فهرست مطالب عاطفه طالب نژاد

The study seeks to identify how Iranian consumers (Isfahan as the case study) perceive archetypes. Drawing on the Theory of Shape Symbolism, the study also addresses geometric shapes as potential elements in conveying archetypal meaning to the brands. Findings from several preliminary studies and seventy-seven semi-structured in-depth interviews in the main study revealed that, in spite of some similarities, Isfahan citizens are somewhat different in their perception of archetypes compared to western consumers. Moreover, the most and the least fitting shape(s) with each archetype were identified. Respondents’ archetypal associations with shapes are based on both intrinsic meaning stemming from shape’s attributes such as symmetry, angularity and number of sides, and referential meaning of shapes. In contrast to the existing literature on geometric shapes, angularity is not the only shape characteristic to affect archetypal associations and is not proved influential in all archetypal perceptions. The results of the present study are invaluable in brand meaning management in general, and for branding and advertising in particular.

One of the most important decisions companies should make in the process of selecting strategies to enter foreign markets is the extent to which they intend to control themselves and the extent of such international activities they choose to leave to other parties. Having comprehensively reviewed the related literature، the following 12 variables explaining the degree of tendency among companies to control their international activities were proposed: uncertainty of target country، uncertainty of the product market، competitive uncertainty، uncertainty of potential partners'' behavior، international know-how experience، marketing skills، total amount of investment، competition intensity in the given industry، nature of the foreign (trade) activity، size of the firm، and finally، business relatedness. To test the research hypotheses، data were gathered from 150 experts in 42 food exporting companies in Mazandaran province. The results of data analysis demonstrated that except for uncertainty of potential partners'' behavior، other variables could appropriately explain the control variable.

Business incubators are recognized as important tools for promoting entrepreneurship development and wealth creation through supporting small and medium knowledge-based enterprises. This study aims at developing a framework for evaluating the incubators’ performance on four major dimensions, namely infrastructure, management and staff practices, business services, and outputs. To test the proposed model by using a correlational research method as a quantitative research, an author-made questionnaire (with reliability coefficient of 0.9343) surveyed opinions of 101 respondents from 7 incubators selected from all active technology incubators in Iran. SEM tests confirmed overall goodness of fit of the model and hypotheses tests showed significant differences in the range of incubators, performance. It is suggested that benchmarking, networking with universities, public and private institutions, and a holistic approach to incubation may improve incubators’ performance.

Business incubators are now recognized in both developed and developing countries as important instruments for promoting entrepreneurship development and technological innovation especially at the small and medium enterprise level. Development and proliferation of business incubators has generated an intense debate around their performance and usefulness between opponents and advocates of these organizations. Differing in perspectives, researchers have used different groups, point of view to evaluate incubators performance. They have also limited their studies to particular type of incubators. Reviewing relevant literature in Iran and the world, this article has provided an integrated multidimensional framework to evaluation of incubators performance. The proposed framework suggests the performance of incubators can be evaluated in four areas: Management and staff, infrastructure, services and outputs. Performance in management and staff can be assessed in terms of management functions and learning and growth, in infrastructure in terms of location and space, and facilities, in service area in terms of business start up and business assistance, and performance in output can be evaluated in terms of business (companies), products (and/or services) and people. To evaluate each area of performance, generic measures have been derived from literature. The proposed framework can be used as a useful tool and a guideline to evaluate incubators performance by their managers, stakeholders and sponsors, particularly in Iran, in order to internal and external benchmarking and rising competition among and promoting competitiveness of incubators.