نشریه مدیریت بهره وری
پیاپی 24 (بهار 1392)

The present article tries to measure and analyze the productivity of the selected developing countries during 1998-2007 through the use of data envelopment analysis method and Malmquist index, and then to examine the relationship between productivity and economic growth in the countries with high productivity growth. The results obtained from the study show that 17 countries have the efficiency rate under 0.9, and that from the viewpoint of technical efficiency, only Kuwait is placed on the boundary function of production. Also, from the viewpoint of management efficiency, countries such as Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Lithuania, Mongolia, Ukraine, and Tunisia have the highest rate of efficiency.

This research was carried out with the purpose of studying the structural model of the relationship of professional development, supervisor support and empowerment with job attitudes and organizational citizenship behaviors in Iran. The statistical population consisted of the employees of three industrial complexes in Esfahan, Dorrod and Shiraz, from among whom 899 were selected on the basis of stratified method and simple random sampling. Then, the research instruments, including Golparvar and Refiezadeh’s (2009/2010) organizational citizenship behaviors, job attitudes, professional development, empowerment, and supervisor support questionnaires, were administered to them. The data gathered from the research questionnaires were analyzed using structure equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that: 1) There is a direct significant relationship between professional development, empowerment and supervisor support with job attitudes (P

The present study tries to investigate the relationship between organizational health and personnel productivity of the staff working at Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, in the year 2012.The research method is of descriptive, correlational type, and from the viewpoint of objective,it is an applied study. The statistical poppopulation includes the personnel of Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch,totaling 745,from among whom a sample of 254 was selected by random-classified sampling method and through the use of Morgan’s table. The data collection tools include two questionnaires; i.e., organizational health questionnaire is a researcher-designed one based on ACHIEVE model, which includes such indices as decision credibility, vocational awareness, performance feedback, environment adaptability, work-place satisfaction, and motivation. The organizational health questionnaire is a standard one aiming at the assessment of the different dimensions of organizational health proposed by Parsons. These dimensions include institutional integrity, manager’s influence, considerateness, initiating structure, resource support, morale, and academic emphasis. For data analysis, after testing the normality of the data through the use of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the researchers applied single-group t-test and Pearson’s correlation test. The results indicated that the productivity of the personnel at Islamic Azad University of Tabriz is higher than average; that is, it can be considered desirable. However, the organizational health is lower than average, or at an undesirable level. Moreover, the results showed that there is a relationship between the dimensions of organizational health (institutional integrity, manager’s influence, considerateness, initiating structure, resource support, morale, and academic emphasis) and the productivity of the personnel.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of organizations has always been the concern of researchers. Hence, over the years numerous techniques for doing this have been proposed and used. One of the techniques that is widely used in various research areas and a high proportion of related scientific evaluation is data envelopment analysis (DEA). Besides, the insurance industry as a growing industry in the country has attracted the attention of researchers and administrators. Among the various issues in this area is the problem of performance evaluation and performance indicator. Because of the small amount of performance and its comparison in various branches and units, we can investigate different procedures in increasing the efficiency of the insurance branches and the steps taken to improve it. This study uses data envelopment analysis to measure the efficiency of insurance branches and after recognizing the efficient and inefficient offices by using technical tools, we have introduced the factors that are responsible for inefficiency of ineffective branches and finally we have presented some practical solutions to improve the performance of the insurance units.

Governments always use development programs and policy-making strategies in order to achieve their goals for development. In Iran, too, following the policies of other countries, several programs have been presented, and the prospective plan of the country has recently been compiled. In this model, universities have their special place as the center for scientific and technological development. In the current sensitive situation, universities can truly perform their mission in realizing the goals of the prospective plan only if they have proper performance. In the present study, by taking non-governmental universities into account and proposing a new approach, the researchers have compiled the promotion policies for the effectiveness of non-governmental universities based on the optimal use of their resources. The university resources have been considered in the three fields of human capital, relational capital, and structural capital in the research at hand, and accordingly, a questionnaire including 37 questions has been designed and distributed among the samples. Of the distributed questionnaires, 83 which had been filled out by university personnel and academic staff of the non-governmental universities of the country were returned. In this research, the relationship of the research variables has been studied through the use of structural equation modeling. The research has also revealed to some extent the other shortcomings of the non-governmental universities, and some suggestions have been presented for future researches in order to obviate them.

Globalization and competitiveness in the international markets have urged companies to encounter new challenges. Now, it is necessary that organizations understand the characteristics of global markets and customers. They also need to adapt their brands to different cultures in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. On this basis, understanding the relationship between market orientation and brand performance helps achieve greater competitive advantage and success. The present paper investigates the direct effect of market orientation on international brand performance. It also studies the indirect effect on international branding through brand oriention and brand repositioning. To this end, the top 100 branded manufacturing companies in Iran have been surveyed. The results of the Spearman correlation, multiple regressions and path analysis indicate a significant and direct as well as indirect effect of market orientation on the brand performance. Also, the significant effect of international branding as the intermediate variable was confirmed.

In the third millennium, higher education is moving from a single-function and single-institution entity toward the multi-function and multi-dimensional one. Therefore, it is confronting new challenges. The best possible safeguard against these challenges is quality. Thus, total quality management (TQM), with its considerable results in industry and business, is now entering the higher education system. Educational and research quality is one of the concerns of higher education systems, and universities have always struggled to attain it. The constant promotion of higher education quality requires educational assessment. During the past two decades noticeable attempts have been made in many countries to enhance higher education quality and to attain the objectives of higher education systems. The main objective of the present research is to determine the rate of university chancellors’ readiness to establish comprehensive quality and productivity management. In this study, the six principles of commitment, customer orientation, realism, collaboration, training, and continuous improvement have been considered as the TQM principles. The statistical population consisted of all the personnel of Islamic Azad University, Zanjan Branch, from among whom 111people were selected as the research sample through the use of random sampling method. For data analysis, Spss software was used, and the data were analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. The results indicated that the readiness of the personnel of the university under study to establish total quality management is not at a desirable level.

The aim of the present research is to design the algorithm of the cost management of a business entity in Tabriz Iran Khodro Industrial Group, and it involves the integration of the two methods of target based costing and value engineering. To do so, first a sample including 47 managers and specialists of Tabriz Iran Khodro Company were selected and a questionnaire was distributed among them. To test the hypotheses of the research, we used average population and ANOVA test. The results of the research showed that profit management and the type of relationship with materials and machinery suppliers for Tabriz Iran Khodro Company have a meaningful relationship with cost management including target costing and value engineering. But customer satisfaction and designing new products didnt have a meaningful relationship with cost management. Also, the results showed that regarding the respondent's viewpoints, using cost management technique cannot be a suitable alternative for the traditional costing system in Tabriz Iran Khodro Company. Finally, the research results showed that regarding the respondent's viewpoints, using cost management technique is not considered to be a necessity in Tabriz Iran Khodro Industrial Group.