Iranian Organizations Research Articles

An application of AHP method for ranking administrative headquarters of the state welfare in Iran

Article history: Received February 15, 2013 Received in revised format 3 May 2013 Accepted May 4 2013 Available online May 7 2013 The purpose of the present study is to prioritized different methods for making necessary change on the administrative system of the central state Welfare Organization in Iran. The proposed model of this paper uses descriptive and measuring approach based on 11 questionnaires, which include criteria and necessary options to change the administrative system. The proposed model selects the sample size from different management levels, human capital development assistance, top, middle, and operational mangers of central state Welfare organization. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique is used to perform pairwise comparisons and Expert Choice is implemented to analyze the information. The results indicate that structure and process correction are the primary requirements for systematic changing. Weight of mentioned index is 0. 203 and the Compatibility Rating of changing criterion is equal to 0.06. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

English

In the current systems, international organizations are operating stability and making an opportunity for integration and cooperation between governments. In this regard, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is very important as one of the major regional organizations in terms of political, economic and security trends and can provide economic and welfare goals in the region through providing basic goals. The aim of the present study is to determine the position of ASEAN in Iran’s foreign policy with emphasis on economy and proposals for expansion of relations in this section. The research is descriptive-analytical, and in methodology, non-strategic and economic policy has been underlined as required for trends in Iran’s foreign policy approach to economic relations with this organization. The results showed that given the approach of “Look East Policy” in Iran’s foreign policy, the process of interaction should be taken for detente and providing economic benefits. Despite the relationship between ASEAN and other main non-member countries and given the Muslim-Majority and cultural affinities with Iran, the role of the organization in Iran’s foreign policy is inevitable for the economic and welfare needs and political influence in the region as well as making extensive relations especially in economic. Key words: Southeast Asia, integration, Look East Policy, foreign policy, Iran.

Institutional adaptation to drought: The case of Fars Agricultural Organization

Recurrent droughts in arid and semi-arid regions are already rendering agricultural production, mainstay of subsistence livelihoods, uncertain. In order to mitigate the impact of drought, agricultural organizations must increase their capacity to adapt. Institutional adaptation refers to the creation of an effective, long-term government institution or set of institutions in charge of planning and policy, and its capacity to develop, revise, and execute drought policies. Using the Fars Agricultural Organization in Iran, as a case study, this paper explores the institutional capacities and capabilities, necessary to adapt to the drought conditions. The STAIR model was used as a conceptual tool, and the Bayesian network and Partial Least Squares (PLS) path modeling was applied to explain the mechanisms by which organizational capacities influence drought management. A survey of 309 randomly selected managers and specialists indicated serious weaknesses in the ability of the organization to apply adaptation strategies effectively. Analysis of the causal models illustrated that organizational culture and resources and infrastructure significantly influenced drought management performance. Moreover, managers and specialists perceived human resources and strategy, goals, and action plan, respectively, as the main drivers of institutional adaptation to drought conditions. Recommendations and implications for drought management policy are offered to increase organizational adaptation to drought and reduce the subsequent sufferings.

An empirical study of implementation of EFQM method for broadcasting organization in Iran

Article history: Received October 20, 2012 Received in revised format 5 January 2013 Accepted 19 January 2013 Available online January 2

Relationships among Critical Success Factors of Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance

The main objective of this study is to find relationships among critical success factors of Knowledge Management (KM) include; organizational factors and KM processes with organizational performance. The research proposes that KM in the public sector is still in its infancy and has a long way to go in the KM journey. However, the study has identified a certain number of factors that are essential to the success of the KM initiative and program in the public sector. The study also explain current situation in terms of KM activities in the public sector in Iran and sustain the discussion about KM processes in the public sector. The result of this investigation could have significant implications for KM programs in public sector organizations in Iran. The paper describes and develops a framework of KM process in the public sector as well as recommendations to practitioners about planning and implementing KM programs and initiatives.

Investigating the Impact of Advertising on Customers’ Behavioral Intentions A Case of Agriculture Bank

Advertising is one of the important communication tools in business. Success or failure in many organizations and companies is related to the quality of advertising activities. In a large complex industrial society, in addition to face to face communication, there is also a need for indirect communication. Therefore, advertising can meet the need of such a society. Due to the important role of advertising, its budget has been increasing in various Iranian organizations. In developed countries advertising is considered very important and costly, but in undeveloped ones such as Iran although it is vitally important for economic development, advertising is not scientifically regarded, it is not well-known, and little attention is paid to that. Every year, a lot of money is spent on advertising, and it is essential to make it efficient and effective. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of evaluative dimensions of advertising including relevant news, brand reinforcement, entertainment, empathy, familiarity, and confusion on customers’ satisfaction and to examine the impact of customers ’ satisfaction on perceived value and behavioral intentions in Agriculture bank. The results showed that among evaluative dimensions of advertising, relevant news and familiarity leave effect on customers’ satisfaction. Thus, it can be stated that satisfaction positively influences customers’ perceived value and perceived value positively impacts on customers’ behavioral intention.

The Relationship between National Culture and Organisational Culture: The Case of Iranian Private Sector Organisations

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between National Culture (NC) and Organisational Culture (OC) in the context of private sector organisations in Iran. This paper outlines some frameworks of NC and OC then looks at some relevant specific cultural perceptions on the part of Iranian managers. The NC and OC of several organizations in Iran were investigated using survey methodology. Questionnaires were distributed through organisations either by email or hard copy. 221 questionnaires were returned. To investigate NC the researcher used the Dorfman and Howell questionnaire. Furthermore, to study OC the researcher used the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) which is based on the CVF framework. Regression analysis of the results showed that most of the dimensions of NC have insignificant relationship with OC except for the relationship of NC with clan culture. However, the correlations analyses provide some additional support for the association between these two constructs. This paper concludes that company size can serve as an important and significant moderator of the association between NC and OC within these data. Moreover, the results indicate that both education and position serve as significant controls of the association between NC and OC. It is recommended that researchers should consider the industrial cultural effect as a factor that would help for a better understanding of the relationship between NC and OC phenomena.

Desertification through Rural People Participation (Experience of International Project of Carbon Sequestration in South Khorasan Province – East of Iran)

This project was the participatory work between forest, pastures and aquiferous organization in Iran and UNDP in order to achieving revival destroyed pastures in the field of Hosein abad Sarbisheh in South Khorasan province, IRAN by using resistant varieties and absorbing additional carbon in atmosphere with profiting participation of people during 2003-2014. Carbon sequestration Projects are paying with using participatory methods in rural empowerment of low income groups and specially low income group to the development of rural infrastructure. This participation was performed for the first time a non-profit institutions and charities and takes place in the “Kasrab” Village of the project within poverty reduction, employment creation, providing sustainable livelihood opportunities,women's empowerment and environmental rehabilitation will be able to gain empower rural with resource management in addition to their capacity and necessary self-esteem to influence executive policy. The project demonstrated that desertified rangelands can be cost-effectively reclaimed by and for the benefit of the local people and that there is a significant potential to sequestrate carbon in plants and soil in these areas for overall global benefit. The lessons drawn in true collaborative rehabilitation and management of natural resources could be applied in similar places in Iran and even in other countries with similar conditions.

The impact of knowledge-sharing mechanisms on employee performance

This research aims at examining the impact of knowledge sharing on employee performance in an Iranian organisation. Thus, two questionnaires for knowledge sharing and performance were distributed among 300 technical employees of TUGA Company (Iran). The one-way ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used for data analysis. In addition, the t-test was used to determine the average usage level of knowledge sharing mechanisms among employees and their performance levels. The results showed that there is a significant positive relationship between knowledge sharing and employee performance. Besides, there is a significant positive relationship between all mechanisms (including serial, near, far, strategic, and expert transfers) and employee performance.

The role of effective human resource factors in participative management: A comparative Study between Indian and Iranian employees

Article history: Received June 2, 2012 Received in revised format 28 October 2012 Accepted 30 October 2012 Available online November 4 2012 There is an overwhelming need to focus on the human capital and the role of this important resource on organizations’ systems. In addition, there is a need for study on human resource development and participative management system. This would not be an interesting topic for study, if it were not a comparative study in the field of human capital and participative management system. Two important sectors were selected for the study i.e., Gas and Car parts companies. Gas Indian Ltd in Delhi (GAIL) and the National Gas Company of Isfahan, Iran; and also, two manufacturers of car parts in India and Iran, named Sona Group Company (in India) and Atlas Pump Sepahan (in Iran) were selected. The objectives of the study were associated with the role of some important human resource factors in participative management system. Objectives of the study are as follows: The role of communication, employees compassion, employees sentiment, reward system and training in participative management system, also if there were any significant difference on the impact of mentioned variables in Indian and Iranian organizations from the perspective of employees. The questionnaires were distributed among randomly selected employees and the researcher collected responses through the questionnaires of employees. Analysis of data was based on the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). Three levels of analyses were computed: 1. Descriptive analyses 2. T-Test 3. Correlation analyses. The general observations associated with attitudes of Indian and Iranian employees about hypotheses are presented in this paper. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Evaluation of Municipal Landfill Sites in North of Iran through Comparing BC Guideline and Iran Legislation

Selection of landfill site is a complex process which demands many diverse criteria. The significance of the present study lies in the fact that it tends to evaluate the suitability of the existing municipal landfill sites in the west area of Mazandaran province, located in north of Iran, and the south coast of Caspian Sea. In order to carry out this evaluation, 3 guidelines are used. After reviewing all the specified criteria in each of the guidelines, the authenticity of each deposit site of the study area and the entire area also was examined; and eventually the appropriate areas were identified. As a result, 62.38 percent of the study area according to the guideline of British Columbia, 25 percent according to the Iran department of environment, and the 48.5 percent according to the management and planning organization of Iran are suitable for landfill siting.

Psychological Capital of Employees of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences During 2010-2011

Background: Psychological capital with components of hope, self efficacy, optimism, and resiliency has been recently proposed to bring positive psychology to the workplace. Objectives: We investigated Psychological Capital states of employees of the Tehran university of medical sciences (TUMS) headquarter offices in Tehran, Iran. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study was conducted among all (1260) employees of the Tehran university of medical sciences headquarter offices in Tehran, Iran during the 2010-2011 time period. They were asked to respond to the PsyCap questionnaire, consisting of four subscales include hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience, each comprising of six items. Data were recorded and analyzed by SPSS software, using Chi-square statistical methods. Results: Descriptive statistics showed that the mean for positive psychological capital score was 4.05 (SD = 0.43), state of hope was 4.2 (SD = 0.64), optimism was 4.03 (SD = 0.85), self-efficacy was 3.9 (SD = 0.67), and resilience was 4.06. It seems that TUMS employees score higher in hope state subscale of positive psychological capital inventory. Conclusions: The relatively upper scores on the positive psychological states may be explained by the fact that TUMS employees worked and lived under good job that more likely to be associated with higher organizational performance. This is similar to USA sample and incompatible with Chinese workers. This study finding is only a first step towards an empirical examination of PsyCap states of psychological capital in Iran. However, our findings show the potentially important role of PsyCap capacities in health care organizations in Iran.

Case-Based Assessment of Medical Students’ Knowledge and Skill on Principles of Drug Prescription Principles

Prescription of drugs follows some principles about which the medical students should be aware, and they should practice them efficiently so that they become experienced in the field. This study aims to determine the practice and knowledge of drug prescription in senior medical students. A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 140 students from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected using self administered questionnaires in the format of case study and essay questions. The questions were designed based on principles of drug prescription presented to the interns in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences on the subjects including drug indication, interaction and side effects; contraindication of drugs in pregnancy; maximum drugs prescribed in one prescription letter; and the rules of insurance organizations in Iran. The data analysis was performed using SPSS, version 15. Content validity of multiple choice questions was confirmed by expert opinion and the consensus of four reference texts. 120 students participated in this study with a response rate of 85.7%. As to the knowledge of medical students, only 34.18% of them were competent in prescribing drugs; however, no one got a full score in the exam. 27.73% of them answered the questions incompletely, and 30.09% of them showed wrong prescription. Most mistakes were related to drug interaction, antibiotics and analgesics drugs (68.3%). As to the reference books of pharmacology, 16.9% had complete knowledge, 54.8% moderate level of knowledge, 28.3% had no information about that. This study shows that the knowledge of medical students as to drug prescription is inadequate. Also, many studies have approved that effective education has a significant effect on improvement of drug prescription by physicians. We recommend interventions such as curriculum development to increase the students’ skills. This should be taken into account in further research and by public health professionals and health policy makers.

A novel methodology for evaluating the risk of CRM projects in fuzzy environment

According to obtained reports, most of customer relationship management (CRM) projects fail. Thus, a structured approach is needed to identify, prioritize and evaluate risks in CRM projects. This helps project managers of CRM implementation to find out how to treat such risks. The nature of CRM is multi-dimensional, and it is one of the most complicated innovations in organizations. In this paper, because of multi-dimensional nature of CRM projects, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is used to evaluate CRM risk factors based on active project managers’ judgments as experts in organizations which sale CRM software or provide service and consult in Iran. The analyses are performed by the judgments of CRM experts using a questionnaire including 49 pair-wise comparisons. In Iranian organizations, based on experts’ judgments, in the first life cycle phases of CRM, “changes in the stakeholders and top management” has the highest importance among risk factors in CRM projects. According to our experts’ beliefs, management permanence is one of the most important factors for IS projects failure in Iran which is resulted from Iranian organizations’ culture. In the next life cycle phases of CRM, the risk factors such as general factors of classification “dynamic assessment and monitoring” have the lowest priority.

A demographic profile of 7273 traumatic and non-traumatic spinal cord injured patients in Iran

BACKGROUND: To evaluate demographic profile of traumatic and non-traumatic spinal cord injured (SCI) patients. METHODS: Mobile rehabilitation teams gathered data in 20 out of 30 provinces in Iran. Of 8104 traumatic and non-traumatic SCI patients under coverage of the State Welfare Organization of Iran registered in the database, 7273 were included in the analysis. The aggregate data on SCIs, including age, gender, place of residence, education level, marital status, etiology of injury, age at the time of injury, time passed since injury, level of injury, type of cord injury, having caregiver, and occupation were recorded. RESULTS: Of 7273 patients, 5175 (71.1%) were male. At the time of the study, 46% were in the age group 20-40 years old, 34% were more than 40, and 20% were less than 20 years old. The residential place of 26% was in villages. 23.9% were illiterate, 6.9% had high school diploma or higher. The distribution of cervical, thoracic, and lumbar levels of injury was 17.7, 24.4, and 57.9%, respectively. Overall, there were 49% married and 45.8% never married, while 1.4% patients were single because their partners had left them, 1.7% of partners had died, 1.9% had divorced, and 0.3% had remarried. At the time of the presentation of patients, 33% were 21-30 years-old, 17% were 31-40, and 16% were less than 20 years. About the type of cord injury, the paraplegia, paraparesia, quadriplegia, quadriparesia, and hemiparesia were present in 72.1, 12.5, 10.2, 4.0, and 1.1% of patients, respectively. Unemployment was reported in 55.6% of patients. However, 17% were unable to work, 7.1% had a job, and 3.4% were retired. Caregiver was not provided for 7.5% of them. The most prevalent causes of the injury were: trauma (57.4%), congenital (14.4%), tumors (4.4%), spinal degenerative disorder such as canal stenosis (2.2%), genetic (2.0%), infection (1.9%), scoliosis (1.1%), and miscellaneous (10.6%). CONCLUSIONS: These data will provide the information to guide future studies on SCI patients for better prevention and management of SCI patients. KEYWORDS: Demography, Traumatic, Non-traumatic, Spinal cord injury, Etiology. Language: en

Risk Based Internal Audit An Empirical Model For Implementation

Internal auditing plays an important role in the efficiency and effectiveness of internal control system in organizations. Internal auditing should provide correct information to management about effectiveness of risk management and internal controls including compliance with organizational laws and regulations. At this time, there are different types of internal auditing, which primarily accept and apply procedures such as testing transactions, testing accuracy and reliability of accounting books and financial reports, the accuracy, reliability and timeliness of control reports and testing compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. However, none of these offer an opinion about qualitative aspects of organizational management, especially risk management. Therefore, it is necessary to redefine internal auditing and to determine the new scopes for it in order to ensure from adoption of modern risk management tools, adequ- acy and effectiveness of these tools and also helping organizational units to reduce risks. These changes in focus and attention of internal auditing are possible by revision in attitudes to audit and changing it to risk-based internal auditing. Regarding this matter, the main purpose of this study is to provide a?comprehensive and practical model for implementing and using risk-based internal auditing in companies and organizations. This model is designed based on theoretical principles presented in the literature and relevant research as well as professional experience of the authors. Also, the designed model has been implemented in one of the large Iranian organizations, which increases the value and applicability of the model.

Leadership styles and its relationship with subordinates' self-esteem

Article history: Received April 28, 2012 Accepted 22 July 2012 Available online July 26 2012 Leadership plays an essential role in managing different organizations. These days, different organizations attempt to resolve any existing conflicts through adapting an appropriate leadership strategy. During the past few years, there are increasing interests in examining the relationship between management style and self-esteem. The proposed study of this paper performs an empirical study to find the relationship between leadership style and self-esteem. The proposed study distributed a questionnaire among 80 managers and 150 regular employees of an organization in Iran. We have used Pearson correlation test, t-student and Freedman tests to verify the relationship between leadership style and self-esteem. The investigation of this survey considers four groups of leadership style including autocratic-charity, autocraticexploitation, management consulting and participative and their effects on self-esteem. The results of our survey indicate that there is a positive and strong relationship between participative leadership management style and self-esteem. The results also indicate that there is strong relationship between educational background and self-esteem. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

An empirical study to determine effective factors on organizational commitment

Article history: Received June 28, 2012 Received in Revised form August, 26, 2012 Accepted 29 August 2012 Available online 11 September 2012 Organizational commitment plays an important role on the success of business units. Many companies rely on their human resources and when some skilled employees leave an organization, there would be a chaos in some organizations especially in small business units. The proposed study of this paper gathers the necessary information from 200 employees who work for custom organization in Iran. The results of factor analysis have indicated there are four factors influencing organizational commitments. The first factor is associated with cultural factor, the second issue is related to human resource based factors while the third factor indicates the behavior based factors and finally empowering based factors are the last item. The ratio of Chi-Square/df is equal to 2.66, which is less than 3 and this validates the results. We have also used structural equation modeling and the results show that the third factor, behavior based components, is the most important factor followed by the second factor, human resource factor. In addition, the third important factor is cultural issues followed by empowering factors. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pathology of knowledge strategy barriers in organization: a case study

Article history: Received April 28, 2012 Received in Revised form July, 29, 2012 Accepted 10 August 2012 Available online 14 August 2012 Knowledge management plays an important role on the success of organizations but there are several reasons that many organizations fail to talk a full advantage of the benefits of knowledge management implementation. In this paper, we perform an empirical investigation on supreme audit court organization of Iran. The survey uses a standard questionnaire and distributes 116 questionnaires among 228 people who worked for this organization. Cronbach alpha yields 0.817, which is well above the minimum acceptable level. Kolmogorov–Smirnov test has been performed to examine the normality of the data and yields 1.71 for management attributes, 1.78 is for resource factors and 1.73 for environment factors and P-value for all three factors is 0.000. The preliminary results of our survey indicate that management is the first important factor followed by resources and environment factors. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

An empirical study based on BSC-DEA to measure the relative efficiencies of different health care centers in province of Semnan, Iran

In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to measure the relative efficiency of seven health care centers in province of Semnan, Iran, which were under the coverage of social security organization of Iran. The proposed model of this paper uses a hybrid of balanced score card and data envelopment analysis for performance measurement. The proposed sudy uses four perspectives of balanced score card including learning and growth, internal process, customer and financial perspectives and within each perspective, data envelopment analysis is adopted so that the outputs of each perspective are used as inputs of the other perspective. The preliminary results indicate that all seven units perform relatively well and the overall efficiency of all units in this province is 0.769.