پژوهش نامه مدیریت تحول
سال چهاردهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 27، بهار و تابستان 1401)

Based on science and technology, the economy of today's world is prosperous and competitive. In the meantime, knowledge-based firms emerged with large profits and high added value; the firms that are founded on utilizing knowledge-based ideas, creativity, and innovation. Therefore, at the global level, firms adopt various strategies to increase the effectiveness of scientific and technological activities, improve performance, and transfer their achievements to the industry and market. Knowledge-based firms are considered research organizations that, to fulfill their mission, should provide a suitable platform to facilitate the commercialization of their research findings in addition to developing new technologies. Reviewing the studies conducted on the growth of knowledge-based firms reveals most of them have focused on internal factors of growth, while limited ones focused on identifying the success factors along with growth. Thus, the current research is to identify the factors affecting the success of knowledge-based firms and explain their relationships to success. This research is focused on Iranian firms because of specific social, political, and economic conditions in Iran (such as economic sanctions, dependence on oil, prevailing anti-capitalist spirit, etc.) and their impact on the business environment and sales markets which are dependent on the government.

 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

In today's changing world, knowledge and innovation are considered the most fundamental factors for progress in the industrial and economic fields. The economy of a country flourishes when it provides the necessary platform for innovation and presence in the world's competitive markets. Moving towards innovation and making changes in the composition of products and services is in the realm of activities of knowledge-based firms. Therefore, they play an important role in the effectiveness of production, the occurrence of knowledge in new products and services, the improvement of the level of economy and well-being, and the production of wealth and added value in society. In addition to creating a competitive environment, such firms have appropriate adaptation and flexibility in facing emerging changes and developments in the economy. This is more important for countries under sanctions that need to adopt policies to strengthen their economy. By examining the countries' development trends, on the other hand, it is obvious that paying attention to knowledge-based firms is from success factors to deal with issues such as employment, innovation capacity, and exporting new products. Based on the above, it is important to study the reasons for the growth of knowledge-based firms in Iran. The current research is accordingly to identify and classify the key factors affecting the growth and success of this kind of firm. It is necessary to develop specific criteria for growth and success in order for determining when a company is considered as developed.

Identifying and modeling the key success factors of knowledge-based firms requires providing a detailed understanding of the subject. The qualitative method is the most appropriate way to achieve this goal. Furthermore, conducting an interpretive structural model will be useful to conceptualize and relate the constructs. In this regard, the current research conducts a thematic analysis and then interpretive structural modeling to explain associations between qualitative variables. The target population of this research is knowledge-based firms reported by the Vice President of Science and Technology. In the first stage of this research, an in-depth semi-structured interview was conducted with 25 CEOs of knowledge-based firms. The sample members were selected by conducting theoretical and opportunistic sampling in a completely purposeful manner based on the research objectives.

After environmental factors, the importance of providing and allocating appropriate financial resources (in terms of amount and time of allocation) and appropriate (educated, experienced, skilled, creative, and innovative) workforce is greater than the others. It was found that individual and organizational factors have a two-way interaction and the company's strategy has the most impact on them. Finally, employing managers to achieve success, growth, and development of knowledge-based firms was determined to be the best implementation method among the five.

CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

Reviewing the literature along with the results of interviews showed five main themes called the key success factors of knowledge-based firms, including individual, organizational, and environmental factors, the firm's strategy, and supplying and allocating resources. Based on the findings of the current research, future researchers are recommended to evaluate the characteristics and components of various scales and populations using other modern research methods and to examine the other aspects of the research model.

One of the most important ways to prevent the spread of corruption and fraud, both at the macro and organizational levels, is whistleblowing. However, whistleblowing has not been never simple action, and whistleblowers are constantly facing pressure, threats, harassment, and even revenge. Therefore, they are required to receive effective and appropriate organizational and legal support.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Various studies have mentioned different incentives and barriers to whistleblowing. One of the key factors in encouraging employees to disclose violations is perceived organizational support. If employees feel that the organization supports their disclosure actions, this motivation will help them overcome other barriers and whistle. But the factor that has received less attention in this regard, especially in Iran, is the legal protections perceived by the employees. Due to the ignorance of employees about the legal consequences of whistling in Iran, probably one of the most important obstacles to whistleblowing is the lack of protection by law. Therefore, the current research deals with both organizational and legal support and examines their role in persuading employees to expose the organization's violations. Therefore, the current research examines the effect of perceived legal and organizational support on employees' whistleblowing intentions. The whistleblowing intentions comprised six types of offenses including theft, wasting organizational resources, mismanagement, safety issues, sexual harassment, discrimination, and deliberate violation of the law.

The current research is an applied study based on the survey method. The statistical population encompassed all the employees of private banks in Iran. Due to the uncertainty of the statistical population volume, according to Morgan's table, the online questionnaire was distributed among 384 employees of private banks. The questionnaire's reliability was approved using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, and its construct validity was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis.

The skewness and kurtosis values for all the variables were from +2 to -2, confirming their normality of distribution. Results for the correlation test indicated that organizational support and legal support were significantly correlated, but there was no significant correlation between whistle intention with legal and organizational support. Detailed results showed that the level of perceived legal and organizational support and whistleblowing intention was almost low. Structural equation modeling was conducted in Amos software to test the research hypotheses. Hypothesis testing indicated that organizational and legal support significantly affected whistle intention. Furthermore, research results indicated a significant difference in whistle intention for different types of violations.

CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

This study had a quantitative approach to employees' views on support and their willingness to whistle. Given the relative novelty of this issue, especially at the organizational level, it can certainly be useful and interesting to adopt a qualitative approach and discover deeper motivations of employees. The present study did examine the employees' behavioral intentions but not their actual behavior. Future studies are suggested to examine the actual whistleblowing behavior by adopting a comparative approach. In general, there is a lack of studies to explain the general position of organizational whistling in both the private and public sectors of the country, and there are no reliable statistics about whistling corruption by employees and the fate of whistleblowers.

Nowadays, agility is considered an important factor in advancing the organization's goals, increasing the productivity and morale of the organization's employees, and improving the employees' organizational commitment, physical and mental health, and life satisfaction. Excellence in competition is the main goal of every organization in today's unpredictable and changing business environment. In such a situation, the smallest slip by the organization can sometimes lead to its decline. Therefore, the organization's rapid response to environmental changes is of great importance and necessity, and agility is one of the solutions for it.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Influencing the factors inside the organization, agility can affect the components outside the organization, such as customers. An agile organization can create a positive image in the customers' minds by providing services on time based on customers' needs and environmental changes. This image plays a vital role in customers’ behavioral intentions and attitudes. In this regard, the current research aimed to provide a model for the strategic agility of Asia Insurance Company regarding its customers' behavioral intentions

This mixed research is an applied study in terms of purpose. The statistical population of the research in its qualitative phase has comprised university professors as well as managers and experts in Asia Insurance Company. In the quantitative phase, its population includes all the employees and experts of Asia Insurance Company in Razavi Khorasan Province. In the qualitative phase, a sample size of 20 was selected based on the purposeful sampling method and, in the quantitative section, 187 people were selected by conducting a non-probability sampling method based on Cochran's formula. The data collection tool was a Delphi questionnaire and a semi-structured interview

The research results revealed eight dimensions of strategic agility, including technological capabilities, innovative creativity, organizational learning, internal balance, clarity of the organization's vision, understanding of capabilities, strategic response, and strategic sensitivity. The five dimensions of customers' behavioral intentions were identified as follows: verbal advice to others, willingness to change, stable consumption, increase in the amount of consumption, and increase in the cost of consumption. Also, the results showed that there existed a significant relationship between the dimensions of strategic agility and customers' behavioral tendencies.

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

Obtained results indicated that strategic agility and its dimensions play a decisive role in customers' behavioral intentions. Therefore, to direct the customers' needs and desires, it is necessary to pay more attention to the organization's strategic agility and to include factors such as innovation, creativity, and learning in its processes

Small and medium-sized companies are a primary source for creating jobs and economic growth in developing countries, which cause economic diversification and the development of the private sector in these countries. According to the statistics of the European Economic Cooperation and Development Organization, small and medium enterprises comprise more than 95% of the business in the member countries of this organization. The share of these companies in the employment of member countries of the European Economic Cooperation and Development Organization is around 60 to 70 percent. In advanced countries such as Japan and Germany, the share of small and medium enterprises in the GDP is more than 50%, and in developing countries such as Thailand, it is 38%. In Iran, 94% of economic enterprises are small and medium type, and their share in GDP is 39%. 27683 (82%) of the 34252 operational industrial units in Iran's industrial states are active, including 9726 units with a capacity of less than 50%, 9597 units with a capacity between 50% and 70%, and 8360 units with a capacity of more than 70%. They have a percentage of activity.

 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Cameron and Quinn pay attention to the ethnic culture in the degree of intimacy between family members in the work environment. Ethnic culture is characterized by loyalty, ethics, commitment, traditionality, cooperation, teamwork, participation, awareness and personal development. Adhocracy culture is a dynamic, entrepreneurial, innovative and creative structure in the work environment. This culture focuses on the development of new products and services, adaptability, growth, Change, productivity, efficiency and experientialism are emphasized. Market culture is considered as a result-oriented culture in the workplace with an emphasis on winning, surpassing the competition, insisting on stock prices and market relations. The formality and structuring of positions and procedures, well-defined processes and smooth-moving organizations are often considered as the main characteristics of hierarchical culture.

The questionnaire’s face validity was established through evaluating the opinions of management professors and SMEs’ managers, and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed its construct validity. The Cronbach’s alphas of greater than 0.70 also confirmed the questionnaire’s reliability. Data gathered from the managers of SMEs was analyzed by conducting structural equation modeling.

Examining the effect of four types of culture on performance also showed that the effect of group culture is insignificant and the effect of three types of adhocracies, hierarchy and market culture on performance is significant, although the effect of hierarchy culture on performance is negative and the effect of adhocracy and market culture is positive. The result of the non-significant effect of ethnic culture on performance is inconsistent with the research results of prior researches. The results of their research indicate a positive and significant effect of group culture on performance.

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

Considering that the results of this research show that different types of corporate culture have an effect on the tendency to entrepreneurship and performance, therefore managers who want to increase this tendency should evaluate their organizational culture and adapt them accordingly. It is the responsibility of senior management to disseminate, promote, maintain or change organizational culture.

Behaviors can be unethical but in line with the interests of the organization. Unethical pro-organizational behavior is a creative deviant behavior that seeks to maximize the interests of the organization and stakeholders by evading the law and misleading the supervisory and upstream institutions. The external prestige of the organization is an indicator of the organization's quality and directs the behaviors of employees. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the organization's external prestige on unethical pro-organizational behavior considering the moderation of ethical leadership.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

People tend to join organizations of having valuable social features. Based on this fact, organizations try to improve their external image and prestige with internal and external stakeholders. The image of the organization is mostly influenced by the external stakeholders, so their perceptions and opinion affect the understanding and evaluation of the internal stakeholders of the organization. Organizational prestige describes the employee's perception of how external institutions look at the organization. Organizational image is of great importance for many companies because today, their work and overall existence depend on their credit from the point of view of various shareholders. To maintain the social image and the prestige of the organization, the managers and employees of the organizations may resort to actions that are not appropriate from the point of view of ethics and logic, however, they bring success and pride to the organization. Such behavior is more precisely called positive deviant behavior or unethical behavior of the organization. The positive deviation is used as a practical strategy and is an intelligent search for change and creating solutions. Therefore, with such an approach to maintain a positive and powerful image of the organization, any action that is beneficial in this direction can be used. On the other hand, the atmosphere and leadership of the organization play an important role in using ethical or unethical strategies. Ethical leaders show good values with their words and actions. In such a case, measures are followed with more sensitivity and only technical issues will not be considered. In Iran's business environment, all public and private companies are under the influence of multiple stakeholders and various regulatory organizations, and sometimes they turn to unethical behaviors to maximize their interests.

The present research is an applied study in terms of purpose, and in terms of data collection, it is a descriptive-correlational study. The statistical population of the study was the managers and supervisors of companies under the Saipa Group. Using Cochran's formula, a sample size of 109 was selected by conducting stratified random sampling. A pre-made questionnaire was used to gather data after reaffirming reliability using Cronbach's alpha. The obtained data was analyzed in SPSS and Amos software.

According to the first hypothesis, the external prestige of the organization significantly affected unethical behaviors (beta = 0.84; t-value = 9.91). Regarding the second hypothesis of the research, the path coefficient was equal to 0.47 at the confidence level of 95 percent. Therefore, the organization's external prestige significantly affected unethical behaviors (t-value = 4.15).

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

The external prestige of the organization affects the future and the existence of the organization and causes the managers to exert different actions and behaviors to maintain and improve it. In other words, managers and employees work in line with the image of the organization they have created in the eyes of stakeholders and society. This may cause unethical actions and behaviors despite they are very beneficial. On the other hand, the leadership of the organization and its atmosphere can moderate these behaviors. The research results will help managers and employees to understand the importance of the organization's prestige and its leadership style. In this regard, researchers are recommended to investigate the moderating role of the organization's external prestige on the association of ethical leadership with organizational citizenship behavior, commitment, and identity.

Nowadays, human resources are considered the most valuable organizational capital. One of the best methods to maintain and promote this resource is improving its quality of work life which refers to employees' perception of work conditions and fulfillment of personal and work needs. On the other hand, transformational leadership style and managers' emotional intelligence are among the most important factors affecting employees’ quality of work life. Transformational leaders, using their emotional skills, positively impact followers and increase their commitment to organizational goals and vision. To improve followers’ quality of work life, leaders must accurately apply and develop emotional intelligence skills and competencies. Since employees' performance is influenced by managers’ attitudes and they learn emotional behaviors from their managers, leaders need to have emotional intelligence. The main purpose of this research is to determine the impact of managers’ transformational leadership on employees’ quality of work life as well as to investigate the mediating role of managers' emotional intelligence in the Water and Wastewater Company of Mashhad.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

  Transformational leaders have a significant influence on their followers and stimulate them toward specific objectives by determining their roles and assigned duties. Transformational leadership style consists of four components, including idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and individualized consideration. Emotional intelligence refers to the capacity to recognize and manage the emotions       of own and others. It consists of two major dimensions, including personal and social competencies. Social competencies include social awareness     and relationship management. The concept of quality of work life is a philosophy to make employees more effective at the workplace by improving their psychological well-being and job involvement. Numerous pieces of research confirmed the relationship between employees’ quality of work life and outcomes such as satisfaction and commitment. Furthermore, previous studies indicated that transformational leadership style impacts managers’ emotional intelligence which in turn affects employees’ quality of work life.

   This research is categorized into applied and descriptive-survey studies from in terms of purpose and method. The statistical population comprised employees who work in the Water and Wastewater Company of Mashhad. The statistical sample consists of 224 employees who were selected  with simple random sampling based on Cochran's formula. Needed data     was collected using a questionnaire, items of which ranged on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Finally, 225 well-qualified questionnaires were returned. The face and content validity of the questionnaire were evaluated and approved by management experts. In addition, its construct validity was examined and confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis, and its reliability via Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. Data analysis was performed by conducting structural equation modeling in Amos software.

Based on obtained results, the transformational leadership style significantly affected the managers' perceived emotional intelligence which in turn affected employees’ quality of work life. This shows that managers can improve their emotional intelligence competencies and their employees’ quality of work life through this leadership style. The significance of the impact of transformational leadership on employees’ quality of work life was rejected. Accordingly, it can be suggested that factors such as excessive administrative bureaucracy and bureaucratic organizational culture in governmental organizations may prevent the impact of transformational leadership on employees’ quality of work life. Overall, the role of managers perceived emotional intelligence in the relationship between transformational leadership and quality of work life was full mediation.

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

In general, it can be stated that the managers' transformational leadership and emotional intelligence help them to effectively stimulate the employees towards organizational goals and provide an appropriate environment  for improving their quality of work life. Accordingly, the managers of  the target organization are recommended to hold courses by inviting     expert consultants for training the skills and competencies of transformational leadership and emotional intelligence. Furthermore, they should provide a suitable environment to support employees’ participation and communication. Expansion of informal relationships allows the employees to express their opinions and emotions in line with enhancing trust between employees and managers. We recommend future researchers investigate the moderating role of organizational culture and compare  the results with that of the current research. Additionally, they are recommended to examine the impact of managers’ emotional intelligence on their performance in the future.

Although the literature has paid enough attention to affecting factors of turnover intention, not much attention has been paid to the job plateau comprehensively; even when employees stay in their posts for a long time and few opportunities exist for advancement or increment of responsibilities. This study was aimed at investigating the antecedents of job plateau and its effect on turnover intention moderated by ambiguity tolerance and coaching.

  THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Most of the studies related to turnover intention are focused on the private sector or have examined healthcare employees. Focusing on public sector organizations, municipalities are selected as the biggest service provider in Iran. Although the number of leavers is low in public organizations such as municipalities, the variable of turnover intention should be investigated because of its potential influence on variables such as commitment, job satisfaction, performance, motivation, organizational engagement, and participation. Given the increasing social pressure to improve the quality of services and considering its large number of staff, municipalities should understand the effects of job plateau on their performance, in terms of both the structure and content. Most of the existing studies have considered the affecting factors of turnover intention and neglected the moderating variables.

The current research is an applied study in terms of purpose, and regarding the method, it is a descriptive survey that describes understudy conditions and phenomena. The research literature was compiled by the library method, and data collection was done by distributing questionnaires. The gathered data was analyzed by structural equation modeling in SmartPLS software. The statistical population was comprised of 2120 experts from municipalities of grades 1 to 7 in the Fars province. Based on Cochran's formula, the sample size was determined to be 325, and the final sample size was 330 people selected by conducting a systematic random sampling method.

The results indicated that perceived organizational support, learning self-efficacy, and structural and content plateau had negative and significant effects on turnover intention. Work concentration negatively affected the structural plateau but not affected the content plateau. Furthermore, coaching negatively moderated the relationship between structural and content plateau with turnover intention. Additionally, ambiguity tolerance positively moderated the relationship between the structural plateau and turnover intention. In general, the research found that employees who are high at ambiguity tolerate the intention to leave the organization by understanding the structural plateau. This finding is not applied to the content plateau.

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

Due to the impact of the structural and content plateau on employees' turnover intention, it seems to be necessary for municipalities to revise the employees' career development plans. According to the investigations, for municipal employees, the starting and ending point of job promotion is not clear, the willingness of political individuals and groups precedes the results, and party and group preferences are very influential. Accordingly, the organization of municipalities and rural districts of the country is suggested to revise the employees' career promotion path by determining the expectations and behaviors that cause employees to perform at high levels. The written expectations should be appropriately informed to employees by holding workshops and training courses. This presents clear information to employees, allows them to define achievable goals for themselves, and improves the subjective criteria of success in the employees' minds. Therefore, it is predicted that this affects the plateau phenomenon and, consequently, the intention to leave the organization.

Today, higher education has undergone extensive changes and needs which greatly emphasize market forces. Innovation and adaptation to the changing external environment are among the challenges that universities face in the age of globalization. Therefore, the reliance of higher education institutes on traditional administrative and service processes can no longer guarantee the desired results. This is why higher education units are under intense pressure to increase possible flexibility and develop methods to better meet the needs of their customers. Considering the current expectations of society from universities, the main question is "do the emotional abilities of senior university managers (identifying, understanding, regulating, and managing the emotions of themselves and others) affect leadership effectiveness"? Therefore, the present study helps Iran's public higher education strategic planners to better understand the dimensions of emotional intelligence of their leaders and train these abilities and skills as superior leadership characteristics in management training programs. This study investigates the moderating effect of the emotional intelligence of academic leaders on the relationship between innovation capabilities and academic leadership effectiveness in 5 A-grade and public universities in Tehran city.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Researchers believe that social effectiveness skills are the determinants of leadership effectiveness. Some believe that leadership effectiveness refers to the actual performance of the team or the perception of the leader's effectiveness, while others refer to leadership effectiveness as the degree of adaptation between the leader's leadership style and environmental conditions. On the other hand, innovation capability has been defined as the skills and knowledge needed to effectively absorb, master, and improve existing technologies and create new possibilities. Emotional intelligence includes four abilities such as observation, evaluation, and accurate expression of emotions; facilitating the thoughts through access and production of thoughts; cognition of emotions and emotional knowledge and regulation of emotions that lead to intellectual development are introduced. Thus, emotional intelligence has been assumed as a key construct of social effectiveness and leadership effectiveness. Then, more emotionally intelligent leaders, when supporting their subordinates, can understand their emotional responses and help them understand and manage the challenges of change. Based on field and library studies of the researcher about the factors affecting the success of Iran's big public universities, as the heroes of the resistance to change, the role of emotional and perceptual abilities of leaders called emotional intelligence on leadership qualities and the effectiveness of academic leadership and facilitating and disseminating innovation in the higher education organization showed very colorful and influential. This caused the researcher to examine whether innovation capabilities affect the effectiveness of academic leadership. How influential is emotional intelligence in this relationship? Does the emotional intelligence of academic leaders act as a factor in moderating, reducing, or increasing the intensity of this relationship?

The statistical population of this study is the 217 senior managers working in 5 public universities including the University of Tehran, Sharif University of Technology, University of Allameh Tabatabai, University of Shahid Beheshti, and the Tarbiat Modares University. The latent components of the variables in the research conceptual model were identified through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 11 scholars working in those universities. Using a 6-step thematic analysis, 50 items were discovered in the form of 10 measurable components to be distributed in form of a survey questionnaire among the 150 sample managers. The confirmatory factor analysis was performed and confirmed to evaluate the reliability of the index using Cronbach's alpha, CR, and factor loadings, and AVE and Fornell and Larker's matrix to evaluate the validity of the index. The structural equation modeling (SEM) method based on the least partial squares (PLS) technique was used to test the quantitative research hypotheses.

Analyzing the research data indicated that the effect of innovation capabilities on leadership effectiveness was statistically significant. The direction of the effect is positive and the intensity of the relationship is 0.274, which indicates the average effect of innovation capabilities on leadership effectiveness. Testing the moderating impact of emotional intelligence in the second hypothesis using the interactive effect method in which the standard scores of the independent and moderator variables are multiplied and an interactive sentence is created, showed that emotional intelligence has a significant moderating role in the relationship between innovation capabilities and leadership effectiveness. In the second hypothesis, the intensity of the relationship was 0.078.

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

Recognizing the self and others' feelings and emotions, academic leaders can strengthen the innovative and creative thinking of their subordinates in academically challenging situations. Surely, applying these cognitive abilities innovates academic research and pedagogical processes and makes academic leadership effective and the dream of universities' social responsibility come true. As growing demand pressures, cultural shifts in higher education, managerial diversity, and financial constraints have forced higher education to change and adapt to new leadership practices, Policymakers in the ministry of sciences are suggested to innovate in research and pedagogical processes, encourage the academic staff to think about organizational processes and identify the current and future challenges higher education and research processes facing and to provide the creative and innovative ideas. In addition, they are suggested to apply the assessments of the leader's emotional intelligence and its benefits in changing the interpersonal behavior and managerial effectiveness in performance appraisal programs of the universities. Researchers and scholars are also advised to measure the emotional intelligence skill of innovative individuals in future research and to classify and rank the impact of these skills, as well as the extent to which emotional intelligence skills and ideation, and creativity are used among leaders with X and Y leadership styles.