hossein rahmanseresht

Policies are the drivers for development. Timely and correct feedback from their evaluation can play a significant role to improve implementation and creating better results. Repetition the past approaches to implementation and evaluation development plans caused not change trends. Trends oscillation show the results is not in goal bound. So, keep this trends not successful for policy makers. This situation show there is not appropriate feedback structure between development plans implementation and evaluation, therefore evaluation process cannot produce requisite feedback for policymakers. Policymakers design corrective actions without pay attention to feedback. The current evaluation system contains some feedback, but these feedback are not accurate and in time. So, Implementation and evaluation of development plans with feedback structures are wider attention. This paper uses the system dynamics approach to design and simulation a model for development plans evaluation based on feedback loops. This study is a developmental research that used mixed research method to collect and analyze data. There are used to qualitative approach to identify variables and used to quantitative data to analyze variables behavior. Positive feedback loops are combined to design evaluation dynamic model by causal diagrams. Based on the model for effective evaluation should be evaluate results, capabilities and their cause and effect relationships. There are used actual data to run simulation for ensure the model effectiveness. The findings show that regulatory quality and rule of law are two key factors which can improve results. Therefore, policy makers should be concentrate to improve these variables and accentuate the causal relationship with other variables to boost plans performance. For this purpose, these variables should be considered as critical success factors in the formulating development plans. 

Public policy implementation is the most challenge stage in policy making process. Therefore, variety models have been developed for public policies implementation. Policy evaluation should be able to provide appropriate feedback to implementation for improvement and learning. Repetition the past approaches to evaluation development plans cannot change trends. Therefore, it is necessary to use a new approach to evaluate the effectiveness of public policies. This study used to the system dynamics approach for modeling and simulation development plans evaluation. Simulation helps to identify key variables for formulate corrective actions. The purpose of this model is to increase the evaluation capability to understand the causes for achieving the results. This model helps policy makers to formulate effective development policies.

According to the systemic view, feedback loops establish simultaneously with development. Feedback loops increase our ability to understand the structure and dynamics of the development system. System dynamics approach describes systems with feedback loops. So, this approach was used to simulate implementation and evaluation of development plans. This study is a causal study because considered cause and effect relationships and is a developmental study in terms of the purpose. This study used mixed research method to collect and analyze data. Qualitative approaches used to identify variables and quantitative data use to analyze variables behavior. Quantitative data obtained from the Iran Statistic Center and Central bank of Iran. Purposeful selection of participants is very important for understanding the research question in qualitative research. In this type of research, the proposed method to determine the number of samples is the saturation approach. So, data collection continues until the new data does not provide new perspectives about research question. The statistical population was managers and experts from responsible organizations for formulation, implementation and evaluation development plans and professors who were selected using judgmental sampling method. The method of data collection is done by the interviews and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

For understand the system’s behavior, the stock variables time series considering during the fourth and fifth development plans. These variables show oscillation behavior. Oscillation behavior means the current evaluation system cannot provide feedback for improve variables behavior. Positive feedback loops must be created for variables behavior to transform into a pattern of growth. Then positive feedback loops combination and design causal model for evaluation development plans. According to the proposed model, feedback link results to capabilities for effective implementation. This model emphasizes corrective actions should be developed well-set to gap, because the evaluation system can help to reduce the gap. The model simulation need to mathematical relationships. There was not equation between the variables. So, it was used regression to establish equations. Four scenarios were simulated based on the variables affecting gap reduction.
Continuation the current situation scenario: In this scenario, the variables simulated based on the calculated coefficients. The system behavior shows that if the current situation is maintained, the growth of variables will continue in the next years with a very low slope. According to the simulation results, the growth of variables will start with a delay, so the results follow the growth pattern after 1402.
Scenario1: In this scenario, regulatory quality and rule of law coefficient increased tenfold. Furthermore, the human resource empowerment coefficient increased 10% of Gap. Also, the coefficient between government effectiveness and ease of doing, which was negative based on calculations, turn to +1 for eliminate the effect of negative relationship. The results show all variables follow the growth pattern over the time with more slope than continuation the current situation scenario.
Scenario 2: The regulatory quality and rule of law coefficient increased twenty times. The results show stock variables follow the growth pattern. In fact, if the other relationships of the system do not change and only increase the coefficients of these two variables, they will cause to grow the system.
Scenario 3: According to the results of Scenario 2, in scenario 3, the regulatory quality and rule of law coefficient increased thirty times and other conditions were the same as Scenario2. The simulation result show that increasing these two variables has a significant effect on the growth rate of system variables and confirmed the findings of Scenario 2. The result show to concentrated innovations and efforts to improve two variables of regulatory quality and rule of law has a significant effect on the system and can guarantee system growth.

Findings show cause and effect relationship between outputs and inputs is necessary factor for design corrective actions to change system behavior. For this purpose, feedback should be used to improvement. In addition, feedback loops help to identify existing capabilities and how to change them to achieve goals. For effective evaluation the development plans should evaluate "results", "capabilities" and "their cause and effect relationship". This model shows the causal loops including regulatory quality, rule of law, ease of doing and Government effectiveness to cause the outputs and outcomes. Therefore, the causal relationship between these variables and other variables should be emphasized. For this purpose, these variables should be considered as critical success factors in the formulating development plans. So, policy makers should be formulate an improvement program for these variables. The proposed model helps policy makers to identify the causes of the results and to review the policy processes based on these causes.

In recent years, there have been more strategic approaches in accounting and management research to focus on potential connections between management control systems (MCS) and strategy for better performance in various organizational contexts. Research shows that within the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework, several organizations have achieved operational success by implementing and using MCS in line with organizational strategies. Much of the empirical research in this field follows a contingency approach and involves searching for systematic relationships between specific elements of MCS and the specific strategy of organizations. The focus of this article is more on the use of MCS than its design. According to the existing literature, MCS is mainly used in two types of management, namely diagnostic use and interactive use of MCS. These two applications determine how managers use their control systems to monitor the organization performance. Therefore, the impacts of diagnostic and interactive MCS applications on the relationship between strategy and organizational performance are examined here. This research has been conducted with the aim of investigating the problem of "how the use of MCS affects the relationship between business strategies and organizational performance". In order to expand the current understanding of MCS-strategy-performance relationships, the research is expected to achieve the following three

(i) To identify the nature of the mediating the effects of each MCS application (diagnostic application and interactive application) on the relationship between business strategies and the organizational performance of construction firms (ii) Gaining the knowledge of how business strategy affects organizational performance .(iii) Recognizing the interrelationships between the cost leadership strategy and the differentiation strategy.  Porter's framework of general strategies has been widely used as a basis for many studies and as the main typology of strategy in this research.

The current research is applied in terms of purpose, descriptive-correlational in terms of the nature of conduction, and a field study in terms of data collection. The statistical population included the senior managers of 500 construction companies in Razavi Khorasan. The statistical sample was determined based on Morgan's 220 sample table. Also, the simple random sampling method was used to determine the statistical sample size. Moreover, structural equation modeling (SEM) was done to test the path model, and Kolmogorov Smirnov test and multiple regression analysis were performed using the SPSS software to analyze the data.

The results of this study have significant theoretical and practical implications. The recent developments in accounting and management literature show strong claims about the fundamental importance of establishing a proper relationship between the use of MCS, business strategy and organizational performance. Since the past studies on the moderating effects of the two applications have not considered both diagnostic and interactive applications at the same time, the findings of this research are important. By testing the research hypotheses, this article has shown that the two applications of MCS significantly mediate the relationship between business strategies and organizational performance in construction companies. It can also be concluded that diagnostic use has a stronger effect on the cost leadership strategy in construction companies, while interactive use has a stronger effect on the differentiation strategy. Furthermore, it is concluded that the joint use of MCS has no harm, although the situation creates tension according to the conflict literature. It should be noted that the results of the first and the second hypotheses of the current research are consistent with the results of the studies by researchers such as Chebet et al. (2022) and Budiono et al. (2021). The results show a strong relationship between strategy and company performance. Also, in terms of the effect of the simultaneous use of diagnostic and interactive applications of management control systems on the relationship between strategy and performance, this research is similar to the one conducted by Arachchilage and Smith (2013) in Sri Lankan textile and clothing manufacturing companies.

Nowadays, for better performance in various organizational fields, there is a strategy-oriented approach focusing on the relationship between management control systems (MCS) and strategy. According to the existing literature, MCS is mainly under two types of management applications, including diagnostic application and interactive application of MCS. By using these two types of programs, managers determine how to use their control systems for the performance of the organization. Accordingly, we investigated the relationship between management control systems (MCS), business strategy, and organizational performance. To explain the results of this research, it can be stated that the two applications of management control systems (MCS) as mediating variables have a positive effect on business strategy and organizational performance. However, it was found that the mediating effect of the diagnostic MCS is more significant when the cost leadership strategy is used for organizational performance.Based on the results, some suggestions are made for future research. This research has brought important consequences for management performance. For better performance in the organization, it is necessary for the manager of the organization to implement a strategy-oriented approach in organizational activities by focusing on the potential connections between management control systems and strategy. Also, the manager should use a method of controlling systems to monitor the performance of the organization based on diagnostic or interactive management control systems (MCS). Diagnostic control systems enable the manager to control the status of different departments of the organization in terms of performance and health and eliminate the burdensome task of continuous guidance by managers. Interactive control systems require the attention and cooperation of all the members of the organization. Using the interactive control system, managers can set up dynamic plans with the cooperation of employees to react to environmental issues, threats and uncertainties.

The present research aims to develop the theoretical framework necessary to apply cognitive-behavioral approaches to decision-making as one of the crucial functions of managers in organizations through creating empirical evidence in managerial decision-making patterns under conditions of uncertainty. According to the cognitive-behavioral approach in this study, a behavioral task of decision-making under uncertainty is used in the Breadth/Depth balance framework. Sixty-two people (33 women) in two groups of subjects, including people with professional management experience (29) and people without management experience (31 people) have undertaken the task. Modeling the data obtained from the behavioral test using the linear regression method showed that the modeling using power models describes the data better than the linear model in both groups. In addition, examining the managerial decision-making pattern in the conditions of uncertainty using the Wilcoxon statistical test did not show any significant difference between managers and non-managers. The results show no significant difference between managers and non-managers in the Breadth/Depth where both groups tend to full breadth in low-capacity conditions, and as the capacity increases, they transit to more depth. Therefore, the trade-off can be considered a cognitive heuristic, due to which people show close to optimal behavior. Further efforts to improve the quality of managerial decision-making, especially in the Breadth/Depth frameworks formulated with the balance of breadth/depth, should be focused on analysis and intervention in essential cognitive functions.

Decision-making is assumed to be one of the most important functions of managers. So much so that the success or failure of the company can be considered to a large extent due to the quality of the decisions made by its managers. The development of methodologies in the field of organizational cognitive neuroscience (OCN) has created hopes for strategic management researchers to understand this managerial function and its dimensions and identify opportunities for interventions to improve it. Nevertheless, there is very little empirical evidence regarding the cognitive dimensions of decision-making in managers, and this has challenged the efforts to achieve the necessary theoretical basis for the development of tools and methods to improve decision-making. In this article and in an attempt to answer some part of this gap in the theoretical body, important processes affecting decision-making dysfunctions in two dimensions of time and uncertainty have been investigated. For this purpose, 62 subjects (33 female) in two groups of managers and people without a managerial background, randomly performed the Delayed Discounting Task (DDT) and Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). The results showed that there is no significant difference between managers and non-managers from the delayed discounting standpoint. Nevertheless, managers had a higher level of risk-taking than non-managers. The results of this study will help researchers in the field of OCN to better understand decision-making in managers and try to provide objective solutions to improve this cognitive function.

The purpose of this study is to develop A Model for the Resilience of SME's in black swan conditions with emphasis on the internal axes of the organization.

Design/methodology/approach: 

Research data in the content analysis section was collected through interviews with 26 licensed consultants from consulting, information and entrepreneurship services centers. Fuzzy Delphi technique was used to assess the adequacy of content analysis, in-depth understanding of expert opinions and reaching a general consensus. The output of this stage was 11 main categories and 25 sub-categories in two axes. The output of this stage was 11 main categories and 25 sub-categories in two axes. Structural-interpretive modeling technique was used to structure the research model, interpret the conceptual relationships and level the variables.

Categories of managerial schema, behavioral and professional competence in the field of senior management, as independent variables of Mic Mac in the third and fourth levels of the diagram and the axis of organizational capabilities including strategic orientation, reforming the structure and excellence of processes, promoting positive culture, financial system Accurate, well-organized human resources, appropriate market orientation, readiness of physical and information infrastructure and the use of information technology in the first and second levels of the diagram were placed in the group of dependent and linked variables.

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.

Apart from formulation step, effective implementation of public policies is a challenging phase in the public policy making process. So, several models have been developed to implement public policies in a way to achieve the highest success rate. Also, the management of opportunities and challenges play important role for achieving success in policy implementation step. In addition, the time interval between formulation and implementation phases creates a gap that can change policy goals. Continuous changes in implementation variables may cause this step encounter a high degree of uncertainty and complexity. These uncertainty and complexity require public policies being implemented intelligently and insightful. The ability to recognize possible changes needs appropriate plans for successful implementation stage of public policies. The purpose of this study is to design an organizational intelligence implementation model. In this qualitative research, we collected data by using semi-interviews with 12 academics and experts who were selected by judgmental sampling approach. Findings indicate that the model embrace 5 dimensions that covers causal factors, implementation context, intervention conditions, strategies and outcomes.

The main purpose of this study is providing a competency model for talent identification and succession in the National Gas Company. The research was conducted with a mixed approach. The statistical population in the quality department is the human resources managers of the gas company and 5 university professors and the sampling method is purposeful. In the quantitative phase, the statistical population consisted of the staff managers of the National Gas Company, selected by census method. The qualitative-phase data were collected by semi-structured interviews and a researcher-made questionnaire was also used in the quantitative phase. Data analysis was performed in the qualitative part by thematic analysis method and in the quantitative part by confirmatory factor analysis method by PLS software. The results showed that the competency model for the talent identification and succession planning includes three personal, interpersonal, and organizational dimensions, 8 components and 25 indices.

In the current era, innovation and innovation performance are inevitable in many organizations. Decentralization creates flexibility that enables companies to respond quickly to changing market, customer and technology needs. Employee involvement creates dynamism in the organization and absorptive capacity as an important indicator enables companies to acquire, absorb, transform, and exploit knowledge to maintain competitive advantage. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine organizational aspects such as decentralization, employee involvement, absorptive capacity and their interactions on the performance of business innovation and business performance. The research method was survey-analytical and using a questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient which was 0.943 and the validity was confirmed based on the content validity measurement and Lavche formula (CVR). The statistical population includes the staff of the General Department of Wagons. Using random sampling, 50 questionnaires were completed and analyzed by SPSS software. The results of the research show that decentralization, employee involvement and absorptive capacity are positively associated with innovation performance and innovation performance also affects business performance.

One of the major challenges facing performance appraisal based on the Balanced Scorecard approach is the lack of uniform integration and inference from understanding some of its indicators, which depend on the mental models of managers. Lack of proper understanding of organizational strategies and lack of common vision of these strategies is another challenge that must be minimized in order to properly implement this model. Therefore, the present study has tried to investigate the effect that decision makers' mental models have on performance appraisal indicators from the perspective of balanced scorecard and consequently on organizational performance, in order to create more development and enrichment in the scorecard model. Balanced in order to reduce the perceptual shortcomings and torsionality of some indicators in it, provided the possibility of better performance measurement in accordance with the mental models of evaluators and decision makers.

In this regard, the data required for the research were distributed and analyzed through two stage of pls software and it is a researcher-made questionnaire among the managers of the Refah Bank in Gilan province.

 The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were 0.895 and 0.603, respectively, and Cronbach’s alpha was 0.850. The results of this study indicate a strong and direct relationship between mental models and performance appraisal indicators from the perspective of a stable balanced scorecard as well as organizational performance. The dependence of more than 80% of the organizational performance variable on the subject mental model also shows the high impact of this index on it.

  The existence of an intermediate relationship between the index of mental models, and other sights of the stable balanced scorecard approach showed that this is an important factor affecting organizational performance and can improve and enhance organizational performance by influencing the views of the balanced scorecard.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the implications of the strategy of Value Co-creation in the educational services industry (specifically for students and educational institutions). Therefore, the first scientific contribution of this research is to provide a detailed study to examine the Value Co-creation in the field of educational institutions. The second part of this study is to identify the mutual consequences of using this strategy for customers (students) and educational institutions.

This research has been done in the framework of a qualitative approach. By determining criteria such as expertise and executive background or consulting in the field of educational services, 10 executive and academic experts, were selected by purposive sampling and interviewed by semi-structured method. The interviews were reviewed by content analysis method and in order to validate the results, the members review approach, researcher self-review and inter-coder reliability (0.79) were used.

In this study, out of 25 initial themes, 6 final themes were obtained, which were classified into two categories: benefits for educational institutions and benefits for students.

Findings showed that 1) relationship development, 2) Graduate Capabilities & 3) Rely on academic identity is the thems for students benefits in value co-creation. Furthermore, Findings showed that: 1) Marketing and Advertisement, 2) Improving the brand image of the institute & 3) Ensuring financial future is the thems for institute benefits in value co-creation.

The organizations of the present century are complex and are integrated systems consisting of processes, organizational units, people, information, and supporting technologies, as well as dependencies and connections between different elements. recognizing, engineering, and managing these social, technical, and infrastructural dimensions is critical to achieving and maintaining the efficiency of organizations. in recent years, the rapid and continuous course of events has gradually transformed the boundaries and dynamics of the business environment, and all institutions are increasingly confronted with new, unexpected, and far-reaching challenges. in dynamic markets, companies need to constantly explore new opportunities in addition to exploiting existing resources. therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of organizational ambivalence stimuli and drivers on individual ambivalent behaviors in order to fully benefit from the benefits and advantages of ambivalent for an organization. the present study has been conducted to address this research gap.

Previous research in the field of organizational ambiguity has emphasized the importance of organizational architecture, including 1 establishing separate task units focused on exploration or utilization, 2) integrating mechanisms that facilitate knowledge flows and coordination between units. this spatial and physical separation in different organizational units seeks to avoid friction between conflicting demands and interests between exploration and exploitation activities. the orientation of business units is towards exploration (for example, research and development unit) or exploitation and profitability (for example, production unit). the orientation of units should be aligned to reach organizational synergy. in addition to work ethic and discipline, individuals need access to sufficient resources to engage in exploration and exploitation activities. employees should have enough freedom to acquire the resources they want to advance their innovative actions across the organizational hierarchy. if such resources are provided, more exploration and for-profit activities will be possible. trust is another prerequisite for knowledge sharing and, as a result, knowledge flows are highly dependent on trust among all participants in the knowledge transfer debate. knowledge renewal and overflows from other people are of the main antecedents of exploration and exploitation activities.3- METHODOLOGY This study is a descriptive cross-sectional survey. and in regard to the application of the results, it is among the applied research. the statistical population of the study includes all 303 senior managers and experts of active knowledge-based companies located in sanandaj science and technology park. given the population size, the sample size was calculated and applied according to cochran's formula equal to 170. after distributing 181 questionnaires by simple random sampling method, 170 questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 94%.

In accordance with hypothesis 1, research results indicated that organizational architecture reinforces the use of individual dual power in knowledge-based organizations. therefore, it can be said that organizational architecture is capable of stimulating exploratory and for-profit behaviors. by integrating exploration and for-profit units, organizations perform both activities simultaneously and balance them within their borders through the active integration of senior management teams. the results of testing the second hypothesis indicated that the organizational context accelerates the use of individual duality in knowledge-based organizations. accordingly, it can be said that the organizational context can create a culture that everyone is trying to grow the other and help the development of the organization by influencing each other. these companies encourage employees to take creative action and cultivate a variety of perspectives that ultimately lead to larger perceptual mindsets and the achievement of original ideas.

Selecting the appropriate architectural framework has a significant impact on organizational productivity. a number of researchers have argued that sustainable organizational performance is dependent on exploiting existing capabilities and discovering new opportunities (i.e., dual power) in environmental dynamics and change. dualism is a concept that has been studied for years from the perspective of various fields including strategic management, organizational behavior, marketing, etc. however, overcoming ambiguity is not easy, as the explorative and for-profit behaviors often compete with each other. to cope with this situation, several organizational solutions have been proposed such as innovative culture. when managers create an innovative culture in their organizations, they must analyze the current state of exploitation and exploration activities, create a strategic profile of both, and identify their innovation goals. in fact, they have to consider their organization's future approach choose the right profile for exploitation and exploration to achieve their innovation goals.

International joint venture is one of the cooperation methods between firms which facilitate the formation of strategic alliance without a loss of corporate identity. Despite the high potential capacity of this method, a large number of joint ventures are unsuccessful and often fail in the implementation phase (Elmuti & Kathawala, 2001). The present study seeks to provide a model for key factors in successful implementation of international joint ventures, in order to help executives in the operation phase of their nominated strategy. To this end, firstly, we discuss the concept of international joint venture, strategic alliance and implementation of the strategy. Then, using qualitative research design and based on the experts' view, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with executives of automobile companies with a history of joint venture which were selected based on a theoretical sampling method. To analyze the collected data, MAXQDA software was employed. In conclusion, 8 main categories, 30 generic categories and 115 sub-categories out of 643 open codes were grouped, categorized and abstracted from the interviews. The key factors including: International joint venture strategy, joint venture requirements, corporate governance issues, establishing joint company, operation management, evaluation and feedback, continuation and environmental factors shape the conceptual model of this research.

As entrepreneurial teams are one of the main factors of success in startups, providing a comprehensive analyzing to identify the factors of entrepreneurial team composition to know the right composition of teams in startups ecosystem is necessary. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive analyzing of entrepreneurial team composition in start-ups. This research has done with a systematic review and Meta-synthesizes method and excluded 58 articles published in various scientific research between "1990-2019" about entrepreneurial team composition in startups and comparing with the previous model, provide a comprehensive analyzing for entrepreneurial team’s composition. This model includes 4 main factors, 10 concepts and, 34 codes, which main factrors are the heterogeneity of member characteristics, aggregated member characteristics, team structure, and turnover of team members. The results of this study are of significant use for stakeholders and activists of the startups ecosystem in Iran, especially in the field of evaluation of successful teams, as far as venture capitalists can use the analyzing result obtained in this study to understand the important factors affecting the success of start-ups in the world and take these factors into account in evaluating the composition of teams and increase their chance of investment.In addition, innovative teams can use the factors of this research as a basis for forming their teams.

This study examines the impact of participation of employee in decision making and strategic control on organizational politics and shows how organizational politics affects organizational performance. In order to do this, this study has modeled specific paths and directions in which organizational politics affects performance. While organizational politics is a common topic in the management literature, and studies have been conducted on the relationship between politics and organizational performance, previous research has done less empirical study of its antecedents. In this study, by examining the literature on organizational politics, two factors of employee participation in decision-making and strategic control were selected as preconditions for political behavior so that the proposed model in this study can better understand the impact of organizational components of employee participation. And provided strategic control over organizational politics and subsequent organizational performance. The findings of this study, by analyzing the data obtained from the regional electricity and electricity distribution companies, show that at high levels of employee participation in decision-making, along with appropriate strategic controls, organizational politics is weakened. Lower organizational politics improves organizational performance.

Most of international strategic alliances are failed due to weak choices and decisions about corporate governance. Todays, as alliance formation is an effective strategy for the competitiveness of Iranian firms and products in international markets; the explanation of foundations and requirements of governance system has a very important role on improvement of operational potency of Iranian alliances with foreign partners. Current research using grounded theory with explorative approach is aimed to present a model for corporate governance in international strategic alliances. The required data were collected from 11 strategic alliances between Iranian and non-Iranian partners. The research model includes interactions between international requirements, conditions of strategic alliance formation, partnership design and expectations of stakeholders which affect corporate governance of international strategic alliances, and optimum decisions in this matters, improved durability and endurance of strategic alliances.

Today technology is a way to advance and implement strategy in businesses. Because it stimulates the company to innovate and grow continuously. Given the competitive environment of today's businesses, it is essential to pay attention to it. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate how to enable strategic orientation in innovation-based ecosystems in technology-based business in Iran to provide a suitable theoretical and practical framework for businesses. The research community consists of companies active in the aerospace, stock and parts industries. For this reason, three companies in the three mentioned areas have been selected and examined by multiple case study with Eisenhardt method. The results show that market orientation, interactive and entrepreneurial orientation strengthen the innovation ecosystem. In addition, strengthening the innovation ecosystem in each of the areas studied in this research, leads to business development and market expansion. Therefore, this research proposes a strategic framework for transforming innovation into market performance.

Today, the use of strategy consultancy in most organizations is not a choice, but a necessity. Strategy consultants have irreplaceable role in the success of organizations. Competency and competency-based management has been considered widely in recent years. Despite this fact, less attention has been paid to competencies of strategy consultants. This study aims to discover the competencies, determine the relative importance of each competency and finally suggest a comprehensive competency model for strategy consultants. So a mixed (qualitative-quantitative) research was conducted. At the first stage (qualitative research) based on the data approach of Glaser grounded theory and through deep interviews with 21 experts in strategy consulting, 25 competencies of strategy consultants were identified. At the second stage (quantitative research), by fuzzy Dematel method, relative importance of these competencies and the relationships between them have been identified and finally a comprehensive model has been presented. Among the important results of this research is that at the level of main categories, personality competencies and at the level of sub-categories, management and organizational knowledge, strategic thinking, mindfulness and leading the leaders are of the highest importance and effectiveness.

The use of intuition and intuitive decision-making as an effective management factor has attracted increasing attention in scientific circles and research at the global level. This research, stating the essential role of intuitive decision-making in today's complex world and using a quantity model based on uncertainty, attempts to provide an effective model for enhancing the effectiveness of intuitive decision-makers and identifying the best intuitive decision in proportion to an optimal model. To achieve this goal, first an intuitive decision-making model based on four of its constituent elements and then a non-linear programing model of intuitive decision-making based on Dempster-Shafer's theory that uses mathematical techniques are presented. In the next step, a practical real-life modeling that utilizes mathematical methods to solve the research problem has been put into effect. This model, in situations where the data are ambiguous and a logical basis is missing, can be a good solution for reducing the potential risks of intuitive decision-making. In fact, in this model, by aggregating the opinions of experts (organizational decision makers), a reference model is proposed that can be used as a basis for making intuitive decisions.

In the past few decades, environmental concerns about the industries’ activity have made green management popular among different companies and led these companies towards gaining a competitive advantage. In order to decrease costs and increase their distinctness, companies seek for valuable and unique green resources and capabilities which help them to achieve a higher performance and also create an environmental responsibility attitude. This research investigates the companies’ response to green management pressures by integrating dynamic capability approach and institutional theory. This research is an applied one conducted by descriptive survey method and using a questionnaire. The research population includes all the metallurgy industry companies attending the 14th international metallurgy exhibition in 2017. 140 companies were selected as the sample by random sampling. Data analysis was done based on variance-based structural equations modeling by using partial least squares in SPSS and PLS. The research reliability and validity were evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha, combined reliability, convergent and divergent validity. The results suggest that strategic flexibility has a positive effect on adoption of green management activities. Meanwhile, organizational legitimacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between adoption of green management practices and competitiveness.

Nowadays, companies try to perform green management practices in accordance with business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Luchs et al, 2010). On the other hand, international studies have mostly approved the positive effects of green management on competitiveness. Nevertheless, from classic economy viewpoint, companies avoid investing on environmental protection; because it provides no benefit for them and also prevents their future development by decreasing their strategic resources (Hart, 1995). Therefore, this issue should be investigated more carefully. Since business ethics are usually determined by cultural and institutional factors, green issues can be interpreted in the context of cultures or institutions in a different manner. However, most of the previous studies have investigated the effects of Green Management (GM) on developed economies (Tan and Wang, 2011). So, the factors facilitating or inhibiting the adoption of Green Management Practices (GMP) and their results in companies of developing economies such as Iran have not been recognized. This research seeks three goals. First, the effects of strategic flexibility on adoption of green management practices in the company are investigated by a dynamic capability approach. Second, a specific condition is considered in the framework of the moderating variable in order to determine the changed effect of strategic flexibility on adoption on green management practices under that condition. Also, it is investigated whether adoption of green management practices improves the company competitiveness by its mediating role or not. Furthermore, the ways in which green management affects the company competitiveness are also discussed.

This research is an applied one conducted by descriptive survey method. The research population includes all the metallurgy industry companies attending the 14th international metallurgy exhibition in December 2017. Based on Morgan table, 140 companies were selected by random sampling. Either the company’s managing director or the senior expert has been selected out of every company. The main data collection tool is a standard questionnaire measuring strategic flexibility based on six indicators included in the research performed by Sanchez (1995) and Zhou & Wu (2010). Institutional support was measured by seven indicators based on the studies conducted by Li and Atuahene-Gima (2001) and Lin and Ho (2011). Six indicators were used for measuring adoption of green management practices based on the studies performed by Marcus and Fremeth (2009) and Lin and Ho (2011). Organizational legitimacy was measured by seven indicators based on Elsbach’s study (1994). Company competitiveness was measured by five indicators based on the research conducted by Wu (2008) and Wu et al (2008). In this research, the hypotheses and the research model have been tested by variance-based structural equations by using partial least squares in SPSS and PLS.

It can be claimed that the findings have helped the completion of business ethics and green management literature in different ways and investigated more aspects of the relationship between strategic flexibility and green management. The results suggest that strategic flexibility has significant positive effects on adoption of green management practices in developing economies such as Iran. This finding is consistent with the results of the studies performed by Yung et al (2015), Dyer (2009), Ragman and Warbeck (1998). Furthermore, regarding the suggested positive effect of flexibility in business ethics and economy, the findings enrich the strategic flexibility literature. For a more effective confrontation with uncertainty of the result and minimizing the resource deficiency, strategic flexibility can help these companies in dynamic and quick response to changes in business environments caused by green issues. In other words, companies with higher strategic flexibility can easily match their use of resources with new applications and increase the use of green management practices in this way. Findings suggest that in spite of the approved positive moderating role of institutional support in studies conducted by Peng and Leo (2000), Wright et al (2005), and Yung et al (2015) who claim that institutional support is considered as a critical institutional factor affecting the corporate behavior, this research has not approved this moderating role and the results are consistent with the studies performed by Perry et al (1998). Furthermore, there is a positive relationship between adoption of green management practices and company competitiveness; this finding is consistent with the results of the research performed by Reteb et al (2009). The other issue is providing a deeper understanding of the role and nature of organizational legitimacy. The findings suggest that there is a more complex relationship between green management and company competitiveness that has been proposed organizational legitimacy as a strengthening mechanism. The obtained result is a reflection of the expectation of Mangousa et al (2010) about the strengthening role of legitimacy in the relationship between adoption of green management practices and economic outcomes.

Studies suggest that there are rare research works in the country investigating the role of green management and the effects of green management practices on competitiveness. Also, the studied population and the statistical techniques are considered as the innovations of this study. In this research, internal (dynamic capabilities) and external (institutional theory) approaches have been integrated respectively for explaining the factors affecting the changes in adoption of green management and the effects of green management practice on competitiveness. Particularly, based on mediating and moderating methods, some hypotheses were raised for explaining the reason for the difference between the extents of green management adoption in two companies with similar capabilities that achieve different extents of competitiveness improvement by adopting similar green strategies. The experimental results approve the business ethics approach suggesting that green management improves not only the company competitiveness, but also the corporate social responsibility. According to the results, strategic flexibility has had a positive effect on adoption of green management practices. Meanwhile, organizational legitimacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between adoption of green management practices and competitiveness.

With the advent of the Internet and the IT revolution in recent decades, startups can create new business opportunities around innovative ideas. As startups are tied to technology, they have become a driving force in the economies of nations. However, their high failure rates indicate that failure is part of the startup ecosystem and they are inevitable, and because of the limited resources and time of the startups, a failed project can get them out of business. According to recent research, most startups are more vulnerable in the early stages of their life-cycle, and investigating the factors affecting the resilience of startups throughout the life-cycle of innovation can reduce their failure rates. By conducting a multi-case study of PayPing, Achareh, Ubaar, and Keshmoon that have successfully played out their startup life cycle, analyzing the content of the data collected through interviews by Atlas.ti, the startup resilience model in the ICT industry was extracted. The findings show that the startup resilience model has three dimensions of challenge (with product, market, team, financial and legal challenge components), action (with pivot, value proposition, lean customer creation, platform building, internal action and external action), and progressing factor (with team key capabilities and startup ecosystem).

Currently, none of organizations can satisfy its stakeholders and customers by simply emphasizing its unique capabilities and assets. In fact, organizations work together and cooperate to provide distinctive products and services to customers.In this paper, the value network framework in banking industry is examined based on 33 banking experts’ opinions using one sample t-test to investigate the validity of model elements and using interpretive structural modeling (ISM) on the opinions of the same sample extracted from matrix questionaire, for analyzing the relationships among the elements. According to the research findings, the value network model of banking industry is drawn in four levels, in which, in the first level, "Value Creation in Banking Value Network"; in the second level, "Bank Interactions with Stakeholders"; in the third level, "Bank as the Core of Value Network", "Banks' Internal Conditions", "Banking Rules and Policies" and "Competition in Banking Industry"; and finally, "Bank Assets", "Changes in Banking Industry", "Macro-conditions in the Country", "Iran Banking Industry" and "Customer Needs and Characteristics" are placed. The results show that environmental and contextual elements, especially banks’ internal conditions, play the important role in value co-creation in banking industry.

Today, we are under the immense siege of luxury goods, the consumption of manifestations and the abundance of services, objects and commodities. Sociological literature increasingly emphasizes the importance of how and how to use luxury goods in shaping social relationships and relationships. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between social psychological characteristics and their intention to purchase through keep up with the Joneses. The research method was correlation. For data collection, valid questionnaires were used. The statistical population of this research is the twenty-five year old married women who have been selected by random sampling method in Sanandaj city. Structural equation modeling and PLS software were used to investigate the relationship between variables. Regression and Sobel tests were used to test the mediation. The results of the study showed that there is a significant relationship between the variables in question; however, the role of mediation between the eyes and the eye was not confirmed in the relationship between social psychological characteristics and purchase intention. In the end, it can be said that individual and cultural characteristics affect the values of women and their motivations and beliefs about goods, including the purchase of luxury goods.

Nowadays the concept of Human Resource Branding and Human Resource Brand Management have been used to illustrate the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices in organization foundation, human resources structure, and providing an excellent work environment. The purpose of this study is to design a model for branding of the HR system. Design/Methodology/Approach

This research is carried in a qualitative framework applying the grounded theory research database. In order to collect data, the available literature from discussions on employee, employer brand and human resources branding is evaluated and the 2019th best companies in this area was outlined according to the Sunday Times magazine. Semi-structured interview have been designed using a targeted sampling method with 30 human resource managers, human resource specialists and staff members. Data analysis was performed in three stages: 1.open coding, 2.axial coding and 3.selective coding.

The results show that 260 codes or initial concepts, 85 concepts and 23 categories have been extracted from surveys and interviews that are based on a paradigmatic model including the main category (human resource system), causative conditions (internal brand, organization brand, Senior management support, talent identification), the platform of the ruler (the attitude of the staff to the organization and the staff towards the employees, the alignment of the resource system with the organization's strategy, the competitive environment and the dynamic environment), the conditions of the intervention (uncontrollable prone to talented staff, -Not application of existing human resources system, organizational imbalance, inappropriate performance management, personal behaviors in the organization, organization culture), strategies (Human resource management, process strategy), and outcomes (individual, organizational, national, and international).

Attracting foreign investment is one of the most important policies of the Iranian government for improving economic conditions. Nevertheless, despite the government and the Ministry of Industry's emphasis as well as the efforts of Iranian companies to attract foreign partners, this is less common in Iranian home appliance industry, which indicates the risks for foreign investors. Accordingly, the present study aims to identify and model the risks that foreign investors face through a Strategic Alliance with local companies in the Iranian home appliance industry. Hence, the Strategic Alliance risks are investigated through semi-structured interviews with 20 industry experts and the use of qualitative content analysis, and next, the extracted factors are validated by the academic and industry experts' views using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The final model is proposed using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). The research results demonstrate 9 major risk factors in the formation stage, 13 risk factors in operational stage and 6 risk factors in the termination stage of strategic alliance lifecycle. One of the significant findings of this study is that the political, legal and economic risks of Iran are the main risk factors for foreign companies in all three stages of strategic alliance lifecycle in Iran.