mentioned capabilities (market intelligence and pricing) impact competitive advantage. In addition, the data analysis confirmed the relationship between competitive advantage and export performance. Moreover, the results indicated that competitive advantage only serves as a mediator between market intelligence capability and export performance as well as pricing capability and export performance.

According to the results of the study, market intelligence and pricing are two important capabilities which create competitive advantage for the exporting firms in the food industry. In other words, the competitive advantage of these firms depends upon their capability to respond to market intelligence and offer reasonable and fair prices in export markets. The present study is an effort to contribute to the literature on explaining the determinants of competitive advantage affecting the export performance of firms. Moreover, the results showed that only market intelligence and pricing capabilities have mediating effects on export performance through the competitive advantage. This proves the critical roles of these two capabilities for international success. Therefore, even though a firm can achieve competitive advantage through other capabilities, the extent to which it knows international markets, customers, rivals, and reasonable prices may be essential to capitalize the capabilities and take the most advantage of opportunities to achieve a favorable export performance. The findings of this investigation can be valuable to SMEs and startups that intend to explore or exploit opportunities in foreign markets.

Tourism is considered a major power where it has a constructive effect on the environment, society, and the overall economy. The importance of the tourism industry is derived from its role as a strategic economic function for so many countries around the world. According to them, this study was conducted due to the great importance of the tourism sector and its influence on other economic sectors, and because of the growing implementation of the destination image concept in the field of tourism, where the mental image of a travel destination has an important role in convincing people to visit that place. The purpose of this study is to study tourism advertising strategies and analysis the components of each dimension of an effective advertising strategy in order to reconstruct the tourist image of the tourist destinations in crisis.

This study is a qualitative study based on the grounded theory and, in terms of purpose, is an exploratory study. A review of the theoretical basis and literature review in the field of reconstruction of tourists' mental images and the models used in these studies have been used to extract their elements. At this stage, and in order to get to the purpose of the study, a number of questions were designed that include the main question and some sub-questions. The main question is: what is the advertising strategy for reconstructing the mental image of tourists? The sub-questions of the research are: 1) who is the target audience of the considered advertising strategy? 2) What is the content of advertisements for the reconstruction of the mental image of tourists in crisis countries? 3) What media is suitable for reconstructing the mental image of tourists? 4) What should be the frequency of repetition of the ad needed to reconstruct the mental image? The exploratory section used semi-structured interviews with tourism industry experts in Syria and Iran to collect samples. The refined variables and the relationships between them have been identified using grounded theory to increase the understanding of the problem. Content analysis methods have been used. In this regard, to analyze the interviews and obtain the findings, (Atlas Ti) software was used, which has produced several graphs with the help of this software. The statistical population of this research, as we said before, was the tourism industry experts of Syria and Iran, where it consisted of 11 experts. In this study, the sample size was selected based on the theoretical saturation of academic and tourism industry experts. Purposeful sampling was performed according to the theoretical saturation approach.

The experts of the tourism industry in Syria and Iran stated that regarding the specific situation in Syria, the target audience should be either neighboring or friendly countries, where they may have the ability to know the real situation that exists in the country in the light of its special conditions. In addition to that, overseas tourism agencies can also be considered a target audience. Speaking about advertising content, it can be designed in several ways, such as using the concept of religious tourism, health tourism, war tourism, documentary advertising, other travel details, focus on the desert, historical and archaeological places and destinations that were exposed to war, use of a combination of advertising types, including video, photos, and posters, use of domestic tours as advertising, focus on government actions and security, and cultural and entertainment aspects of the destination. The data collected from tourism sector experts showed that it is better to use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Websites, Wikipedia, and others to spread this advertisement. Television is also still an influential tool. In addition, international tourism exhibitions may be one of the most important means to be used in order to promote the destination, and word-of-mouth advertisements may also have a great influence in this respect. On the other hand, inviting public figures, communicating with foreign tourism companies, and having an agent in foreign countries can be used to promote the destination's image abroad too. Also, the role of embassies and tourist ministries should not be ignored. Finally, in order to determine the number of repetitions of the advertisement, accurate research should be done to determine the average usage of the selected media by the people of the target countries. But in this regard, it must be mentioned that some experts think that broadcasting advertisements less than four times a day will not be effective enough. Others think that the advertising must be taken into consideration for at least six months to get the expected benefit from it. On the other hand, there is no specific number of contributions to the international tourism exhibitions, and the usage of word-of-mouth advertising cannot be connected to repetition.

Many concepts must be taken into consideration in order to develop the tourism sector in a country where it is considered one of the vital sectors that has the potential to increase national income and help strengthen and revive the country's economy. This sector has a significant effect on many other economic sectors, but despite that, it is very sensitive and capable of being affected by many factors. According to this, the importance of this study comes from the growing importance of the tourism industry and the destination image, which play a great role in affecting visitors' perception of a destination and forming their attitude toward it.

Nowadays, computers have affected all aspects of human life. Basic business elements such as customers' personal information are all stored in computers, and this intangible information includes a large proportion of corporate assets. E-commerce with a customer-oriented approach is defined as technology-oriented relationship marketing, which is used by companies with the intention of maintaining customer relations owing to its significant advantages over the traditional e-commerce. Iranian businesses, despite facing tough competition in domestic and foreign markets, have realized the importance of customer retention, but they are not as familiar with customer relationship management capabilities as they should be, nor do they know about e-commerce tools. If the problem is solved, the way will be paved for the successful implementation of CRM. This gap has led to economic inefficiency and the ultimate shutdown of many businesses. The main problems are the lack of managers’ understanding of the importance of communication with the customer, the use of some outdated marketing models to establish this relationship, and the lack of e-commerce capacity to implement CRM. The main purpose of this study is to identify the components of e-commerce and CRM and explain the relationship between them in the form of a comprehensive model. To this end, at first, the components of these two variables were identified using the meta-synthesis and indexing methods, and meta-synthesis models of research were presented. Then, using the interpretive structural modeling, a comprehensive research model was introduced to show the relationship between the mentioned components. The present study is exploratory mixed research in terms of method. Meta-synthesis is applied in the qualitative part, and in the qualitative-quantitative part is based on ISM. The meta-synthesis focuses on qualitative studies and their in-depth analysis with the aim of deeper understanding. ISM is technically appropriate for analyzing the effect of one element on other elements. In terms of purpose, the meta-synthesis section is an applied research work, and it is a qualitative study in terms of implementation. The ISM part is an applied research work in terms of purpose and a qualitative study in terms of implementation. Also, this method is descriptive-survey in terms of nature and partly developmental in terms of results. According to Popper's Foresight Diamond model, it is one of the semi-quantitative research methods. In meta-synthesis, library studies and web browsing were conducted to collect data. The ISM section was based on a researcher-made questionnaire. Open coding method was used for data analysis in the meta-synthesis, and Mic Mac analysis was done for ISM. The statistical population in the meta-synthesis section was the scientific articles in the field of e-commerce and CRM from 1996 to 2017 for Latin articles and from 2001 to 2017 for Persian articles. In the meta-synthesis, the criterion for sample size was theoretical saturation. In the ISM, the statistical population included 83 experts from the companies approved by the Electronic Commerce Development Center of the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade, which have the symbol of e-trust and operate in the field of e-commerce. The statistical sample in this method consisted of 15 experts from the mentioned companies. The sampling method was snowball sampling, and the criterion for sample size was the theoretical saturation. In the Meta-synthesis section and in the first stage of the article evaluation, there existed 52 articles in the field of e-commerce and 60 articles in the field of CRM. In the second stage, there were 45 articles in the field of e-commerce and 47 in the field of CRM. Finally, in the third stage, 29 articles were accepted in the field of e-commerce and 27 in the field of CRM. As an innovation, the indexing method was used, and new sub-fields were added to the meta-synthesis models. In the meta-synthesis E-commerce model, customer trust and satisfaction as well as the development, application and success of e-commerce were the three main components, each of which had several sub-components. In the meta-synthesis model of CRM, the key factors of success, customer satisfaction and electronic customer relationship management were the three main components with a number of sub-components. In the ISM part, according to the dependence power and the driving power, the research components were analyzed and placed in four areas in the form of Mic Mac diagrams. E-CRM was ranked in the third area as an influential variable. The components of the development, application and success of e-commerce were in the second area; they were called dependent variables. Customer trust and satisfaction in e-commerce and the key factors of success and customer satisfaction in CRM in the fourth area were considered as a linkage variables. No component was located in the autonomous region. E-CRM plays a pivotal role and is somehow related to other components through primary or secondary relationships. It directly contributes to customer satisfaction and serves as a key factor in the success of CRM. The pivotal role of this component is owing to its ability to use the Internet to attract new customers and the ability to communicate continuously with previous customers. Therefore, managers should pay good attention to this component and make it operational. This new approach can increase electronic customer loyalty to the company and is considered as a potential competitive advantage. The main limitation of the meta-synthesis approach was found to be the limited time period for reviewing articles, which can be improved by expanding the research results. In future studies, in addition to articles, authoritative books and scientific reports can be used. In the ISM, the content relationships between the components depend on the knowledge of the experts, which may affect the results. It is recommended to be used in future studies along with other methods such as analytical network processes.