Delay is one of the most common causes of construction projects failure in Iran. The larger sizes of the projects, the more risks and costs of delays. In this paper, the causes of delays in EPC contracts of nonindustrial buildings were excavated from the related previous research and several interviews with experts of this subject, and adjusted by the brainstorming technique, Delphi and reconciling the nature of these projects. Then, a questionnaire was distributed among 52 experts working in the South Pars project, and the data were analyzed by descriptive and factor analysis methods. Descriptive analysis revealed that “Inflation and escalation of material prices and human resources salaries”, “Unrealistic contract duration and requirements imposed” and “Political situation” were the most significant delay factors. Meanwhile, factor analysis indicates that “Improper construction methods”, “Shortage of experienced and skilled labor” and “Long acceptance process (shop drawings, permits, tests and samples)” were the most important causes of delay.

Green supply chain management (GSCM) has become an emerging concept among the environmental management topics during the last few years. There are some pressures that push industries to adopt GSCM like: governmental regulations, tough market competition for green image, pressure from Non-governmental organizations, media pressures and other pressures for environmental actions. These pressures can be more considerable for special industries like mining and mineral industries, because of their activities which can cause more damages to environment. As it is not possible to respond to all of the pressures at the same time, identifying and ranking the most important pressures can be very useful for managers & apos; decisions. This study aims to identify and evaluate the pressures for GSCM adopting according to Iranian mining experts & apos; opinions by using grey methodology.

This research aims to study factors influencing the adoption of internet shopping by Iranian consumers by integrating task technology fit (TTF) model and the unified theory of acceptance and usage of technology (UTAUT). The statistical population includes consumers in capital city of Iran, Tehran, who have had at least one experience of internet shopping. The data were collected through questionnaire. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed and 392 usable questionnaires were returned. SPSS statistical software was used for data analysis .The results show that except for effort expectation, there was a significant and positive relationship between other variables (task technology fit, performance expectation, social impact and facilitating conditions) and internet shopping. In addition, the findings also indicated a significant effect of task features and technology features on task technology fit.

In the recent years, retail industry in Iran has faced an increasing competition and this has encouraged the managers of chain stores to find ways to differentiate their own companies. One of the influential factors in this field is brand equity. Concerning this issue, the aim of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of sale promotions on the brand equity of ETKA chain stores. Therefore, a sample of 500 people among the customers of these stores in Tehran was examined. The achieved information obtained from the questionnaire was analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results showed that monetary and non-monetary promotions could influence on brand association, brand awareness and the perceived quality. On the other hand, it came out that brand association and the perceived quality are influential on brand loyalty. At last, a few suggestions were presented based on the results of this research.

This paper presents an empirical investigation on the effects of empowering organizational capabilities on new product-development efficiency improvement and the proposed study is applied in one of Iranian food producers in city of Tehran, Iran. The study considers seven components including technological capabilities, marketing mix capabilities, capabilities for communication with customers, quality of new products, fast entry to market capabilities, customer satisfaction and economic success. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 384 randomly selected people who regularly use different food products. Cronbach alphas for all components of the survey are within acceptable limits and it confirms the overall questionnaire in terms of various questions. The study has used t-student test as well as structural equation modeling to examine different hypotheses of the survey.

“Iranian general policies of administrative system” is the mediator between the Islamic Republic of Iran vision in 2025 horizon and the practical field for establishing executive policies and laws, which is notified in 26 sections. This research aims to study the effects of television on institutionalization of six items of human resources principles in Iranian general policies of administrative system including human dignity, organizational justice, meritocracy, knowledge-basis, giving services in the deprived regions and honoring the retired. Research society consists of the management pundits familiar with media concepts. According to Grounded Theory and snowball sampling, 32 experts were interviewed and the institutionalization of human resources principles in Iranian general policies of administrative system model by television was extracted. The model discloses there has not been optimal utilization of television capacities for expressing the human resources principles in Iranian general policies of administrative system, but it is possible to use the capacity of television in planning and implementing these general policies. Considering the infrastructure and using appropriate strategies, television as the most influential mass media can be used in the axial issue, that is, the institutionalization of human resources principles in Iranian general policies of administrative system. It is crucial to notice the role of intervening factors in this area.

Organizational performance is influenced by several factors including electronic services. In fact, electronic services play essential role on the performance of organizations with significant number of clients. The objective of this study is to determine factors influencing on intention to use electronic services on organizational performance in social service organization in Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 231 randomly selected employees who worked for social security organization in city of Tehran, Iran. Using principle component analysis using varimax rotation, the study determines six factors including culture, communication, customer, employee engagement, learning organization, service management, and usefulness of application, which influence the most on organizational performance.

Human capital is considered as one of the major factors to promote economic stability, especially in developing countries. Furthermore, one of the most important factors in developing human capital is taking the advantage of facilities and economic capabilities in the Instruction Sector. Development of financial system provides such abilities for the prospective countries. This paper studies the influence of financial development on human capital in Iran over period 1977-2010 with the application of a VAR model. The results show that the cash flow in Iran has a negative effect on human capital, which could be because of the increase in inflation and ends increase in costs of long-term investment and human capital is taken into account as long term investment. However, the facilities provided by the banking system has negative effect on human capital due to the lack of the best financial resource allocation. However, since most of university graduate students in Iran practically have adequate skills and education, they do not have enough capital to start a business. Providing financial assistance for the private sector can lead to a business in which they can use their skills and education towards promoting production.

Service quality plays an important role in service industries such as banks, insurance firms, etc. The purpose of this paper is to investigate level of service quality in private banking industry in Iran. The proposed model of this paper uses SERVQUAL tool for measuring service quality and population of this study includes customers of three private banks in Tehran. Results show that except efficiency, other variables of SERVQUAL obtained suitable level mean in this study. As a result, with the development of electronic commerce, internet banking has become an alternative for developing, operating and offering bank services.

Performance-based budgeting (PBB) is the latest attempt to use performance indicators in allocation of resources in public sector. PBB experts normally attempt to place emphasis on output and outcome instead of input. Iran has made efforts to establish the PBB system but so far this goal has not been realized. The methodology of the research is descriptive by the means of survey-analytical approach. In the research, the possibility of establishment of PBB in Iran is examined from three perspectives (Policymaking, Implementing, and Monitoring). The conceptual model of this research is formed with a comprehensive review of literature of PBB all over the world. At first, with an extensive review of literature in the countries who implemented PBB or trying to implement it, we identify all variables, which are necessary for a suitable Performance Budgeting model. Then the PBB experts test the necessity of these variables in Iran and finally the existence has been proved by the statistical methods with the Iranian model.