Retaining the best employees is of high concern for most organizations and this issue has become a significant focus of attention for many researchers. For this reason, this paper discusses different factors which influence the employee turnover intention-behavior in the organization, specifically to examine the effect of salary, performance appraisal, training & development and career growth on turnover intention. In addition, based on the social exchange theory this paper explains the mediating role of organizational commitment in the relationship between human resource development factors, career growth and turnover intention. A cross sectional, survey data study is undertaken to investigate the relationships in a sample of 270 full time faculty members employed in different private universities of Pakistan. Partial Least Square two step path modeling is used to test the direct and the indirect hypothesis of the study. The results of PLS (SEM) path modeling reveal that human resource development factors specially salary and performance appraisal were negatively associated with turnover intention. In addition, the results also indicate that career growth had significant relationships with turnover intention. Moreover, out of four dimensions of career growth, only two dimensions, namely promotion speed and remuneration growth, have strong influence on turnover intention. Finally, in terms of organizational commitment as mediating variable between the relationships of salary, performance appraisal, career growth and turnover intention, four out of six variables indicate partial mediation including career growth (career goal progress), career growth (promotion speed), career growth (remuneration growth) and performance appraisal.

In recent years, supply chain management is known as the key factor for achieving competitive advantage. Better customer service, revenue improvement and cost reduction are the results of this philosophy. Organizations can manage the performance of their firms by appropriate goal setting, identifying criteria and continuous performance measurement, which creates a good view for the business circumstances. Developing and defining appropriate indicators at different levels of chain is necessary for implementing a performance measurement system. In this study, we propose a new method to determine the measurement indicators and strategies of the company in term of balanced scorecard. The study is a combination of balanced scorecard, path analysis, evolutionary game theory and cooperative game theory for strategic planning. The study offers an appropriate program for future activities of organizations and determines the present status of the firm. The implementation of the proposed method is introduced for a food producer and the results are analyzed.

The paper examines the effect of concentration on performance in the Vietnamese commercial banks during the period 2005-2012, using the concentration ratio and the Herfindahl-Hirschman index to measure the level of concentration in the banking sector. We find a clear trend of decreasing concentration of the Vietnamese banking sector over the analyzed period, along with an increase in competition. The results of the competitive analysis based on The Panzar-Rosse model show a status of monopoly competition market has formed in the banking sector. With respect to the effects of concentration on banks’ performance, the study finds a negative relationship between the concentration of the market and operational performance of the commercial banks in the context of monopoly competition. We conclude that high competition and less concentration stimulate the banking sector to achieve a more balanced allocation of credits and promoting sustainable economic growth.

Assembly lines and cellular manufacturing systems (CMSs) design have been widely used in the literature. However the integration of these manufacturing concepts is neglected in an environment where parts need to be assembled after production in different shops. In this paper, a comprehensive quadratic assignment problem is developed for the assignment of machines of each part manufacturing cell, sub-assembly tasks of each sub-assembly cell as well as the assignment of different cells and final assembly tasks within the shop floor in their relevant predetermined locations. A genetic algorithm (GA) as well as a memetic algorithm (MA) consisting of the proposed GA and Tabu search (TS) algorithm are proposed and implemented on different size numerical examples. The obtained results show the efficiency of both algorithms to reach near optimal solutions compared to the optimal solution of small-sized problems.

This paper studies the impact of the factors reflecting the capital structure on the performance of construction companies listed on the Vietnam Stock Exchange by using a sample of 59 listed construction companies in three years (177 observations). This research is accomplished by applying a linear regression model and correlation analysis. The results show that: (1) factors such as number of years of operation, asset size, debt/equity do not affect return on assets (ROA) and return on equities (ROE); (2) the factor of total fixed assets / total assets yields a positive and significant impact on ROA and ROE; (3) the ratios of total debt / total equity and long term debt / total equity maintain negative impacts on ROA; and (4) debt / equity has a strong positive effect on ROE.

Scheduling ‘n’ jobs on ‘m’ machines in a flow shop is NP- hard problem and places itself at prominent place in the area of production scheduling. The essence of any scheduling algorithm is to minimize the makespan in a flowshop environment. In this paper an attempt has been made to develop a heuristic algorithm, based on the reduced weightage of machines at each stage to generate different combination of ‘m-1’ sequences. The proposed heuristic has been tested on several benchmark problems of Taillard (1993) [Taillard, E. (1993). Benchmarks for basic scheduling problems. European Journal of Operational Research, 64, 278-285.]. The performance of the proposed heuristic is compared with three well-known heuristics, namely Palmer’s heuristic, Campbell’s CDS heuristic, and Dannenbring’s rapid access heuristic. Results are evaluated with the best-known upper-bound solutions and found better than the above three.

An in-house finite element code was utilized to evaluate mode I/II stress intensity factor (SIF) of an edge cracked semi-circular disc subjected to three-point bending. The specimen was considered as an isotropic and homogeneous material. Relative span length ratios of 0.3 to 0.8 in steps of 0.1 were invoked. Relative crack length ratios of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 were analyzed with crack angles up to 60° in steps of 5°. At the same crack length, mode I SIF decreases with increasing crack angle or decreasing the span length. The range of pure mode II decreases with increasing the span length. For the same crack length, the crack angle corresponding to the transition from a mixed mode I/II to a pure mode II increases with increasing the relative span length ratio. On the contrary, that angle decreases with increasing the crack length for the same span length. Good agreement has been generally obtained with relevant results found in the literature.

This paper examines how initial inequality and poverty rate are related to subsequent economic growth in the provincial level of Vietnam. The results show a robust negative relationship between initial poverty rate and subsequent economic growth. However, there is no link between initial inequality and subsequent economic growth. The results also show that lower inequality leads to lower poverty rate and poverty reduction could help to reduce inequality. Other determinants of inequality and poverty reduction include human capital, investment, gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate and trade openness. The main policy implication that emerges from this paper is that concentrating on poverty elimination will help us build a more equitable society without sacrificing economic growth.

During the past few years, dynamic capability (DC) has been considered as an important issue in banking industry. This paper presents a survey on dynamic capability and its role on reaching sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) within Mellat bank of Iran (MBI). A valid research instrument is utilized to conduct a survey among 150 managers from MBI. The study utilizes structural equation modelling to examine different hypotheses based on an integrated model of DC and SCA. According to literature studies, expert opinions and exploratory factor analysis, DC is classified into sensing, learning, reconfiguration, and coordination. Furthermore, SCA of the banking industry is classified into three dimensions: market, customer, and financial performance. The results indicate that DC had the greatest effect on the market centered, while it had the least influence on the customer centered.

Flow of information in supply chain is as prominent as material and financial flows and among these three aspects of a supply chain, information flow could be of great importance since it provides a basis for a steady flow of goods and finance as well. To help managers control the flow of information in an effective way, first, the parameters which affect the flow of information should be determined. Then, if the parameters can be controlled carefully, the information will be shared correctly and in a timely manner among supply chain members. This paper identifies the influencing parameters on proper flow of information in supply chain and provides a list of parameters based on the literature as well as the industrial and academic experts’ opinions. Afterwards, in order to define the degree of importance for each parameter from the experts’ perspective, fuzzy TOPSIS method is employed and the parameters are ranked based on three criteria, namely “measurability”, “being illustrative” and “parameters relevancy” to the issue of information flow. The research findings show that “Supply Chain Hardware Capabilities”, “Supply Chain Network Infrastructure”, “Information Software Capabilities”, “Information Sharing Timeliness”, “Information Recency” and “Organizational Rewards” received the highest priorities, while “Power of Internal and Inter-personal Communications”, “Users’ Trust” and “Users’ Tendency” were standing at the bottom of this ranking. The results of this research could be employed as an input for strategy development process for supply chain information management activities. Thus, the awareness of each parameter’s importance in proper flow of information, helps us make appropriate strategies to improve information management in the supply chain.