Farveh Farivar, Roslyn Cameron and Mohsen Yaghoubi
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between cultural dimensions and the roots of work-family balance issues in a developing non-Western cultural context…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between cultural dimensions and the roots of work-family balance issues in a developing non-Western cultural context. Drawing upon Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the study suggests national cultural dimensions can shape the roots of work-family balance.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was distributed among employees of 12 companies operating in the health industry. The survey collected both quantitative and qualitative data through two separate approaches: seven-point Likert scales and open-ended questions. The data were analyzed via thematic exploratory analysis and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.
Findings
The quantitative data confirms the extant literature in relation to the negative effects of moonlighting, economic hardship and the absence of a comprehensive work-family balance strategy on employee work-family balance. The qualitative data proposes a new variable, weak social interaction, which becomes the most important roots of work-family imbalance at both work and family domain.
Practical implications
The present study suggests certain cultural dimensions such as high power distance hinders social interactions in the work and family domains, thereby increasing levels of work conflict, family conflict, and stress. Findings suggest organizations, especially multinationals, need to be cognizant of the role of cultural dimensions on human resource management practices related to work-family balance.
Originality/value
Very little literature addresses the impact of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on work-family balance issues. The present study has contributed to the existing body of literature by introducing a new variable (weak social interaction) as an antecedent of work-family imbalance. Further, the study is the first in Iran that has collected qualitative data to investigate work-family balance issues.
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Mohammad Saeed Taslimi, Aryan Azimi and Mohsen Nazari
The purpose of this study is to investigate factors contributing to the development of resilience capacity and capability of industrial clusters in order for them to mitigate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate factors contributing to the development of resilience capacity and capability of industrial clusters in order for them to mitigate, absorb and adapt to the impacts of Iran’s economic sanctions.
Design/methodology/approach
The Hospital Equipment Cluster of Tehran (HECT) was selected as the case study for the research. The data were collected using the library and field research and analyzed using the thematic analysis method.
Findings
The key dimensions of resilience were grouped into socio-cultural, economic, technical-organizational and institutional–infrastructural categories. Based on the “complex adaptive system” theory, each of the abovementioned dimensions were investigated on different levels of analysis, including individual, enterprise, cluster, government and environment. Eventually, recommendations were made by considering required capacities and capabilities of resilience of the hospital equipment sector toward economic sanctions.
Originality/value
The resilience toward economic sanctions, as an extensive disaster, is a considerably new subject and few studies have been performed in the field. This research provides practical solutions for local policy-makers, authorities and enterprise managers.
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Esmail Heidaranlu, Asghar Tavan and Mohsen Aminizadeh
This study aims to evaluate the functional readiness of selected hospitals in Tehran in the face of biological events focusing on the Coronavirus.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to evaluate the functional readiness of selected hospitals in Tehran in the face of biological events focusing on the Coronavirus.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study is a cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical study, with the research population consisting of four hospitals in Tehran (Ministry of Health, Social Security, Azad and Military University). This study used data collection tools, standardized functional preparedness tools for hospitals using a biological approach and a standardized checklist of biological event preparations for the American Hospital Association. Interviews with the incident and disaster committee director and observation of each hospital’s existing documents, were used to collect data, which was then analyzed using SPSS-16 software.
Findings
According to the results, the average percentage of total hospital preparedness in biological events is 36.9%. With 53.3%, the selected military hospital has the most preparation, whereas the Ministry of Health has the lowest preparation with 28.3%. Surge capacity management and communication had the most remarkable preparedness rate of 68.75% (adequate preparedness), biological consultants, meeting management and post-disaster recovery had the lowest preparedness rate of 0% (extremely weak preparedness).
Practical implications
The average functional preparedness of selected hospitals in Tehran was assessed at an insufficient level in this study. Given the recurrence of disease waves, these results are helpful in increasing hospital preparedness for impending events. Improving preparedness in most areas, especially in post-disaster recovery seems necessary.
Originality/value
Given the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to assess hospitals’ readiness to increase capacity and respond to this scourge. Few studies have been done in this field in the world. This study investigates this issue in the capital of Iran. The finding of this study suggest authorities’ attention to this issue and the creation of severe and prompt solutions and measures and the use of military hospital experiences to improve biological threat preparedness.
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Mohsen Jami, Hamidreza Izadbakhsh and Alireza Arshadi Khamseh
This study aims to minimize the cost and time of blood delivery in the whole blood supply chain network (BSCN) in disaster conditions. In other words, integrating all strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to minimize the cost and time of blood delivery in the whole blood supply chain network (BSCN) in disaster conditions. In other words, integrating all strategic, tactical and operational decisions of three levels of blood collection, processing and distribution leads to satisfying the demand at the right time.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes an integrated BSCN in disaster conditions to consider four categories of facilities, including temporary blood collection centers, field hospitals, main blood processing centers and medical centers, to optimize demand response time appropriately. The proposed model applies the location of all permanent and emergency facilities in three levels: blood collection, processing and distribution. Other essential decisions, including multipurpose facilities, emergency transportation, inventory and allocation, were also used in the model. The LP metric method is applied to solve the proposed bi-objective mathematical model for the BSCN.
Findings
The findings show that this model clarifies its efficiency in the total cost and blood delivery time reduction, which results in a low carbon transmission of the blood supply chain.
Originality/value
The researchers proposed an integrated BSCN in disaster conditions to minimize the cost and time of blood delivery. They considered multipurpose capabilities for facilities (e.g. field hospitals are responsible for the three purposes of blood collection, processing and distribution), and so locating permanent and emergency facilities at three levels of blood collection, processing and distribution, support facilities, emergency transportation and traffic on the route with pollution were used to present a new model.
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Mohsen Babaei, Afshin Shariat-Mohaymany, Nariman Nikoo and Ahmad-Reza Ghaffari
One of the problems in post-earthquake disaster management in developing countries, such as Iran, is the prediction of the residual network available for disaster relief…
Abstract
Purpose
One of the problems in post-earthquake disaster management in developing countries, such as Iran, is the prediction of the residual network available for disaster relief operations. Therefore, it is important to use methods that are executable in such countries given the limited amount of accurate data. The purpose of this paper is to present a multi-objective model that seeks to determine the set of roads of a transportation network that should preserve its role in carrying out disaster relief operations (i.e. known as “emergency road network” (ERN)) in the aftermath of earthquakes.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the total travel time of emergency trips, the total length of network and the provision of coverage to the emergency demand/supply points have been incorporated as three important metrics of ERN into a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming model. The proposed model has been solved by adopting the e-constraint method.
Findings
The results of applying the model to Tehran’s highway network indicated that the least possible length for the emergency transportation network is about half the total length of its major roads (freeways and major arterials).
Practical implications
Gathering detailed data about origin-destination pair of emergency trips and network characteristics have a direct effect on designing a suitable emergency network in pre-disaster phase.
Originality/value
To become solvable in a reasonable time, especially in large-scale cases, the problem has been modeled based on a decomposing technique. The model has been solved successfully for the emergency roads of Tehran within about 10 min of CPU time.
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Sayyed Mohsen Allameh, Javad Khazaei Pool, Akbar Jaberi, Reza Salehzadeh and Hassan Asadi
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among destination image, perceived quality, perceived value, satisfaction and revisit intention of sport tourism in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among destination image, perceived quality, perceived value, satisfaction and revisit intention of sport tourism in Iran.
Design/methodology/approach
Statistical population of this research consisted of those tourists who traveled to Mazandaran province in Iran as a sport tourism destination in 2012. A random sample of 1,250 tourists was asked to respond to questionnaires from which 886 accurate questionnaires were used for analysing data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to explore the relationships among the research variables.
Findings
The results showed that sport tourists’ perception of destination image, perceived quality and perceived value influenced their satisfaction and revisit intention positively.
Originality/value
The results of this research help to better understand the behavioral intentions, which can be an acceptable basis to increase sport tourists’ visit and revisit of a sport destination.