فصلنامه مدیریت بازرگانی
سال هفدهم شماره 63 (بهار 1404)

Strategic agility, as one of the key concepts in strategic management, has attracted the attention of many researchers and managers. However, the concept remains controversial and is considered non-intuitive and intangible by some scholars. Therefore, a deeper understanding of strategic agility is of great interest to academics and executives, as several gaps in the existing literature are apparent. This article is to provide a structured understanding of the field of strategy agility so that researchers and managers can fill in the generalities of this field with a brief look at the designed knowledge map.

In this article, we used a bibliometric method, i.e. co-occurrence analysis of words, to discover the most important subfields of strategic agility from the perspective of scientific articles published in this field. This method allowed us to identify important and effective topics and patterns in this field by analyzing the relationships between the keywords used in the articles. The obtained sub-areas were analyzed using the strategic diagram method, and the position of each is determined from the two perspectives of scientific development and applicability. Therefore, we could assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as well as the current and emerging challenges and solutions in this field.

In total, six different sub-areas were identified, and categorized under the headings of strategic agility dimensions, technological and managerial innovation, supply chain management, company performance evaluation, uncertain nature of strategies, and dynamic impact on organizational agility. These subareas were evaluated and compared according to different criteria such as density (criteria for measuring scientific development) and centrality (criteria for measuring applicability). The results revealed that the various subfields differ in terms of scientific development and applicability, with some offering greater advantages than others. For this reason, we offer suggestions for the improvement and development of each of the subareas. The dimensions of strategic agility are higher than other fields both from the perspective of scientific development and applicability. It can be considered that this area acts as a driving engine that pulls other areas along with it. In addition, the non-deterministic nature of the strategies in this field, as well as the evaluation of the companies' performance from the perspective of agility, despite the appropriate scientific development, have not found an acceptable application in other fields. These two areas are expected to receive more focus from the perspective of applicability. Technological and management innovations, on the other hand, should be viewed more from the perspective of internal development rather than applicability. In the meantime, supply chain management has not received much attention and is in the emerging stage, but it is expected to attract more focus from researchers in the coming years.

The field of strategic agility still offers significant potential for both scientific and practical development. To fill this gap, it is necessary to fill the existing gaps by combining the areas obtained. The conducted analyses can help researchers identify research gaps to define newer issues in the field of strategic agility and fill current research gaps.

The sports industry, as one of the fastest-growing and most important industries in different societies, has always received a lot of attention. In this industry, it is necessary to use innovative marketing strategies to attract new customers, retain old customers, and increase sales. In this regard, identifying the components of innovative marketing strategies in the sports industry has been considered one of the important issues in the field of marketing. In this article, using grounded data theory, important and influential components in innovative marketing strategies in the sports industry were identified and investigated. Following the presentation of the obtained results, suggestions were made for the development of innovative marketing strategies in the sports industry.
 
The current research method is based on grounded theory. To collect the required data, library studies and semi-structured and in-depth interviews were used to identify the relevant components. The general framework of the model was based on the grounded theory approach, with the constructivist approach of Charmaz (2014). The statistical population included senior sports managers, sports product manufacturers, sports industry experts, and sports management professors. Sampling was done purposively through successive sampling (15 participants). Lincoln and Guba's (1985) evaluation criteria were used to assess the quality and credibility of the qualitative results, including the criteria of validity, transferability, reliability, and confirmability. The interviews were coded using MAXQDA software. In this research, to calculate the test-retest reliability, three interviews were randomly selected from the conducted interviews. Each was coded twice, with a 30-day (one-month) interval by the researcher. The reliability coefficient was 0.89, which was confirmed and acceptable.
 
The findings showed that the effective factors on innovative marketing strategies in the sports industry include opportunism and value (4 indicators: value creation, innovative market development, innovative market discovery, opportunism), marketing variables (4 indicators: product/product promotion, innovative promotion, pricing, innovative product distribution), customer focus (3 indicators: customer satisfaction, customer orientation, innovative channels), integrated marketing (2 indicators: market focus, marketing influence), unique positioning (2 indicators: quality orientation, change and improvement), positive mental image (2 indicators: networking, good reputation in the market), marketing strategy and planning (2 indicators: marketing planning, marketing strategy), and innovative market research (2 indicators: source of innovative research, innovative market analysis).
 
The findings of this research provide new knowledge and insight into the development of innovative marketing strategies in the sports industry. Specifically, two factors of "opportunism and value creation" and "customer focus" were identified as key and influential factors in innovative marketing strategies in the sports industry that have received less attention in previous literature. Therefore, the results of this study can contribute to the development of more effective approaches in the field of innovative marketing strategies in the sports industry.

In today's world, continuous changes in the workplace and daily activities increase the need for idea exchange and ongoing learning. As a result, experts regard teamwork as a vital strategy for adapting to these frequent changes. In this context, neglecting marketing can have serious consequences for companies. Without support for creative employees and attention to marketing strategies, effective operation in a dynamic environment will be challenging, which can lead to a decrease in the competitive capacity of companies. Therefore, this research aims to examine the role of teamwork in the internationalization process of knowledge-based companies with marketing acting as a mediating.

This research is designed as an applied study with a quantitative approach. The statistical population of this study includes employees of 85 knowledge-based companies active in the field of information technology, which accounted for more than 10 percent of the country's exports from 2022 to 2023. The total number of these employees is estimated to be approximately 345. Using Cochran's formula, the required sample size for this research was determined to be 182 individuals. To collect data, a standard 22-item questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale was utilized. Finally, the collected data were analyzed using Smart PLS 3 software.

In today's competitive world, attention to marketing has gained significant importance as a key factor for achieving competitive advantage in organizations. The findings of this research indicate that emotional commitment, the creation of an innovative atmosphere, and knowledge sharing with the mediating role of marketing have a positive and meaningful impact on the internationalization process of companies. In knowledge-based companies, the importance of marketing is clear, especially as these companies face serious challenges such as sanctions and economic difficulties. Therefore, managers must pay special attention to marketing. When employees feel that their managers act with honesty and transparency, they are more likely to present their creative and innovative ideas in the form of constructive suggestions in the field of marketing. Therefore, developing new and unique ideas in marketing can help knowledge-based companies remain sustainable in the competitive international environment. These companies should support their employees and provide effective and prompt suggestions for improvement to their managers to effectively address the fundamental challenges they face in the industry.

The results indicate that teamwork among employees plays a crucial role in the survival and success of companies in the international sector. The knowledge that companies acquire from others, especially during the process of internationalization, can enhance their competitiveness in the global market. Additionally, group cooperation serves as a primary driver of learning, innovation, and marketing, facilitating the internationalization of knowledge-based companies. Teamwork helps members better understand how to work together and share knowledge to achieve high levels of productivity and effectiveness, enabling them to succeed in the internationalization of knowledge-based companies.

Persuasion is one of the important characteristics of the growth and development of organizations, often regarded as a key trait of effective organizations. Persuasion is an activity in which a persuasive party tries to persuade the persuasive party to believe certain information or perform an action. In parallel, creativity and the production of new thoughts and ideas by organizational managers and employees is of special importance and this has a high position in the organization. Consequently, successful organizations are those that not only thrive in today's competitive landscape but also consistently integrate fresh ideas into their operations. Persuasion in creative industries can be seen as the level of employees' confidence in their ability to convince others to accept and learn their (or others') new ideas. The purpose of this persuasion process is to increase the acceptance of an idea by others. Due to the ever-increasing growth of technology, as well as progress in the digital space, creative media industries are known as some of the largest and most effective industries in the world. This research aims to design a model of employee persuasion in creative media industries with special attention to how the news is delivered.
 
Considering the data collection, the current research is classified as qualitative research using thematic analysis. It identifies multiple aspects of the phenomenon in question, providing the possibility for developing a conceptual model. Therefore, initially, the literature review method was used to identify and extract the existing components of the employee persuasion model in creative media industries from available sources, studies, and documents. Afterward, interviews were conducted with experienced academic experts. The statistical population for the interviews consisted of experts familiar with the fields of media, persuasion, media creative industries, and newsrooms. In this research, the sampling method was purposeful, and the judgment method was also employed. Data collection continued until data saturation was reached, and after conducting 14 interviews, theoretical saturation was achieved. The results were then analyzed with the help of MaxQDA (2018) software. Validity and reliability were based on the criteria of credibility, member checks (review by interviewees), triangulation of data sources, analysis of negative cases, and transferability.
 
In this research, seven broad categories of psychological characteristics and features, social and communication skills, employee attitudes, employee motivation levels, knowledge, and persuasive skills, the structure of the internal work environment, the external environment of the organization, and 69 organizational themes were extracted.
 
The effective components in the emergence of employee persuasion in creative media industries can be classified at the individual, organizational, and extra-organizational levels such as audiences/customers. In this regard, it can be said that these are the individuals who, by creating a commonality between their individual and personality characteristics, organizational characteristics, as well as the views and characteristics of their audience/customer, ultimately demonstrate a certain level of persuasion.

A business model is a strategic concept that shows how to create, deliver, and obtain value. Although business models change along with environmental changes, they need innovation, anticipation, exploratory thinking, and momentum to overcome the acceleration of changes. Business model innovation requires design insight. Foresight is a systematic and collaborative process for building the future, which focuses on making businesses future-oriented through consultation, knowledge acquisition, and visioning. Existing business model design patterns pay little attention to the design space and the future. Moreover, existing foresight frameworks do not pay enough attention to business model design. Therefore, studies indicate the need to provide a comprehensive model to consider the changes in the environment, existing uncertainties, and future situations in business model design. This research was carried out with the aim of solving the gap in the literature and presenting a conceptual model of business model design based on foresight.
 
This research was both practical and exploratory in its purpose, rooted in pragmatism, and followed a mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) approach with an inductive reasoning framework. In the theoretical stage, using the systematic review method, the literature and scientific works related to the subject of the research were reviewed, analyzed, and categorized. Then, through a conceptual study, using the obtained insights and combining the existing models, the proposed conceptual model was designed. To validate the model, 12 people were selected as a sample from among the experts in futures studies and business management, who were the target community of the research. At this stage, a questionnaire was used to collect information. The validity of the questionnaire was approved by experts, and its reliability was confirmed by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.768. To check the normality of the data, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed, and based on the results, the data were normal. Then, a one-sample t-test was used to analyze the answers. The organization of documents and citations was done using Pazhuhyar software (version 2), and the calculations were done using SPSS software (version 27).
 
The results showed that in past studies, a group of researchers gave little attention to futures studies in business model design. A few of them focused on some aspects of future research, while giving more importance to sustainability and the business model design space. Another group of researchers used some futures studies techniques as a toolbox. A few examined future research and foresight as a framework for business model development, but they did not provide a comprehensive framework for business model design based on foresight. Along with the conceptual study, Osterwalder and Pigneur's business model design process and Voros's general foresight framework were identified as suitable models for integrating and presenting the desired conceptual model. Based on this, the proposed conceptual model for designing a business model based on foresight, by integrating the two mentioned models, was designed, presented, and approved by the experts.
 
Based on the findings of the research, designing business models based on foresight can cover the weaknesses of previous research and existing models by considering various futures, adopting a multi-level approach, and pursuing the realization of strategies, thus helping businesses become future-oriented. It is suggested that business model designers, in the design process, pay attention to the knowledge of environmental changes and possible futures and plan for the transformation of the business model according to alternative futures. The application of the proposed model can help achieve this purpose. Also, the results of the application of the proposed model can be evaluated and analyzed by other researchers.

The lack of perceived fairness in pricing can lead to various negative consequences, including diminished trust in the seller and the prices, reduced demand, lower customer satisfaction, negative word-of-mouth advertising, loss of customer loyalty to the company or brand, increased complaints, and a reluctance to make future purchases. Considering all the mentioned destructive consequences, it is necessary to design a perceived fairness model for dynamic pricing. Accordingly, this study to present the perceived fairness model of dynamic pricing using a meta-synthesis approach.

This research is descriptive in terms of its practical purpose, data collection, and qualitative approach. The method used in this study is qualitative. Meta-synthesis involves several steps: searching, evaluating, synthesizing, expressing, and partially interpreting both quantitative and qualitative research. Transcombination can be performed using various methods; in this study, the 7-step model of Sandelowski and Barso was employed. The data collection tool consisted of past documents, including 32 articles. Content analysis was used as the method for data analysis.

The findings indicated the drivers affecting the perceived fairness of dynamic pricing in three categories: customer-related factors (demographic characteristics, price knowledge, price expectation, consumption and behavioral experience, familiarity with dynamic pricing), company-related factors (pricing transparency, communication with customers, trust), and market-related factors (price position, price dispersion). These drivers are the set of factors that affect the perceived fairness of dynamic pricing. The drivers include various factors. Perceived fairness of dynamic pricing includes two dimensions: emotional fairness and cognitive fairness. Customers who expect low prices will be suspicious and unfair about price increases. The actions taken by companies to raise customer awareness about the reasons for price increases, the timing of price changes, and similar actions in past periods significantly influence customers' accurate understanding of the price changes, preventing them from perceiving them as unfair. Perceived fairness consequences of dynamic pricing are categorized into two categories: positive consequences (customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, repurchase intention) and negative consequences (negative feelings, negative behaviors, and negative advertising by customers).

Any price difference should be based on a logical reason and serve as a tool for segmentation. While pricing policies inevitably influence consumers' purchase intentions, they should not undermine the perceived fairness from the customer's perspective. The identified drivers of perceived fairness in dynamic pricing, when applied to pricing the same goods under different conditions, provide a foundation for pricing decision-makers within companies.

In recent years, e-commerce has experienced significant growth. Although the Internet is an important source of information for both search and experiential goods, the type of information that consumers seek and how they make decisions about these two types of goods are different. Therefore, paying attention to such behavioral differences of consumers has important implications for marketing actions. In today's world, understanding consumers' search behavior for different products is critical to comprehending their purchasing behavior and planning marketing communications. Since little research has been done on consumers' search behavior considering the difference between the types of goods, it is necessary to explore this area more thoroughly. Therefore, the current research aims to provide a model for consumers' search behavior regarding search and experiential goods.
 
The research employs a qualitative methodology, wherein the conceptual model is developed through expert interviews. The sampling approach is purposeful and selective, aimed at achieving maximum diversity. Data collection is conducted through unstructured, in-depth interviews with both academic and professional experts, with a total of 10 experts interviewed until theoretical saturation is reached. The main themes or concepts from the participants' responses were extracted, categorized, and summarized. A structured interview format was not utilized due to the absence of a defined research background or specific model in the literature, as well as the broad scope of the research topics. Efforts were made to maximize participant diversity, ensuring a range of demographic characteristics, including age, gender, geographic location, and occupation. Following the interviews, the data was coded, and after conducting 10 interviews, theoretical saturation was reached in the coding process.
 
To analyze the qualitative data obtained from interviews with experts, the structural analysis method was applied. Based on the results of interview coding, 219 codes were extracted from the interview data. These codes were subsequently grouped into nine concepts and seven themes. The concept of "antecedents of search behavior" was grouped with three themes, while the other themes were categorized as follows: "moderators of search behavior," "search behavior," "consequences of search behavior," "moderators of purchase," "moderators of post-purchase behavior," and "post-purchase behavior."
 
The research results indicated that the type of goods (search or experiential) significantly influences consumers' search behavior. Additionally, the data gathered from the interviews revealed that factors such as product complexity, product price, and the frequency of product purchase also impact consumers' search behavior. Regarding the moderating variables that influence the relationship between product type and search behavior, the study found that individual personality, product novelty, brand and site credibility, return policies, loyalty programs, social status, values, lifestyle, place of residence, reference groups, celebrity endorsers, amount of information available, relevant content about the product, reviews from others, and brand perception and associations in the customer's mind all play a role as moderating variables. Further results and details are provided in the article.

Over the past two decades, rapid internationalization has become increasingly important due to the expansion of global trade, shifting consumption and demand patterns, advancements in information technology, and the growing number and quality of local and international competitors. Facilitating rapid internationalization enables businesses to capture a larger market share than their competitors. The purpose of this research is to identify entrepreneurs' mental patterns regarding facilitating the speed of internationalization.
 
This research is applied in purpose, exploratory in nature, descriptive-survey in data collection, and mixed-method (quantitative-qualitative) due to the application of the Q methodology. To collect the information needed to form the Q study discourse space, many different sources can be used. In this research, both primary and secondary sources were used to collect statements related to the discourse space. Interviews with several managers and experts were conducted to gather information on the factors influencing the speed of internationalization among Abadan entrepreneurs. Abadan, a city in Khuzestan Province in southwestern Iran, was the focus of this study. To identify entrepreneurs' mindsets regarding the facilitation of internationalization, 10 participants—including managers, consultants, and experts from entrepreneurial companies in Abadan—were purposefully selected using non-probability sampling. These individuals were expected to have valuable insights and perspectives relevant to the research topic. Therefore, the participants in this research were selected based on their "close relationship with the research topic," "beneficiary status," and the "importance of their presence in the research." SPSS software was used to analyze the collected data, employing factor analysis and interpreting the extracted factors.
 
After evaluating and summarizing the conceptual framework, 41 Q statements were selected from a pool of 85 Q statements as a sample (Q set) following a survey of experts. After collecting the information from the Q sorting process, the data was analyzed using the Q factor analysis method. The distribution analysis revealed that three distinct mental patterns could be identified among the research participants regarding the factors influencing the facilitation of internationalization speed in entrepreneurial companies, which together explained approximately 66.35% of the total variance.
 
The three identified mental patterns were named "Leading Agile Builders," "Risk-Taking Relationship Builders," and "Creative Innovators." The importance and prioritization of the identified factors were determined based on these mental patterns, and finally, solutions were proposed to address the identified factors. In general, various studies have been conducted on internationalization and its speed. Most of these studies have focused on the factors affecting internationalization and its pace. However, the factors that facilitate the speed of internationalization have received limited attention. Previous researchers have offered differing views on the importance of facilitating the speed of internationalization, with only a few quantitative studies exploring factors such as intelligence and creativity and their influence on facilitating this speed. This research not only identifies the factors that influence the facilitation of internationalization speed but also examines individuals' mindsets regarding this facilitation. Therefore, this study contributes new insights to the literature on business management and international business.

With the ever-increasing role of social media in the growth of digital marketing, which is one of the most important yet unpredictable trends today, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have become indispensable tools in advertising and marketing. Instagram ranks second after Facebook in terms of leading social media platforms used by marketing professionals and brand owners. The large amount of advertising and marketing content produced on social networks has led business owners to create content that is engaging for the target audience, thus increasing the engagement rate on their business pages. On the other hand, due to the significant increase in the number of followers on Instagram over the past years, as well as the interest of users in following businesses on this platform, the great importance of this network for marketing specialists is undeniable. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of published content attributes on customer engagement on Instagram.

Considering the huge amount of content produced on social networks, one of the best methods to analyze and identify patterns in these networks is data mining techniques. To achieve this goal, visual and textual features of 490 content pieces published on the commercial pages of cosmetics products from the Cinere, Lisel, Schon, and Bioderma brands were collected. Then, the Clementine data mining toolkit, along with three methods—Association Rules, Apriori Algorithm, and Decision Tree—were used to identify features affecting customer engagement in terms of likes, comments, and conversations, and to evaluate their effectiveness.

The results of this study indicate the effects of embedded visual and textual content features of published messages on customer engagement behavior. Based on these results, the use of persuasive textual features—such as Holiday Mention and Remarkable Facts—along with informative textual features—such as price and target audiences—affect customer engagement on social media. In addition, visual informative features—such as brand centrality and product centrality—affect customer engagement behavior to a certain degree.

Previous research on Instagram has mainly emphasized likes and comments as customer engagement behaviors. In addition to examining these two behaviors, the present research also evaluates the conversations raised in comments (conversations). Moreover, by considering all parts of the published content and defining thirteen textual features and two visual features, the present research provides a deeper understanding of the effective content features that influence customer engagement behaviors and fills the existing gap on how to create published content to increase engagement. The findings provide business managers and brands, especially in the field of cosmetics and hygiene products, with an efficient and effective customer engagement strategy for visual social networks.

Finding and choosing healthy food products is one of the main challenges that consumers face when buying these types of products. In recent years, different types of diseases such as obesity and overweight, and cardiovascular diseases have become prevalent in different societies. The appropriate choice and consumption of healthy food products can have an effective role in preventing these types of diseases. Nutrition labels are among the visual labels that can help consumers in finding and choosing healthy food items and increasing consumers’ health. Previous studies have shown that motivational mechanisms can influence attention to nutrition labels. One of these motivational mechanisms is creating a fit between the regulatory focus and the purchasing strategy of consumers. According to Regulatory Focus Theory, individuals have either a promotion (achieving positive events) or a prevention (avoiding negative events) focus. Accordingly, Regulatory Fit Theory indicates that creating a fit between the regulatory focus and the strategy towards obtaining a specific goal can increase motivation and encourage one to pursue the related goal. This study investigates the effect of a regulatory fit between the regulatory focus and purchasing strategy on consumers' visual attention to nutrition labels. In other words, the study aims to examine the simultaneous effect of regulatory focus and the goal of healthy food purchasing by aligning these two factors with each other. The study is novel because no studies to date have investigated the effect of a regulatory fit between an individual's regulatory focus and purchasing strategy on the level of visual attention to nutrition labels. In this research, this issue is investigated for the first time using a lab experiment with the eye-tracking technique.
 
This study is quantitative and uses a laboratory experiment. It has a 2 × 2 factorial design with two independent variables, including regulatory focus (2 levels: promotion or prevention) and purchasing strategy (2 levels: trying to buy healthy food products or avoiding buying unhealthy food products). In total, 67 individuals participated in the study. At first, they read and signed their consent forms. After that, they were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions, including two fit and two non-fit conditions. Then, participants’ regulatory focus and purchasing strategies were manipulated using standard techniques in the related literature. After that, participants went through an online shopping experience in which they had to select products based on their assigned purchasing strategies related to the level of product healthiness (promotion versus prevention purchasing strategy). During this online shopping, their eye movements were tracked using a screen-based eye-tracking device. Finally, participants answered a set of demographic questions. Data were collected in the Business Research Laboratory at the Faculty of Management, the University of Tehran, and were analyzed using the Univariate Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in SPSS software. Visual attention was measured by five measures (time to first fixation, fixation duration, fixation count, visit duration, and visit count).
 
In the regulatory fit conditions, including the two conditions of prevention—avoiding buying unhealthy food products—and promotion—trying to buy healthy food products—visual attention to nutrition labels increased. Regulatory fit is influential in visual attention and increases consumers' focus on nutrition labels.
 
By creating a fit between regulatory focus and purchasing strategy, we can increase visual attention to nutrition labels and improve the rate of healthy food purchasing.