Iranian Journal of Management Studies
Volume:16 Issue: 1, Winter 2023

The emergence of big data is a radical shift in the business context, leading to a change in value creation and capture. This phenomenon is a newborn concept in the business and management literature confirmed by the growing number of publications over recent years. This paper presents an updating comprehensive bibliometric analysis to describe and assess the scientific landscape of value creation and capture based on leveraging big data in the literature. Bibliometrix and VOSviewer were selected as software tools for descriptive and network bibliometric analysis based on the Web of Science Core Collection database from 2011 until 2020. By implementing bibliometric analysis such as analysis of citations and co-occurrence of keywords, we have recognized the most prominent and influential authors, papers, journals, countries, and four potential clusters of current trends in studies. These four trends of value creation and capture from big data studies are: 1) strengthening the basic knowledge of value creation in the big data era, 2) data-driven business model and value capturing, 3) dynamic capabilities and centrality of knowledge, and 4) digital transformation of the service industry. Finally, by identifying the existing research gaps, future research directions in each cluster are demonstrated.

This paper presents a two-phase approach to design an optimal personnel transportation network for the Bistoon Power Plant. In the first phase, a mathematical model of location-allocation for locating bus stops and allocating staff to bus stops has been formulated with the objective of minimizing the total walking distance for staff. For the second phase, a mathematical model of location-allocation-routing with time window for selecting vehicles with the appropriate capacity for each route, locating the parking places (start nodes), vehicle routing, and trip scheduling is discussed with the two objectives of minimizing transportation costs and minimizing the maximum travel time of staff to ensure fairness among staff. One of the features of this study is the consideration of the distance between vehicle parking areas and the first demand nodes on each route in order to locate parking areas. Other expected side benefits of the implementation of this research are decreasing the total travel distances, traffic congestion, and air pollution. Despite the large number of nodes and data of the case study, the proposed mathematical models are solved by the exact solution method. In order to solve the two-objective model, the augmented epsilon constraint method has been used to find the Pareto solution set.

The crisis is a devastating event that is difficult to predict. If not managed, it can cause significant problems for the organization. Therefore, organizations need a comprehensive framework to manage crises well. This article aims to present a new crisis management model with an overlapping attitude and prioritize the most critical components based on the Hazard and Operability Analysis (HAZOP) using a mixed-methods research design. In the qualitative phase, reviewing the academic resources was conducted from 2009 to 2020. Then, three rounds of the Delphi technique was carried out to obtain the consensus of 19 experts over 125 components. Analyzing the data was performed by structural equation modelling in the quantitative phase. The sample consisted of 228 respondents who were employees in an Iranian oil company. The findings indicated that crisis management is a nonlinear overlapping process with 47 elements in seven factors: pre-crisis, in-crisis, post-crisis, pre-crisis and in-crisis, in-crisis and post-crisis, post-crisis and pre-crisis, pre-crisis and in-crisis and post-crisis. In addition, the results of HAZOP showed that “strategic thinking at all levels of the organization” and “standardization of the education system” had higher priority. Overall, the current situation of the company in managing organizational crises was considered favorable.

HEPCO is an Iranian corporation that manufactures construction equipment and holds a supply chain with a traditional, non-integrated approach. The materials come from four different sources, including an engineering and parts company, domestic vendors, international vendors, and the company itself supplying the materials and components needed for assembling of products and delivering to customers. Having a non-integrated supply chain has led to an increase in total cost. Therefore, in order to reduce supply chain cost in this company, a three-level model including suppliers, manufacturers, and customers was used. Different ways also were applied to minimize chain cost, including purchase cost, transportation cost, inventory cost, assembly cost, and shortage cost, based on an integer linear mathematical model. It also considered such constraints as balance inventory, assembly capacity, storage capacity, amount of safety stock, and shortage, which were solved by MATLAB software. The results of proposed model were compared with the actual amount of variables in the study period, which indicated a significant reduction in the cost of proposed model comapred to the conventional methods.

Despite the vast literature, the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance is hotly debated in the research field of corporate finance. This study examined the effect of Corporate Governance (GC) on the performance of firms in non-financial sectors listed on the Frankfort Stock Exchange in Germany over the period 2002-2018. To this end, we measured firm performance based on accounting data, using ROA and ROE. The results provided evidence that the characteristics of the audit committee and board of directors have significant and negative effects on firm financial performance, whereas the effect of CEO duality is not statistically significant. Large board size could bring about the issue of deferred decision making by the board members in the insider-controlled CG system of Germany. Furthermore, IFRS adoption in 2005 was found to have a positive effect on firm performance. These results can raise considerable interest in managers and shareholders, precisely when they prioritize the financial performance of their companies.

Natural and man-made disasters have increased the attention of practitioners and researchers to vulnerability. Identifying business vulnerability is one of the basic elements of strategic analysis and public policy. The purpose of this paper is to explore evolutionary pathways to reduce the vulnerability of technology-based businesses. The intellectual structure of this subject was examined using both bibliometric co-occurrence and co-citation analyses. We focused on 629 articles published between 1981 and 2021. This article identifies four specific areas, namely business performance, small business vulnerability, sources of sustainability in business, and adaptation policy assessment. A novel framework was developed based on the most prominent papers identified in co-citation as well as the highly cited papers. The proposed model includes drivers, vulnerability appearance, and vulnerability reduction. This study examines the basis of research concepts, themes, and communities in reducing the vulnerability of technology-based businesses. This article identifies business vulnerability as one of the relevant areas to disaster economics and sustainability studies.

This study aimed to evaluate whether the efficiency of the cryptocurrency market varies over time according to the Adaptive Market Hypothesis. It investigated the varying cryptocurrency market efficiency by applying daily historical data to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and Cardano. The conformity of cryptocurrencies to the normal distribution was examined by the Jarque-Bera test and their stationarity was tested by unit root tests. The cryptocurrency daily return predictability was measured using the Automatic Portmanteau and Wild Bootstrap Automatic Variance Ratio tests. Besides, the daily returns of cryptocurrencies were analyzed using the 500-days rolling window approach to capture the time-varying nature of the cryptocurrency market efficiency. Findings are consistent with the Adaptive Market Hypothesis and indicate that the cryptocurrency market efficiency varies over time. Besides, the cryptocurrency market efficiency varies and generally corresponds to positive or negative news/events.

This paper presents an integer linear programming (ILP) model for allocating trucks according to their operating performances in a truck-shovel system of an open-pit mine, so as to minimize the total operating cost of trucks. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, the model was applied with two different strategies, namely independent fleet management and integrated fleet management. The results of the research in a copper mine case study showed that the developed strategies were capable of handling the operation with a fewer number of trucks than the actual mine strategy. In addition, integrated fleet management indicated 2% and 3% cost-savings over the shift compared to strategy 1 and the mine allocation schedule, respectively.

The paper argues that competitive advantage, as a global prerequisite for sustenance of higher education in the midst of a drastically changing business environment, is not receiving as much attention in emerging economies as it does in developed climes. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of new normal dimensions on competitive advantage in private universities in South-West Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey research design was applied to obtain data from 322 academic staff from two selected private universities in Ogun State, Nigeria. Participants were selected using simple random sampling. Reliability and validity tests were applied to the adapted questionnaire. The multiple regression analysis results revealed that new normal dimensions had a combined positive and significant effect on competitive advantage. This provided a position to formulate, implement, and sustain (FIS) policies that would enhance employee buy-in, augment academic staff psychological wellbeing, and provide and use high-tech facilities for market dominance to outpace competitors.

The main purpose of this study is to explain the effect of confirmation bias on audit quality and the moderating roles of client characteristics (market value and institutional shareholder’s ownership) and auditor (industry specialist auditor and first-class stock exchange trusted auditor) on audit quality and the relationship between them. For this purpose, a sample of 146 firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange, including 1314 firm-year during 2012-2020, was collected and analyzed. In this study, financial restatement and the absolute value of discretionary accruals were used as audit quality proxy. The results showed that confirmation bias has a negative effect on audit quality. The results also demonstrated that the adverse effects of confirmation bias on audit quality are less for clients with high market value, high institutional ownership percentage, and audits performed by industry specialist auditors and first-class stock exchange trusted auditors. The findings of this research could lead to the development of theoretical foundations in the audit context, especially audit judgment and audit risk assessment. Further, the study results suggest that additional training in order to mitigate the auditors’ use of heuristics may be beneficial.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of knowledge management (KM) and dynamic capabilities (DCs) on the improvement of the performance of knowledge firms through the mediating role of sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The study was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlational in terms of nature. A number of knowledge firms in Tehran province were selected as the statistical sample. The optimal sample size was calculated to be 288 people using G-Power software version 3.1. Using a simple random sampling method and through an online survey (Response Rate of 64%), 186 questionnaires were collected. Data analysis was carried out using Smart PLS 3. The findings revealed that KM and DCs enhanced the performance of knowledge firms through strengthening SCA. The current study extends the literature on management by bridging the research gap. It is suggested that creating and applying KM and DCs simultaneously, through SCA, can provide the essential setting for the significant improvement of knowledge firms’ performance and assist managers and policymakers understand how to improve the firm performance (FP) in dynamic environments. This paper is built on the assumptions of the resource-based view and the perspective of the firms’ dynamic capabilities. The findings of the study help firm managers and practitioners to create and maintain a SCA and improve performance through a KM approach and DCs. In addition to theoretical contributions, this study provides a variety of practical advice for managers and policymakers to succeed in applying KM and DCs to achieve better performance.

This study attempted to review the articles and explore the gaps and challenges in the areas of resilience, business continuity, risk, and process safety with the aim of providing several directions for future research to understand different research directions in these areas with different perspectives. In addition, in this study, the relationship of articles in these areas with each other was examined. In this research project, related studies were reviewed and reported to identify presented frameworks, models, and methods for them. In the first phase, the articles were divided into three categories according to their similarity, namely “maximizing the value of business continuity and resilience,” “maximizing process safety and the effect of risk and resilience factors,” and “minimizing risk and effect of uncertainty.” In the second phase, the appropriate conceptual frameworks titled “research house” based on resilience, business continuity, and risk categories were created for each category. In the third phase, 22 closed codes were obtained by carefully reviewing the articles, and their co-occurrence network was investigated. The main findings of this article were categorizing the studied articles, providing conceptual frameworks resulting from article analysis, and presenting a conceptual model.

This study investigated the status of Iranian NGOs in the political-administrative and sociocultural context of Iran, using the grounded theory methodology. The data analysis in this method involves extracting categories from the data and then identifying the relationship between the categories. The data derived from semi-structured interviews indicated that the Iranian NGOs’ status is intertwined with the government’s policies. In this respect, the relationship structure between these two sectors is mapped at the macro level in a seesaw model, which revealed an asymmetrically balanced relationship. That is, while the relationship is in a critical and unfair situation (asymmetrical), the government is alive and holds power (balanced). However, the research findings demonstrated that all elements of society are capable of changing this critical situation and the unfair order of the country. Discovering the relationship structure between NGOs and government in a different context like Iran can open new horizons for policymakers and researchers around the world.

This study proposes a multi-stage supply chain model with direct and reverse flows of goods to assess the effects of risk on the profit of a supply chain network and the realization of demand. The studied network aims to maximize profit, minimize unmet demand, reduce delivery time, alleviate disruption risks in facilities and transportation, and decrease supply chain visibility. We created a system for quantifying the disruption risk ratings of supply chain components. To help the company better understand its suppliers, address essential network components, and prioritize risk management initiatives, the evaluation may be useful. For our supply chain optimization models, we rely on the predicted disruption risk ratings as a basis. Goal programming is used to solve the multi-criteria model. The resiliency of the supply chain network is shown numerically. In order to build the model, the designer had to make strategic judgments. Risk mitigation methods such as extra inventory and backup suppliers are adopted to increase the supply chain network’s resiliency. Short-term disruptions may be mitigated by stockpiling additional raw materials to avoid component shortages. A cost-benefit analysis shows that every risk reduction strategy is worthwhile.

Technological innovation applied in production processes, product quality, and new product expansion contributes to changing firm performance. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the impact level of technological innovation on financial performance of Vietnamese firms. Data was collected from 8,960 firms for the period of 2015-2018. Pooled OLS, FEM, and REM were employed for processing data. The results showed that there was not enough evidence to state that technological innovation influences firm performance of small and medium firms but significant impacts were found on the performance of medium and large firms. The findings also illustrated that regional determinants affect technological innovation of firms in emerging countries in general and in Vietnam in particular. The results of this research imply that successful firms are constantly creating and distributing new technological innovation and rapidly applying it to new technologies and products to have a better performance.