Mahsa Shokrani, Mohammad Haghighi, Morteza Paricheh and Mina Shokrani
Although customer satisfaction (CS) has been evaluated through using statistical and decision-making techniques so far, no research, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has…
Abstract
Purpose
Although customer satisfaction (CS) has been evaluated through using statistical and decision-making techniques so far, no research, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has been conducted for implementing both groups simultaneously and clarifying the different or similar aspects of the results given by these techniques. The purpose of this paper is to compare the techniques and clarify these unknown aspects.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the effect of the elements related to service marketing mix on CS was examined by using structural equation model (SEM). Then, the statistical methods such as Friedman test (FT) and SEM, and decision-making technique such as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) were systematically compared for prioritizing the elements of service marketing mix. The sample included 159 special customers of an anonymous bank in Bojnurd, Iran. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by using Cronbach’s α (r=0.934). In addition, SPSS, Expert Choice and Smart PLS software were used.
Findings
Based on the results, FT and AHP method had exactly the same ranking for the elements of the marketing mix, as well as almost identical relative weights. The ranking included people, process, product, physical evidence, place, price and promotion, respectively, while the SEM technique had very different outcomes. Finally, none of the methods could assure the marketer to come to a reliable decision separately.
Originality/value
In this study, the authors’ contribution is the understanding of the role of an effective marketing mix evaluation technique selection on marketing strategy. Different techniques had different and in some cases even contradicting outcomes.
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Zahra Tohidinia and Mohammad Haghighi
This paper aims to examine the influence of a number of factors on relationship quality and also study the impact of relationship quality on customer's behavioral intentions.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the influence of a number of factors on relationship quality and also study the impact of relationship quality on customer's behavioral intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on prior studies we tried to develop a comprehensive model. The model covered different antecedents and consequences of relationship quality. Responses of a total of 217 key customers of a semi‐private bank were considered. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was then used to test the research model and hypotheses.
Findings
This research evaluated the impact of a series of potential factors on relationship quality. While trust, competency and commitment had a positive impact on relationship quality, communication and conflict handling did not show a significant relationship with this variable. Moreover relationship quality had a significant relationship with customer satisfaction. Furthermore, customer satisfaction had a positive impact on re‐purchase intentions, positive word‐of‐mouth and customer's positive feedback.
Originality/value
While most studies have considered only the perquisites or the outcomes of relationship quality, this study has tried to provide a comprehensive understanding about both antecedents and consequences of relationship quality in one model. Since there was a lack of such research especially in countries with rather collective cultures like Iran, this paper can provide theoretical basis for future studies as well as practical implications for managers and practitioners.
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Ghazaleh Moghareh Abed and Mohammad Haghighi
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of selling strategies on the sales performance of a company.
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of selling strategies on the sales performance of a company.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper briefly reviews selling strategies and the sales performance literature. It investigates how selling strategies impact sales performance in the literature and then presents statistical evidence via a case study.
Findings
The findings of this study clearly show that managers' perception of the adoption of strategies on the part of the selling firm is associated with the adoption of some specific classes of behaviors (i.e. customer‐oriented selling, adaptive selling, relational strategy) which can contribute to the creation of strong and long‐lasting positive relationships with customers.
Research limitations/implications
Based on the limitations of our study, future research could expand the generalizability of the model by conducting a much larger survey across a number of firms in different industries with a representation of different selling situations.
Practical implications
The findings emphasize the role of developing effective selling strategies to improve sales performance. Thus, recognizing these factors and the rate of their influence will enable the top managers of companies to use effective and suitable strategies for preserving and retaining customers.
Originality/value
This paper provides insights to different dimensions of selling strategies and the way they enhance sales performance. It further clarifies the relationship by statistical evidence with a case study.
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Mohammad Hossein Dehghani Sadrabadi, Ahmad Makui, Rouzbeh Ghousi and Armin Jabbarzadeh
The adverse interactions between disruptions can increase the supply chain's vulnerability. Accordingly, establishing supply chain resilience to deal with disruptions and…
Abstract
Purpose
The adverse interactions between disruptions can increase the supply chain's vulnerability. Accordingly, establishing supply chain resilience to deal with disruptions and employing business continuity planning to preserve risk management achievements is of considerable importance. The aforementioned idea is discussed in this study.
Design/methodology/approach
This study proposes a multi-objective optimization model for employing business continuity management and organizational resilience in a supply chain for responding to multiple interrelated disruptions. The improved augmented e-constraint and the scenario-based robust optimization methods are adopted for multi-objective programming and dealing with uncertainty, respectively. A case study of the automotive battery manufacturing industry is also considered to ensure real-world conformity of the model.
Findings
The results indicate that interactions between disruptions remarkably increase the supply chain's vulnerability. Choosing a higher fortification level for the supply chain and foreign suppliers reduces disruption impacts on resources and improves the supply chain's resilience and business continuity. Facilities dispersion, fortification of facilities, lateral transshipment, order deferral policy, dynamic capacity planning and direct transportation of products to markets are the most efficient resilience strategies in the under-study industry.
Originality/value
Applying resource allocation planning and portfolio selection to adopt preventive and reactive resilience strategies simultaneously to manage multiple interrelated disruptions in a real-world automotive battery manufacturing industry, maintaining the long-term achievements of supply chain resilience using business continuity management and dynamic capacity planning are the main contributions of the presented paper.
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Suhaily Hasnan, Mardhiahtul Huda Mohd Razali and Alfiatul Rohmah Mohamed Hussain
This paper aims to examine the effects of corporate governance and firm-specific characteristics on the incidence of financial restatement among Malaysian public listed firms.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effects of corporate governance and firm-specific characteristics on the incidence of financial restatement among Malaysian public listed firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The elements of corporate governance consist of board size, board independence, multiple directorships, audit committee expertise, external audit quality and executive compensation. Meanwhile, the firm-specific characteristics consist of firm age, firm performance, firm leverage and firm liquidity. The agency theory has been used to guide the study. This study used a matched-pair sample that consisted of a sample of 49 restatement firms and 98 non-restatement firms between the years 2011 and 2016. Univariate (t-test and Pearson correlation) and multivariate (logistic regression) statistical techniques were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results show that there is a negative and significant relationship between executive compensation and firm performance, and the incidence of financial restatement. In addition, there is a positive and significant relationship between firm leverage and the incidence of financial restatement. However, the other corporate governance and firm-specific characteristic variables included in the study were found to be insignificant with the incidence of financial restatement. This paper provides evidence that some form of corporate governance mechanisms and firm-specific characteristics, particularly executive compensation, firm performance and firm leverage, may influence the direction and magnitude of the incidence of financial restatement. The findings indicate that optimal executive incentives may align management interests with those of shareholders. In addition, greater performance and lower leverage levels minimise firms’ financial pressure and debt covenant violation risk, which may reduce the management tendency to misstate the financial statement, and consequently, minimise the likelihood of financial restatement.
Originality/value
The main value of this paper is the effect of corporate governance and firm-specific characteristics on the likelihood of financial restatement in Malaysia. The findings of this study provide useful insights for regulators to improve and reconsider the current regulations on corporate governance mechanisms.
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Armin Mahmoodi, Leila Hashemi, Mohammad Mehdi Tahan, Milad Jasemi and Richard C. Millar
This study aims to investigate the impact of new technologies on parameters of organizational behavior and evaluate their determining role of technology maturity and readiness of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of new technologies on parameters of organizational behavior and evaluate their determining role of technology maturity and readiness of staff in the digital readiness.
Design/methodology/approach
This study has obtained an integrated model of technology’s effect on staff’s organizational behavior considering digital readiness level by using system dynamics is developed. In this model, the effects of new technologies entry on organizational behavior variables are analyzed in different layers, and the result of this impact on the consequent of a bank organizational behavior and each indicator is examined separately in different scenarios. In determining the indicators and their significant coefficients, the viewpoints of banking experts and professionals in organizational behavior have been considered.
Findings
As a result of our surveys, five technology effects, without intermediaries, were obtained, which are automation, learning, streamlining repetitive jobs, addiction to technology and reducing face-to-face contact. Each of these factors would make a chain of side effects. In a way that, ultimately, their positive or negative effects on productivity and consequently on organization profits appear. The result indicates technology has effects on important behavioral factors such as stress, motivation, organization values and personal satisfaction. Indicators, which are formed by positive or negative factors, are being upgraded or downgraded. Therefore, managing negative cycles and developing positive cycles can be considered as one of the major banking concerns for controlling IT effects on its organizational behavior of human resources.
Originality/value
There is little academic remarkable literature on clarifying the effects of digitalization on employee's behavior in an organization, this research offers managers and organizations a model of influential factors that need to be taken into account by managers when they encounter new technologies. This study’s proposed analysis is useful to improve the efficiency and productivity of the organization, and alongside this, it is effective for the digital transformation process. This study fills previous research gaps in the academic context related to the practical studies that relied on digital maturity.
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Ali Haji Gholam Saryazdi and Mohammad Ghavidel
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of waste production in the product structure of a wire and cable manufacturing company that deals with a high-volume waste…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of waste production in the product structure of a wire and cable manufacturing company that deals with a high-volume waste and proposes strategies that reduce product costs.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology for this research is descriptive and expressive modeling in a way that theories of research have been extracted from literature and field studies have been done based on the company specialists’ views. The system dynamics has been used to analyze and model waste in a wire and cable firm.
Findings
Applying SD approach in the paper not only helps to identify the structure of producing the waste, which is complicated and dynamic, but also proposes ways to reduce them and illustrate the applied results. The second outcome shows that in the waste management there should be a digression in a managerial view to the systematic thought. In the other word as in the system dynamic approach, the expansion of the model boundary is one of the objectives to find appropriate solution. The behavior model showed that in the waste management the most effective way to reduce the waste is to buy qualified raw material which is out of the firm.
Originality/value
This paper not only shows that the system dynamic approach is appropriate for the waste management problems which are complicated and dynamic but also proved that in the waste management system the solutions are not always near or within the firm. They should be identified by a systematic approach.
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Hamed Adibi and Mohammad Reza Hashemi
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the variables of the fused deposition modelling (FDM) process and improve their effect on the mechanical properties of acrylonitrile…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the variables of the fused deposition modelling (FDM) process and improve their effect on the mechanical properties of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) components reinforced with copper microparticles.
Design/methodology/approach
In the experimental approach, after drying the ABS granule, it was mixed with copper microparticles (at concentrations of 5%, 8% and 10%) in a single screw extruder to fabricate pure ABS and composite filaments. Then, by making the components by the FDM process, the tensile strength of the parts was determined through tensile strength tests. Taguchi DOE method was used to design the experiments in which nozzle temperature, filling pattern and layer thickness were the design variables. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and signal-to-noise analysis were conducted to determine the effectiveness of each FDM process parameter on the ultimate tensile strength of printed samples. Following that, the main effect analysis was used to optimize each process parameter for pure ABS and its composite at different copper contents.
Findings
The study allows the layer thickness and filling pattern had the highest effects on the ultimate tensile strength of the printed materials (pure and composite) in the FDM process. Moreover, the results show that the ultimate tensile strength of the ABS composite containing 5% copper was nearly 12.3% higher than the pure ABS part. According to validation tests, the maximum error of experiments was about 0.96%.
Originality/value
In this paper, the effect of copper microparticles (as filling agent) was investigated on the ultimate tensile strength of printed ABS material during the FDM process.
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Vahid Beygi, Mohammad Abooyee Ardakan and Seyyed Mohammad Moghimi
Despite the rather adequate physical and human resources available to Iranian state-owned enterprises (SOEs), they have proved not only unproductive and unprofitable but also…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the rather adequate physical and human resources available to Iranian state-owned enterprises (SOEs), they have proved not only unproductive and unprofitable but also corrupt in cases due to their corporate governance (CG) systems. This study aims to identify the most important challenges faced within designing, implementing and operating such systems in Iranian SOEs.
Design/methodology/approach
A judgmental sampling technique was adopted for the purposes of the present qualitative study to select a heterogeneous group of interviewees in terms of experience and expert knowledge in CG and SOEs. Using 28 semi-structured interviews and the thematic analysis methodology within an exploratory approach, the themes/challenges were extracted from the data thus collected that were subsequently analyzed and explicated.
Findings
The 16 challenges derived from the data set were subsequently classified into the four categories of “general assembly deficiencies”, “contextual issues of ownership”, “board deficiencies” and “external managerial constraints”.
Research limitations/implications
This study aims to provide insights into policy-making systems at both national and international levels to gain a better understanding of the contextual factors that could be exploited toward developing and/or reforming CG codes. To improve SOEs, this study also suggests four main solutions to the CG challenges faced within Iran and similar centralized economic planning systems.
Originality/value
The literature on the topic indicates that while a few theoretical and empirical studies have been conducted on CG of SOEs, no study has ever been conducted on similar Iranian cases. The present study provides ample empirical evidence from the CG systems in a state-controlled and centralized economic system to offer new insights into the comparative CG, especially in a developing country like Iran, where the government is the major player in the economy.