The study examined the market entry strategies of multinational services companies into Ghana’s service sector and the linkages to firm level performance after entry. Literature was reviewed on market entry strategies, internationalisation, globalisation of service firms and resource-based theory. The study adopted a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches in this study. The qualitative approach was for deeper enquiry and quantitative for empirical testing. The study found that firm specific factors affect the market entry strategy while the entry strategy also affects performance after it enters the market. Home country factors and the features of services are also seen to moderate on the effects mentioned. Respondents also indicated that the features of services were an industry wide issue not so much consideration is given to it.

Kouroush Jenab, Donald Staub, Mark Rajai PDF (233 K)
Abstract: Students at risk of dropping out of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs often display signs that indicate they are at risk. A need exists to identify at risk STEM students early and to develop and implement effective intervention strategies that utilize the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach. Most of all, a database system is needed to track this early intervention process, if retention rates are to be improved. To address this need at a small community college in North Carolina, a system was developed and underwent a pilot study in Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. The two pilot groups were compared to the two control groups to identify differences in retention, course credit completion rates, and grade point averages (GPA). The first pilot group displayed no significant differences, while the second pilot group displayed significant differences in most of the areas analyzed in the study, indicating a database system can be used to improve STEM student retention. While the second of the two pilot groups displayed promising results, managerial and logistical issues, such as less than optimal instructor involvement, impeded success were identified. This paper will describe the design, implementation, and the preliminary results of this study and outlines the need for further research that confirms these preliminary findings.

Successful organizations share some identical factors that pave the way for their success. Among these factors, strategic management is the key to success for organizations to contribute more to the competitive world market of today. In this respect, the pivotal role of outsourcing cannot be denied. This research parallelizes the criteria affecting the outsourcing success as presented in Elmuti model with the Balanced score card method in the Tose & apos; e Ta & apos; avon Bank. In this research, questionnaires and interviews with experts helped determine the strategic goals at four perspectives of balanced score card method (at Tose & apos; e Ta & apos; avon Bank) and the relative weights were computed for each of balance score card (BSC) perspectives by using AHP method. As the next step, the indexes were prioritized by applying the quality function development(QFD) technique and considering strategic goals at four perspectives in section "WHAT" and the outsourcing success criteria of Elmuti model in section "HOW". At the end of algorithm, the results are compared with the Elmuti method. Based on the results, the hybrid proposed technique seems to perform better than Elmuti.

Parameter design or robust parameter design (RPD) is a statistical methodology used mostly in engineering fields as a cost-effective approach for improving the quality of products and processes. The primary goal of parameter design is to choose the levels of the control variables, which optimizes a defined quality characteristic. Modeling both the mean and variance is commonly referred to as dual modeling. In parametric dual modeling, estimations of the mean and variance parameters are interrelated. When one or both of the models (the mean or variance model) are mis-specified, parametric dual modeling can lead to faulty inferences. An alternative to parametric dual modeling is nonparametric dual modeling. However, nonparametric techniques often result in estimates characterized by high variability, which leads us to ignore important knowledge. We develop a dual modeling approach called dual model robust regression (DMRR), which is robust against user misspecification of the mean and/or variance models. Numerical and asymptotic results illustrate the advantages of DMRR over several other dual model procedures. The proposed method will be illustrated with simulations.

multi-skilled project scheduling problem (MSPSP) has been generally presented to schedule a project with staff members as resources. Each activity in project network requires different skills and also staff members have different skills, too. This causes the MSPSP becomes a special type of a multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem (MM-RCPSP) with a huge number of modes. Given the importance of this issue, in this paper, a mixed integer linear programming for the MSPSP is presented. Due to the complexity of the problem, a meta-heuristic algorithm is proposed in order to find near optimal solutions. To validate performance of the algorithm, results are compared against exact solutions solved by the LINGO solver. The results are promising and show that optimal or near-optimal solutions are derived for small instances and good solutions for larger instances in reasonable time.

One of the most basic requirements of financial institutes, governmental and private banks in the present age is to have a good understanding on customers & apos; behaviors of bank network. It helps banks determine customer loyalty, which yields profit making for bank. On the other hand, it is important to know about credit risk of customers with the goal of decreasing loss and better allocation of bank resources to applicants of receiving loan. According to nature of customer loyalty discussion and credit risk, these two issues are separately studied. The present article deals with studying customer loyalty and prioritizing based one private bank in Kurdistan province. The proposed model of this paper studies customer loyalty by using Recency Frequency Monetary (RFM) factor for prioritizing customer based on loyalty properties and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In addition, in order to calculate the relative importance coefficient or weight of loyalty properties in RFM method, the pair wise comparison matrix based on analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used. Results show that in the present study, necessarily customers having higher average monetary value during a specified time period does not have much higher priority compared with other customers.

In an environment, which is highly competitive and everything changes rapidly, managers of organizations face with problems such as how to identify important factors preventing organizations from optimum use of available resources and capacities and invest more on key factors. To achieve this goal, we need to develop an effective strategy map for organizations. The strategy map is a constructional and expanding procedure to identify relationships among all the organization & apos; s strategic goals, which play a key role in achieving competitive advantage. Undoubtedly, representing a model to identify and to evaluate the important items for each of available goals in strategy map of each organization is a significant help for management to access higher competition benefits. In this paper, strategic objectives in the strategy map of one of the best producer of electric auto part makers in Iran called Electric Vehicle Co. East are evaluated based on balanced score card perspective and to assign appropriate values to available factors we use a hybrid method consist of AHP technique with Fuzzy logic.

Consulting helps managers or other people find appropriate solutions for challenges they face in their businesses. Most of the losses incurred by the people and the society could be prevented using appropriate consultation. Consultation, also, refers to people & apos; s participation in decision making. Despite dramatic development in management consulting industry in the world during the last three decades, consulting industry in Iran has faced numerous challenges. This study aims to examine the factors affecting the efficiency of management consulting services in small and medium-sized businesses and it focuses on food industries in Tehran as a real-world case study. The necessary suggestions regarding the hiring of a consultant and increasing the efficiency of management consulting services in business have been offered in this study. Some recommendations deal with the way that management consultants should respond to the managers & apos; needs, act as a reliable and efficient adviser in public or private businesses and find their position in the Iranian market. The conceptual model of this study shows the influence of key factors affecting the purpose of consulting on the efficiency of management consulting services. To do the research, 90 people are selected as the sample size in a descriptive study with random sampling of the managers of aforementioned companies using a questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha method was used to assess the reliability of the questionnaire. For assessing the validity of the questionnaire, we use standard questionnaire, which has already been used.

Over the past two decades, two-way communication via web-based exchanges has been a popular method for different activities such as electronic transaction, publication, broadcasting, and other service applications. However, it is always necessary to measure the performance quality of web services using different technique such as e-SERVQUAL model. The proposed study of this paper uses this technique for measuring the quality of Iranian university e-services. The proposed study distributes a standard questionnaire among students who use this service through internet. The results indicate that only efficiency and online service quality in the e-service system are desirable. Managerial implications are represented