Nowadays, the increase in competition has increased the relative importance of innovation for most firms and many managers believe a good innovation must be knowledge oriented. This paper has tried to determine different methods for creating knowledge in project oriented organizations. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 32 experts who were well informed about different methods of knowledge creation and lessons learned. Cronbach alphas for all components of the survey were well above the desirable level. The study has detected 11 methods for knowledge creation and lessons learned. In terms of preliminary assessment, business transactions has received the highest impact while knowledge team has received the highest effect in terms of necessary assessment. The results of this survey have indicated that although there are several methods for detecting knowledge within organizations, in most cases, it is not easy to gain value added knowledge within an organization, quickly. The people who participated in our survey have indicated that organizational commitment, brainstorming, Delphi and storytelling also have played important role for creation of knowledge. The results have also shown that brainstorming, knowledge brokers, map knowledge and work experience were easier to use for knowledge creation and lessons learned compared with other forms of knowledge creation.

Thermal deformations can reduce the product quality that causes loss of dimensional control and structural integrity. It may increase the manufacturing cost due to unfitted component. This paper deals with the thermal deformation on AA6061 aluminum alloy T-joint after exposed to heat by gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process. In this study, two main parameters; welding speed and welding voltage were used to evaluate the angular distortion, transverse shrinkage and longitudinal shrinkage occurred in GMAW process. The results show that the angular distortion is larger with lowest welding speed. The transverse shrinkage is reduced gradually with increasing of welding speed and transverse shrinkage also linearly increasing with increasing of welding voltage. The magnitude of longitudinal shrinkage is much smaller than angular distortion and transverse shrinkage. Longitudinal shrinkage is insignificantly affected by changing the welding heat input. These findings are important to identify and minimize the unacceptable welding distortion in product manufacturing.

For the Government projects, Value for Money (VFM) is an important parameter based on which the projects are procured through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) by the public sector. The objective of this paper is to identify and evaluate perceptions of VFM factors affecting Indian road projects undertaken by PPP. Eighteen VFM factors were shortlisted through a literature survey and were validated with experienced professionals. A questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the most important VFM factors and was grouped into three categories: financial implications, the expertise of the private sector, and contract efficiency using factor analysis. Important VFM factors were identified using the Importance Index Method. The perception was analyzed with various statistical tools. The findings from this study provide more information and understanding about VFM in an early stage, which will be helpful for decision making about PPP.

his study is conducted for evaluating the motivation for accounting human resources by material stimulation in the accounting service firms in Hanoi. Based on literature review and the results of some interviews, dependent variable of the motivation for accounting human resources by material stimulation includes seven attributes. The study has also performed some descriptive analysis, Cronbach's Alpha, Independent T-test and ANOVA for measuring the motivation for accounting human resources by material stimulation in the accounting service firms in Hanoi. The results show that the motivation for accounting human resources by material stimulation achieved an average of 3.74 and with Cronbach's Alpha coefficient greater than 0.6. The study does not find any difference on evaluation of the motivation for accounting human resources by material stimulation in terms of gender and job experience. Based on the findings, some recommendations are given for improving the motivation for accounting human resources by material stimulation in the accounting service firms in Hanoi.

In this investigation, neodymium orthoferrite (NdFeO3) nanoparticles has been synthesized through ultrasonic method in the presence of octanoic acid as surfactant. This method comparing to the other methods is very fast and it does not need high temperatures during the reaction. The spherical NdFeO3 nanoparticles with an average particles size of about 40 nm can be obtained at a relatively high calcination temperature of 800 °C for 4 h. Also, product obtained by this method are uniform in both morphology and particles size. The phase composition, morphology, lattice parameters and size of particles in these product are characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX). The XRD analysis reveals only the pattern corresponding to perovskite type NdFeO3 which crystallizes in the orthorhombic structure. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis confirms the elemental compositions of the synthesized material.

Knowledge management strategies are considered as the foundation of learning organizations. One of the problems of Iranian organizations is the assessment of knowledge management processes. The purpose of the present study is to present an applied organized model for the assessment of knowledge management performance in six dimensions, i.e., the financial dimension, stakeholders, local processes, growth and learning, employee satisfaction, and environment and community; identifying and investigating the correlation among the criteria; mapping network relations; weighing the indices using DEMATEL Technique; ranking assessment dimensions of knowledge management using ORESTE Technique; drawing strategic map; and designing Balanced Scorecard for improved performance of knowledge management. The population and sample of the study included 25 petrochemical Tehran managers and senior experts in information technology section. The results of this study provides a comprehensive view for the decision makers of Iran Petrochemical Industries for an improved performance in knowledge management.

In this paper, the issue of cooperative (co-op) promotion efforts is addressed in a two-stage supply chain (SC). The investigated SC includes one monopolistic manufacturer and two duopolistic retailers facing different market demands. The customers’ demand is affected by both advertising efforts of the manufacturer and two retailers. Moreover, the retailers compete with each other on local advertising investments within the market. In order to boost the retailers’ advertising level, it is assumed that the manufacturer pays a ratio of the retailers' advertising expenditures. We propose four non-cooperative game scenarios and one cooperative game. Non-cooperative models are established through both Stackelberg and Nash game between two echelons. Moreover, both Cournot and Collusion behaviors are assumed to be followed by two retailers. We develop a promotion cost sharing contract to achieve the channel coordination. Under cooperation model, all SC members seek to reach the highest profit for the entire SC by considering the bargaining power of the SC participants. In each game scenario the optimal solution and unique equilibrium are determined. In addition, a comparison on the advertising level of all SC members along with the value of participation rate are provided. In addition, the feasibility of the cooperative game is discussed and resulted.

This paper examines the effect of different factors on customer knowledge management development for a custom organization in Bandar Abbas, Iran. The statistical population of this research includes all 440 managers and employees in different levels where 205 people are randomly selected for this survey. Using t-student as well as Friedman tests, the study has confirmed that organizational culture, training, strategy, information and organizational infrastructure, top management commitment, organizational conflict, standardization, employee performance, communication, budget support and necessary skills could influence positively on knowledge management development. In our survey, training is also believed to be the most influential factor.

Substantially, the theory of e-government public value (PV-EGOV) has been treated as a hot topic to be explored insightfully. This research comes to be considered as the launching point to empirically evaluate the creation of PV-EGOV in Jordan. The main aim of this research is to investigate the factors affecting the PV-EGOV in the context of Jordan. Information System Success Model (IS success model) was selected to determine the factors affecting the e-government public value in Jordan through the quality factors (system, information, and service) and their role in citizens' intention in use and satisfaction of the e-government. The structural Equation Model (SEM) approach was harnessed to obtain the results. The results indicated that the most critical determinant factor that affected the PV-EGOV was service quality. The current article has theoretical and practical implications for public institutions in Jordan. The future work trends are established in their specific section of this article.

In this article, waste plastics (low-density polyethylene, LDPE) and crumb rubber have been utilized to solve one of the most important environmental issues and to improve bitumen performance properties by these low cost materials. At first, modified bitumen samples were made using high shear mixer, then classic and performance tests were performed on them. It has been observed that adding low-density polyethylene and crumb rubber to the bitumen leads to improvement of classical characteristics. Then, after conducting dynamic shear rheometer test on modified bitumen samples, it was found that the sample containing 3% LDPE and 3% crumb rubber has the best performance. Conducting short-term and long-term aging experiments on samples containing 3% LDPE showed improved performance at high temperature services. After BBR test, more appropriate performance grade is observed for the sample containing 3% LDPE 3% crumb rubber.