This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine the important factors influencing on adoption of biofuels from consumer’s perspective. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 211 randomly selected people who use green products in city of Tehran, Iran. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.812, which is well above the acceptable level. Using principle component with Varimax rotation, the study has determined five important factors including social commitment, product usefulness, infrastructure, management approach and customer oriented, which influence the most on adaptation of biofuels.

Nowadays, trade mark is one of the most important components of the products in both consumers and producers’ perspectives. In this study, two separate but related mechanism through which the trademark is supposed to create value for customers, were investigated. Likeness/ description and functional-aesthetic benefits were taken into consideration. This research shows the positive effects of logo on customer commitment regarding the performance. Commitment reflects customers’ desire for cooperation by considering the effects of a logo. Logo will help customers easily identify and select a brand. This research proves that, from the customer's perspective, trademarks contain meaning, and thus include brief information on the struggle for marketing. In case of the purpose, this study is an applied research and in terms of data-gathering it is a descriptive – survey one. Since the population of the survey was unlimited, initial investigations indicated that 384 questionnaires should be distributed based on Morgan table. Using structural equation modeling, the survey results showed that descriptive-cognitive, functional benefits and aesthetic tendencies had significant influences on customer commitment in regards of performance.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of different factors influencing on accomplishment of projects in Iranian oil industry. The proposed study designs a questionnaire consists of 50 questions in Likert scale with seven factors including sanctions, economy, scheduling, contractor management weaknesses, cultural/social, force majeure and contractee. The study considers the effects of these factors in three categories; namely risk of project scheduling, risk in project cost and risk in management weakness. Using structural equation modeling, the study confirms that all three factors influence on the success of oil projects. In other words, The results have indicated that budgeting as well as cost accounting is the most important factor in accomplishment of oil projects followed by weakness in management and having an appropriate scheduling.

Although job stress has become an issue of great concern over the last decades both internationally and nationally, there still remains a paucity of research in the Ghanaian insurance industry. This study therefore examined the relationship between antecedent variables (work overload, role conflict and role ambiguity) and employee job stress in the insurance industry in Ghana. Using a descriptive cross-sectional design with a survey questionnaire, 212 employees were selected to participate in the study. Pearson correlation and a two-step hierarchical regression were used to test the proposed hypotheses. Results of the analysis revealed that work overload and role conflict rather than role ambiguity were positively related to job stress. Implications for theory and practice are later discussed in the study.

Given the competitive environment in the global market in recent years, organizations need to plan for increased profitability and optimize their performance. Planning for an appropriate product mix plays essential role for the success of most production units. This paper applies analytical network process (ANP) approach for product mix planning for a part supplier in Iran. The proposed method uses four criteria including cost of production, sales figures, supply of raw materials and quality of products. In addition, the study proposes different set of products as alternatives for production planning. The preliminary results have indicated that that the proposed study of this paper could increase productivity, significantly.

Consumer’s personality traits, as one of the most important aspects of human psychological tendency, may influence people towards different brands. Therefore, the owners of most well-known brands also try to learn more about people’s personal characteristics to gain more market shares. The purpose of this paper is to find out more about consumer personality, which creates motivation in consumer’s mind and to learn more about the effect of this image on consumer’s interest on purchasing products. The population of this survey includes all people in city of Tehran, Iran who own one of Apple’s products. The results of the survey have indicated that neuroticism, extroversion, openness, compatibility, loyalty and brand love, as the main characteristics of brand personality, maintained positive impacts on brand love.

One of the most advantages of the internet and its expansion is probably due to its easy and low cost access to unlimited information and easy and fast information exchange. The accession of communication technology for marketing area and emergence of the Internet leads to creation and development of new marketing models such as viral marketing. In fact, unlike other marketing methods, the most powerful tool for selling products and ideas are not done by a marketer to a customer but from a customer to another one. The purpose of this research is to analyze the relationship between customers' loyalty and the acceptance of viral marketing based on the theory of technology acceptance model (TAM) model among the civil engineers and architects who are the members of Engineering Council in Isfahan (ECI). The research method is descriptive–survey and it is applicable in target. The statistical population includes civil engineers and architects who are the members of Engineering Council in Isfahan including 14400 members. The sample size was determined 762 members based on Cochran sampling formula, the sample was selected as accessible. The data was collected by field method. Analyzing the data and recent research hypothesis, the data was extracted from the questionnaires. Then, all the data was analyzed by computer and SPSS and LISREL software. According to the results of the data, the loyalty of the civil engineers and architects members of ECI was associated with the acceptance and practical involvement of viral marketing.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of different strategies including attribute, advantage, application, consumer, competitive advantage, pricing/quality and category on brand promise for products of LG Company in city of Tehran, Iran. The study designs two questionnaires, one for strategic positioning and the other for brand promise in Likert scale. Cronbach alphas for brand promise and strategic positioning are 0.81 and 0.79, respectively. The questionnaires are distributed among 385 randomly selected regular users of LG products and using Spearman correlation as well as Stepwise regression techniques, the effects of various strategies on brand promise are examined. The results of the implementation of Spearman correlation have indicated that there were positive and meaningful relationships between different strategies and brand promise. In addition, the results of Stepwise regression have indicated that three strategies of price/quality, consumer and application were the most important predictors of brand promise.

Nowadays, traffic safety is one of the primary principles of traffic engineering and transportation planning. Road accidents have been major problems that cause human losses, social and economic challenges. The first step to improve road traffic safety is to identify black spots, which preserve high potential of road accidents. Therefore, identifying, analyzing, prioritizing and refining these places play important role in improving transportation safety. This paper applies fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal (TOPSIS) for ordering different black spots for a case study of highway between two cities of Qazvin and Saveh, Iran. The study performs the ranking based on two categories of tangent distance and horizontal curve. The ranking is performed according to Roadway width, Shoulder width, Traffic volume, Percentage of vehicle, Load and utility, Network access, The number of horizontal curves and Equivalent Property Damage Only (EPDO). The results are compared with frequencies of incidents and analyzed.

This paper investigates the effects of different factors influencing on the successful implementation of the business process re-engineering (BPR) in Iran. The study selects 386 experts randomly and using some statistical tests examines the effects of four groups of factors including strategic, organizational, methodologic and technological & educational issues on the success of the BPR implementation in Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among some experts where Cronbach alpha was calculated as 0.71. The implementation of Pearson correlation ratio has confirmed that technological and educational factors marinated the highest effects (r = 0.523, Sig. = 0.000) followed by strategic (r = 0.505, Sig. = 0.000), organizational (r = 0.352, Sig. = 0.000) and methodologic issues (r = 0.267, Sig. = 0.000). In addition, the implementation of Stepwise regression has confirmed that technological & educational, strategic and methodologic factors influence on BPR in Iran.