Presenting the Maturity Model of Knowledge-based Companies in the Food Industry with the Approach of the Fourth-Generation Industry with Meta-Synthesis and Cross Impact Analysis

The food industry is one of the vital industries for the health and well-being of society. The aim of the current research is to provide a model of factors affecting organizational maturity in knowledge-based companies of the food industry in Iran with the approach of the fourth-generation industry. The research consists of two qualitative and quantitative parts, in the first part, the main and secondary factors of the model were obtained through metacomposition. In the second part, the relationships between the main factors were determined through cross impact analysis.

The current research is applied in terms of orientation and is a mixed study in terms of methodology. Also, the current research is a pragmatic study in terms of philosophical foundations and exploratory research in terms of the goal. The theoretical population of the research is the experts of the food industry and the sampling was mainly done in a judgmental and purposeful way. In the judgmental sampling method, cases and samples are selected based on the expertise of experts. In this research, the meta-synthesis method was used to extract factors and the cross-impact analysis was used to determine the relationships between the main factors. Validation of articles was done by CASP tool. The extracted articles were screened step by step to identify the most qualitative articles for study.In this research, meta-synthesis method was used to extract factors and cross impact analysis technique was used to determine the relationships between the main factors. In order to get experts' opinions about the relationships between the research factors, influence evaluation questionnaires were used. The experts were asked to express their opinions on a scale of 0 to 3. Also, to measure the validity of the meta-synthesis part, the Lawshe content coefficient was used, and the Kappa coefficient was used to measure the reliability of the codings. Validity and reliability values in this research were appropriate.

This research was done in two steps. In the first step, factors affecting organizational maturity were extracted using a systematic background review and meta-combination method. The output was 6 main factors and 27 secondary factors. The main factors affecting organizational maturity were: structural factors, training and learning, technological factors, factors related to the nature of governance, factors related to innovation, and factors related to decision-making. In the following, these factors were evaluated with the approach of structural analysis of cross impact analysis. The results of this technique showed that decision-making, structural and governance factors are effeinfluential variables. Also, technological and innovative factors were evaluated as impressionable variables.

Practical suggestions of the research were developed based on the influencing factors. Some suggestions were: the use of data-driven technologies such as business intelligence and big data to strengthen data-driven decision-making, paying attention to the compatibility and integration of technologies and information systems in knowledge-based companies in the food industry, and the use of technologies such as blockchain to improve governance and improve the transparency of knowledge-based companies in the food industry. By using technologies such as big data, a large amount of data can be collected and analyzed, and based on that, many risks and threats can be identified and managed. Business intelligence can be used to classify and predict key variables. Blockchain is also a key technology to enhance transparency and develop smart contracts. It should not be forgotten that the fourth-generation technologies are mainly integrated and systemic, so before the introduction of new technology, attention should be paid to system adaptation.