ناظمی

In recent management literature, organizations without strategy are known as ships without rudders that are unable to navigate properly in turbulent competitive environments. In the last few decades, educational institutions throughout the world have experienced increasing competitions from existing as well as new institutions. The emerging situation has forced them to think ahead of future by recognizing their internal situation, external position, and developing strategic plans.This study investigates internal and external factors of the faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad using a combined model of SWOT and Fuzzy approach.Following identification of IF/EF factors with the help of a decision team that was organized from faculty’s top management, fuzzy analytical hierarchy was used to rank factors in terms of their importance to the achiement of the faculty’s goals using QSB software. This article highlights some of the research findings including: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the faculty, and introduces typical strategies and their respective appropriate actions plans needed to achieve goals by executing proposed strategies.

The main objective of this study is to explore the areas of state support towards regional co-operative manufacturing firms. A sample of 96 manufacturing and mining firms that were selected through proportional sampling plan, were provided with a designed questionnaire based on the theoretical concept of the context as well as pervious research in the domain. The findings of the study revealed that 78 percent of co-operative firms have no record of receiving support from state administration offices. A comparison between actual services delivered to the firms by national or local state offices with the expected supports as suggested by their top mangers is an indication of significant gap. On the basis of the research findings however, such a gap is not identical for the four different categories of physical facilities, commercial, technological, and training services that are recognized widely as supporting areas.

With the increasing complexity and emerging challenges in the competitive environment, organizations are facing more difficulties to survive. The recent global financial crisis folloed by the worst economic recession since the Second World War that forced even giant organization like Chrysler and General Motors to leave the market, suggests that firms’ survival remains the primary concern of top managers throughout the world. The study is mainly concerned with the formulating and prioritizing of strategies of a regional power generator manufacturing firm that is thought to have significance impact on its performance. Data for our survey research was collected from a population consisting of firm’s top and middle managers, as well as its customers and suppliers using a designed questionnaire and semi-structured interview.Data analysis using appropriate statistics resulted in fifteen grand strategies in line with the firm’s goals and vision. Suggested strategies were also nanlyzed utilizing TOPSIS Model to provide the firm with information on the priorities of the strategies. Detailed report of the existing situation and proposed strategies were provided to assist top management in their decision making in dealing with the increasing environmental uncertainty.