نشریه اقتصاد و تجارت نوین
سال سوم شماره 2 (پیاپی 11، پاییز و زمستان 1386)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impacts of ICT's infrastructure and its use on economic growth (EG) in developing countries and Iran using the steady state growth theory. Panel data method is used to estimate the empirical models using data on a broad sample of developing countries, over the period 1995-2003.The findings of panel data approach confirm that non-ICT capital per capita has strong effect on the EG per capita. The estimated elasticity of non-ICT investment per capita is ranged between 0.1 and 0.13 estimating different models. Moreover, information density and ICT use density have a remarkable impact on the EG. The estimated elasticity of information density and ICT use density are 0.05 and 0.06, respectively. The impact of information density and ICT use density on the EG per capita has increased over the years, particularly from 1995 to 2003. The results of time series approach shows that the elasticity of information density and ICT use density are 0.09 and 0.08, respectively, using Iran's time series data.

Nowadays, the development of ICT has caused management environment of enterprises to use modern technology to improve their competitiveness in market. Using modern technology on the World Wide Web like electronic commerce (EC) to meet commercial objective creates significant changes in different part of an organization. EC maturity model enables the enterprises to cooperate with EC based on the degree of their EC readiness.In this article, we first differentiate two types of electronic maturity. They comprise service maturity and technology maturity. Then, we review electronic maturity of export-acting enterprises in Bushehr city of Iran. By measuring the level of electronic maturity of these organizations, we recognize the organization's ability to participate in international market and also design appropriate strategies. The results reveal that export-acting enterprises lay in the second level of readiness stages in Bushehr while the organizations deploy on the end point of the second level.

Along with huge popularity of online shopping and having 23 millions internet users in Iran, the country is going to have a large market for e-selling in the future. In the academic literature, website quality has generally been recognized as a critical step to drive online business. Numerous studies have been devoted to website quality and its evaluation. Although literature clearly shows that there is a relation between satisfaction and quality, it is important to study such relation in Iran's insurance corporations. A quantitative research is conducted through an online survey. Based on the literature review, a model with six website quality factors are designed to test this relation in insurance corporations. Moreover, e-Convenience and the customer satisfaction of payment method are included in the model as important external factors in order to examine the relation between these factors and customer satisfaction. The results shows that ease of use, quality of information, trust and e-Convenience are the main determinants of customer satisfaction.

External and environmental analysis are the main step of strategy formulation. Environmental monitoring assists to find the best opportunities and threats for companies. Based on Iran's rich petroleum and gas resources, petrochemical industries have an important role in Iran's economic development. Therefore, external analysis is quite necessary for this industry. In this paper, we study environmental analysis models. These models are divided into macro and micro models. We propose a three layered model for external analysis of Iran's petrochemical industry. The proposed model is essential for key management and finding opportunities and threats in Iran's Petrochemical development.

This paper aims to examine the factors affecting electronic services in banking industry of Iran. These factors are linked to theories such as the trust-commitment theory. The findings indicate that both trust and attractive factors have a significant and positive impact on customer commitment. The factors such as reasonable prices, ease of use and reputation attract customer to use internet banking services. Other factors such as low perceive risks, successful performance and technology orientation increase customer trust. Moreover, they have a significant and positive impact on internet banking usage. Finally, communication has a significant and positive effect on customer trust.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of factors affecting on the acceptance of electronic money (e-Money) using the data collected from the Saderat Bank customers of Iran. The relevant factors are divided into two groups. First group includes goals, stimulus and needs of customers while the second group covers psychological characteristics. In this study, technology acceptance theory is used to examine the behavior of the Sepehrcard users. A survey on 350 Sepehrcard holders has been conducted in order to identify the personal, economic and technological variables involved in e-Money use. Descriptive statistics as well as statistical inference are employed to find out the major factors influencing e-Money use. Then, the effective factors are ranked using Friedman test and AHP model. We found that personal and technological attitudes, ease of business, financial activities, and payment instruments are linked to Sepehrcard use. Moreover, the results show that the most important stimulus factor affects the acceptance of e-Money is risk loving.

The main purpose of this paper is to analysis the effects of merger, concentration and credit risk on the efficiency of Iranian banking industry. A Log - Linear form of a random Translog cost function are specified and then a parametric approach is used to estimate two empirical models using the bank's balance sheets data over the period 2001-2005.The results of the first model show that the average efficiency measure of banking system in Iran is 34 percent. Moreover, merger of the more inefficient banks within the efficient bank will cause the average efficiency measure rise to 50 percent. The results of the second model which assesses the effect of factors on efficiency indicate that efficiency of banks has an inverse relationship with the size of commercial banks (total asset), concentration (competition in banking industry), and a direct relationship to the number of branches, the number of educated personnel, IT index (e-Banking activity) and capital to assets ratio (as a credit risk index).

Network industries play a crucial role in modern life. The modern economy would be very much diminished with the transportation, communications, information, and railroad networks. Formally, networks are composed of links that connect nodes. It is inherent in the structure of a network that many components of a network are required to make provision for a typical service. Thus, network components are complementary to each other. In this paper I focus on pricing in network industries. To end this, this paper review the literature on pricing which includes Marginal Cost (MC) Peak Load, Two- Part Tariffs, Ramsey, Guaranteed with Best Effort, FDC, LRIC, ECPR and then considers the mobile phone services pricing system in Iran.

Progress in ICT has undoubtedly influenced all dimensions of human life. The application of this technology in health care system has huge advantages for both government and people. However, establishing electronic health (e-Health) in Iran has many challenges. Some of these challenges are due to the effects of ICT while the others occur because of the structural and social- economic conditions. In this article we survey literature along with international experiences on e-Health and then describe challenges of Iran's health system in establishing e-health. Due to the ambiguity of fuzzy and qualitative data, we transform these terms into quantitative terms by using fuzzy logic and then we use the data to rank the main e-Health challenges in Iran.

The benefits of entrepreneurship education in higher education are not limited to start-ups, innovative ventures and new jobs. Entrepreneurship refers to an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action and is therefore a key competence for all, helping young people to be more creative and self-confident in whatever they undertake. Therefore, entrepreneurship education aims to foster entrepreneurial culture.The objective of this article is to investigate the effect of entrepreneurship education on the improvement of entrepreneurial culture in Iran's Universities. Questionnaire method is used to collect the data required in this study. A sample of 278 students is selected to fill the questionnaire. Findings of this study confirm that entrepreneurship learning improves entrepreneurial culture in the universities.