Iranian Journal of Management Studies
Volume:16 Issue: 2, Spring 2023

As economic drivers (especially in rural communities), touristic villages have faced a very difficult situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sluggish tourism industry has greatly impacted the income of rural communities that depend on tourists who visit them. This study aims to understand and explore how the Penglipuran tourism village community survives amid the sluggish tourism industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The unit of analysis in this study was the Penglipuran Bali tourism village community, which is included in the Top 100 World Sustainable Destinations. This case study used a qualitative approach to both data collection and data analysis. Observations and semi-structured interviews were used to obtain information. The study results found that the indigenous people of the Penglipuran tourism village are willing to change and are adaptive to cultural changes to use technology without eliminating traditional norms to survive in sluggish tourism. The habit can be seen in the activities of indigenous people who return to farming and raising livestock as well as utilizing social media and e-commerce in marketing tourism villages’ products, including local handicrafts.

This study was focused on addressing the comprehensive issue of sustainability with special emphasis on sustained earnings as a measurement of earnings. The research work attempted to define the operating and non-operating elements of the earnings model and then examine the variations in the normal profit margin. The sustained earnings were also estimated separately by adopting the Firm-Related Approach and Industry-Based Approach. Dynamic Panel Data-based approach was used for analysis. Findings suggested that the operating elements of earnings are significantly higher than the non-operating elements. In addition, measures related to the intensity of operating earnings were positively associated with sustained earnings. Therefore, this study contributes sizeable evidence on sustained earnings of the financial service sector of the Indian stock market and can potentially be of extensive use to investment companies for managing investors’ funds, security analysts, investors, and firms.

There are studies regarding monopolistic all-unit quantity discount but we add the duopoly Bertrand competition under incomplete information with it, which is not treated earlier. Then, a systematic procedure is outlined to compute pay-off functions for the developed game. A real numerical example is given in support of the solution procedure and a sensitivity analysis is carried out to examine the important parameters on the equilibrium quantities. This study provides several interesting insights. For instance, it is approved that if retailers know each other completely or not, under some special conditions, rejecting the offered discount is the strictly dominant strategy adopted by the retailers. By doing sensitivity analysis for a real-world case, it is displayed that for maximizing profit, the company should pay more attention to increasing the demand rather than reducing the costs. It could be seen that a change in the value of all parameters except the fixed ordering cost and the holding cost rate results in changing the discount strategy selected by the retailers. Investigating an incomplete information in comparison with the common knowledge case, it is necessary that retailers obtain more accurate knowledge about their rivals.

Behavioral intentions of individuals occur as a result of positive or negative evaluations of any object or idea. It is a determinant that has a significant impact on transforming an individual’s ideas into behavior. The structure and effectiveness of information in financial markets are vital to understanding the behavior of investors, because the digital economy that develops with crypto money is psychologically significantly different from the cash economy. Accordingly, this study examined the main intentions or motivational factors that persuade individuals to invest in cryptocurrencies and the way these factors affect the actual investment behavior. This was done in the context of behavioral considerations in finance through the Unified Technology Acceptance Model (UTAUT). As a result of the model estimation, it has been concluded that the performance expectation is an important factor behind the investment behavior, and its effect changes considering positive or negative news about the pricing of cryptocurrencies.

This study aims to establish a relationship between HRM and innovation studies through human capital characteristics in order to achieve a better understanding of HRM’s supportive role in innovation realization aligned with knowledge-based services. The study provides a new model of coordination between innovation modes of service sector firms and HR configuration adopted for managing people in these firms. By gathering data about the main variables from 132 Iranian knowledge-based service firms with more than 30 employees, all located in Tehran province (selected through systematic sampling), the status of every firm in the field of innovation mode and HR configuration was determined. The hypotheses were tested using contingency tables and binomial test. After testing hypotheses, it was found that the strongest alignment exists between market-oriented innovation and productivity-based HR configuration (at about 53%). The average value for the human capital characteristics in firms that had two mentioned statuses were more than another three statuses. To achieve ideal human capital management, managers of KBSFs need to pay more attention to the compatibility of their HR configurations with innovation modes of KBSFs in order to approach the satisfactory productivity level seen in such firms.

Though the customer experience and its components are measured to define, the antecedents and dimensions of customer experience require a comprehensive assessment in developing countries such as Iran. For this purpose, 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with the passengers of different Iranian airlines. In this attempt, seven dimensions of customer experience were identified – including sensory, emotional, cognitive, recognition, security, novelty, and relationship dimensions – through thematic analysis method. To identify the factors affecting the passenger experience, a list of factors was initially extracted from previous studies. The impact of the ambiance inside the airplane, marketing programs, staff, scheduling, planning and management actions, the scope of passenger choice, and physical facilities were extracted through the fuzzy Delphi method according to 10 experts’ views. The purposed method and the findings therein would contribute to the efforts of researchers and marketing practitioners, airline managers, and travel agencies in identifying the existing challenges in the airline industry besides planning to develop modern airline infrastructure and competitive differentiation.

Analyzing the event logs extracted from the process-aware information systems provide critical insights into improving the organizational processes. This case study reports the essential findings and lessons from a process mining project run in analyzing the postdoctoral research grant process in Iran’s National Elites Foundation (INEF). Different deductions are reached by exploring the process participants’ activities in the INEF web portal, including (1) the organizational inefficiencies exposed through the process mining techniques, where the most time-consuming activities are detected and suggested to the domain experts, and (2) the decision tree technique applied in determining how the successful applicants are scored. The extracted rules indicate an 18% application admission with a final score of more than 403. This article contributes to interpreting the behavioral patterns in INEF and determining who among the applicants has a higher chance of receiving the grant, supporting the policymakers and managers to assign rational budgeting and adopt appropriate human resource strategies.

Internationalization is one of the most critical indicators for universities, and universities are the main players in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Although many studies have focused on the components of internationalization, so far off little attention has been paid to the role of entrepreneurship in university development simultaneously with the mediating role of education. Therefore, the present study set out to investigate whether internationalization affects the entrepreneurial university with the mediating role of education in Iranian universities or not. To collect data, a questionnaire was distributed among 171 individuals, including managers and faculty members in the fields of international activities and entrepreneurship. The findings suggest that the components of internationalization, including technology, human resources, finance, communications, and innovation, all have a positive impact on an entrepreneurial university as mediated by education. The human resource management component has the greatest impact on an entrepreneurial university with a mediating role of education. In addition, findings show that universities need to focus on the internal activities, more resources, and executive agents to find a better position. In this way, they can identify significant resources that can be used to develop universities.

The present study was conducted in order to develop an integrated marketing mix based on industrial customer behavior in the oil products market. The statistical population consisted of experts and managers of oil industry, from among which a sample of 15 people was selected using purposeful techniques. Semi-structured interviews were performed for data collection, and data analysis was based on grounded theory via axial, selective, and open coding process. The resulting model was ultimately identified as a template for integrated marketing mix model based on the industrial customer behavior. The findings showed that for the development of an integrated marketing mix based on the development of industrial customer behavior, industry managers should closely consider all categories and subcategories distinguished in this study and obtain adequate information about all of them. Besides, this study shows that there is a need to pay attention to the development of an integrated marketing mix based on the behavior of industrial customers.

The banking industry staff gained valuable experience during the COVID-19 epidemic. The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of Coronavirus on employee behavior in the COVID-19 epidemic. To achieve this goal, a study with a qualitative approach and with a phenomenological strategy was conducted. In this study, two main categories of intrapersonal reactions and interpersonal responses were characterized, with the former including six subcategories (negative emotions, change in structure of needs, obsession, stress, fear, and disruption in organizational commitment) and the latter involving three subcategories (abnormal social behavior, abnormal occupational behavior, and abnormal communicative behavior). The variables of fear, stress, burnout, and aggression were exposed to the highest frequency. This study showed that upon the occurrence of novel crises, the organizations should take strategies based on crisis management, e.g., immunizing the workplace, showing emotional and financial support to the personnel, and asking the personnel to change their behavior as members of the community.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of bankers’ behavioral biases on credit risk management. We examined whether and how individual emotional biases (i.e., loss aversion, optimism, overconfidence, and cognitive dissonance) affect the banks’ credit risk policy, including the risk assessment methods (i.e., quantitative vs. qualitative methods). Based on a sample of Tunisian banks, the results showed that the bankers’ emotional biases affect their preferences regarding the choice of credit risk assessment methods. The findings revealed that optimist, loss-averse, and overconfident bankers are more likely to adopt quantitative methods such as scoring when they assess the credit risk. The bankers with high cognitive dissonance, however, were found to have a high preference for a qualitative approach.

The popular conceptualization of the Information Systems variable Cognitive Absorption (CA) has five dimensions- Focussed Immersion (FI), Temporal Dissociation (TD), Heightened Enjoyment (HE), Control (Con), and Curiosity (Cur). The authors address the gap in the literature on absorption and flow experience in Social Networking Sites (SNS) use by exploring the dimensions of the construct, their relationships among each other and with user beliefs, and to continued use of SNS. Data collected from a sample of 448 Indian social media users was analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. The results showed that Perceived Ease of Use of the system increases Curiosity, Control and Heightened Enjoyment for users. Curiosity and Heightened Enjoyment emerged as the strongest predictors of reuse intentions, along with Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use. However, Focussed Immersion, Temporal Dissociation and Control were not found to influence Continuance Intentions in an SNS context. The study’s findings strengthen the understanding of hedonic system reuse intentions from an intrinsic motivational perspective. Practitioners can use the insights to design SNS to tap into the salient motivational factors and thereby enhance revisit intentions.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between energy prices (oil and natural gas) and individual investor sentiments on the Tehran stock exchange. Oil and natural gas are two strategic commodities among the world’s most important energy sources. Energy price fluctuations, directly and indirectly, affect the economy and financial markets, especially those oil-exporting and importing countries. We monthly examined the relationships between energy prices and investor sentiment using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique from 2010 to 2020. The results showed that crude oil prices positively affect investor sentiment both in the long and short run, which is consistent with the oil-exporting structure of the Iranian economy. Moreover, the results demonstrated neither a short-run nor a long-run association between gas prices and investor sentiment. The study’s findings suggest that oil prices could be used to predict investor sentiments and optimize an investor’s portfolio.

The current study investigated whether the cognitive neuroscience dimension affects auditors’ judgment in an increasingly competitive emerging audit market. In addition, other influential dimensions, including “identity characteristics,” “biological characteristics and moral values and spirituality,” and “environment” were also considered. The research was a descriptive survey, and the statistical population consisted of independent auditors. The field survey and questionnaire were used for data collection. The results generally showed that the cognitive neuroscience dimension affects auditors’ judgment positively. Among the examined factors, “the auditor’s selectivity about which problems to solve,” “the auditor’s level of attention,” and “the level of concentration” were the most important factors. In addition, other investigated dimensions, including “identity characteristics,” “biological characteristics and moral values and spirituality,” and “environment,” were considered influential factors. The findings imply that different neuroscience factors that require more research in this area affect auditors’ judgment and performance. Studying cognitive neuroscience factors as a novel stance to the audit literature can help auditors improve their professional judgments and opinions, resulting in reduced audit risk and increased audit quality. It can also help develop a new era in interdisciplinary studies via associating decision-making with cognitive theories and implementing neuroscience related technologies.

The present study aimed to investigate the asymmetric effects of board gender diversity (BGD) and board financial expertise (BFE) on firm performance, riskiness, and working capital management (WCM). Using panel quantile regression and unbalanced panel data of energy firms in Pakistan over the period 2010 to 2020, the findings suggest that female directors on boards are weak monitors and their presence is merely symbolic. There is no significant effect of BGD on firm performance or WCM. Their incapability to restrict managerial opportunism promotes excessive risk-taking in the firm. On the other hand, financial experts on board uplift low- and moderate-performing firms and restrict the risk-taking behavior when the riskiness of the firm reaches a certain level. Furthermore, they improve the working capital of the firms when aggressive WCM policies are pursued by firms’ managers.