This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of advertisement on brand equity. The study has accomplished on two well-known brands in mobile providers in city of Tehran, Iran. The study uses Aaker’s model to examine the effects of advertisement on various factors such as brand awareness, quality perception, brand loyalty and brand associate. The study also investigates the effects of brand awareness, quality perception and brand associate on brand loyalty. The results of our survey have concluded that advertisement could influence on some of the components of brand equity, significantly. For the first case study of this survey, Irancell, advertisement influences on brand awareness, brand quality and brand associate, significantly. In addition, brand awareness and brand loyalty also influence on brand quality and brand equity, positively. For the second case study of this survey, Mobile Telecommunication Company of Iran, the effects of advertisement on brand equity, brand awareness and brand associate have been confirmed. Moreover, brand awareness and brand quality influence on brand loyalty, positively. In addition, brand loyalty influences positively on brand equity.

This paper presents a study to rank different green supplier involved in supplement of electronic parts in auto industry using fuzzy Delphi. The proposed study uses the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process for weighing criteria and VIKOR method to rank the suppliers. The results show that measures of corporate social responsibility, environmental management system, green procurement and green production are the most important criteria for green supplier selection. In addition, product quality, online tracking of orders, delivery time and quality of online information are the most important criteria for choosing a green electronic supplier.

This paper presents an exploratory factor analysis on knowledge management and organizational innovation items influencing on organizational strategy. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 210 employees in an insurance firm named Dana located in Iran. Cronbach alpha has been well above 0.90, which confirms the validity of the overall survey. Using principle component analysis, the study extracts six critical success factors influencing on knowledge management including knowledge management processes, organizational culture, organizational structure, human resources, information technology, top management support and three factors of innovation including product innovation, process innovation, and organizational performance.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of organizational culture on individual’s innovation. The study designs a questionnaire consists of 30 questions in Likert scale, which has 4 main categories and 16 sub-categories. The main hypothesis of the survey investigates whether or there is a positive relationship between organizational culture and individual’s innovation. Using Spearman correlation ratio as well as stepwise regression technique, the study has confirmed a positive and meaningful relationship between organizational culture and individual’s innovation. In addition, there are positive and meaningful relationship between individual’s innovation and knowledge sharing, top management support, supporting mechanism and management’s accepting criticism.

Energy supply security is one of the strategic issues of all states. Beside the energy supply management, the section that has received less attention is energy demand management. According to importance of residential and commercial sectors in energy consumption, in the present study energy demand of these sectors is estimated using linear and exponential functions and the coefficients are obtained from PSO algorithms. 72 different scenarios with various inputs are investigated. Data from the years 1968 to 2011 are used to develop the models and select the suitable scenario. Results show that an exponential model developed based on particle swarm optimization algorithm has had the best performance. Based on the best scenario the energy demand of residential and commercial sectors is estimated 1718 Mega barrel of crude oil equivalent up to the year 2032.

During the past few years, knowledge has played essential role for development of economy. As a result, a new concept of knowledge based economy has been developed. Knowledge based economy is responsible for creating wealth through exploring knowledge. In new millennium, knowledge has made significant impact on socio-economic changes. The proposed study of this paper performs an empirical investigation to determine fundamentals of knowledge based economy in Iran using grounded theory. The study determines five categories including development of innovation and entrepreneurship culture, knowledge creation and distribution, creating competition in economic environment and information and communication economy.

Studying the behavior of members of a firm is considered as the primary step in understanding the organization & apos; s culture. In fact, it is always essential to study organizations’ culture when a new action is about to occur. In fact, by leveraging culture, it is becoming easier to accomplish other tasks within organizations. This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine important factors influencing organizational culture in food industry. The proposed study has adapted a questionnaire based on Denison organizational culture dimensions and distributed it among different groups of employees who worked for one of Iranian food maker in city of Zahedan, Iran. Cronbach alphas for job involvement, consistency, compatibility and mission are 0.786, 0.779, 0.707 and 0.908, respectively. The results indicate that dimensions of job involvement (3.31) and organizational compatibility (3.16) are in better position compared with dimensions of consistency (3.14) and mission (3.11). The study does not find any significance difference between in internal-external focus. In other words, the organization has paid sufficient attention to internal as well as external affairs.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to examine the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on purchasing intention. The study also considers the effects of quality of eWOM, quantity of eWOM as well as reviewers’ expertise on purchasing intention. The study has accomplished among 384 people who have some experiences on buying digital devices from an Iranian well-known providers of electronic devices in city of Tehran, Iran. Using structural equation modeling, the study confirms the effects of eWOM on purchase intention. In addition, the study confirms the effects of quality of eWOM as well as reviewer’s expertise on purchase intention. Moreover, the study examines the effects of two moderator variables, brand image and product complexity, on purchase intention and while the effect of brand image on purchase intention is confirmed but the impact of complexity on purchase intention is not confirmed.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of institutional ownership, internal audit system, the number of non-executive board members and having differentiation between chair and general managers’ responsibilities on the likelihood of stock price crash on 110 listed firms on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2004-2011. The study uses Chen’ model (2001) [Chen, J., Hong, H., & Stein, J. C. (2001). Forecasting crashes: Trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices. Journal of Financial Economics, 61(3), 345-381.] to perform the investigation. Based on the results of the survey, there is a negative and meaningful relationship between stock price crash and institutional ownership when the level of significance is ten percent. In addition, as the number of non-executive board members increases, the chance of stock price crash decreases when the level of significance is five percent. However, separation between the responsibility of chair and general managers did not seem to influence on stock price and also having internal audit system had no impact on the likelihood of stock price change.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of ten factors on brand equity. The study provides an assessment using a brand equity model for fast moving consumer goods in cosmetic and hygiene industry. The study has accomplished among people who purchase goods in six major cities of Iran based on an adapted questionnaire originally developed by Aaker (1992a) [Aaker, D. A. (1992a). The value of brand equity. Journal of Business Strategy, 13(4), 27-32.]. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.88, which is well above the minimum acceptable level of 0.7. In addition, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling adequacy and Bartlett & apos; s test of Sphericity approximation Chi-Square are 0.878, 276628 with Sig. = 0.000, respectively. The proposed study of this paper uses structural equation modeling to test different hypotheses of the survey. The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Chi-Square/df are 0.067, 0.840 and 4.244 and they are within desirable levels. While the effects of seven factors on brand equity have been confirmed. However, the survey does not confirm the effects of perceived value, advertisement effectiveness and advertisement to brand on brand equity. In our survey, brand loyalty maintains the highest positive impact followed by having updated brand, trust to brand, perceived quality to brand, brand awareness, intensity of supply and perception to brand.