Six Sigma is considered as a logical business strategy that attempts to identify and eliminate the defects or failures for improving the quality of product and processes. A decision on project selection in Six Sigma is always very critical; it plays a key role in successful implementation of Six Sigma. Selection of a right Six Sigma project is essentially important for an automotive company because it greatly influences the manufacturing costs. This paper discusses an approach for right Six Sigma project selection at an automotive industry using fuzzy logic based TOPSIS method. The fuzzy TOPSIS is a well recognized tool to undertake the fuzziness of the data involved in choosing the right preferences. In this context, evaluation criteria have been designed for selection of best alternative. The weights of evaluation criteria are calculated by using the MDL (modified digital logic) method and final ranking is calculated through priority index obtained by using fuzzy TOPSIS method. In the selected case study, this approach has rightly helped to identify the right project for implementing Six Sigma for achieving improvement in productivity.

The contribution of protected areas towards conservation and protection of biodiversity cannot be over emphasized. Likewise, the dependence of local communities on forest and natural resources cannot be overlooked. Hence for the long term viability of forest reserves and wildlife protected area, the relationship of local people living close to these areas are of key importance if conflict of use can be mitigated. Admittedly, decision-making with respect to forest resource use and protection are complex due to the multiple interests of the major stakeholders. Stakeholder involvement in the planning, management and policy analysis can help resolve conflicts, and increase the commitment of local people to support conservation of protected areas. In this paper, we employ the SWOT-AHP methodology, with the aid of the Priority Estimation Tool (PriEsT), to evaluate and prioritize three management strategies for the Kakum conservation area in Ghana, as a means to facilitate conservation while ensuring benefits to local people. Considering the management objectives of the conservation area, seventeen SWOT sub-factors were identified and used in rating the three alternative management strategies. Among the strength sub-factors, enforcement of protection regulations (S4) is the most important. Similarly, limited funds for patrolling and outreach programs (W3), local people’s interest in alternative livelihood (O4) and the presence of illegal activities (T3) are the most important weakness, opportunity and threat sub-factors respectively. The management strategy “institute village committees to support monitoring and protection of resources” (A1) has the highest priority rating, indicating that management authorities must pay more attention to collaborative management. We propose that to improve on protected area management in Ghana, more management strategy studies must be conducted. However, these studies may apply the fuzzy AHP technique since it is supposed to have a better capacity to handle uncertainties in human judgments during decision-making.

Recommender systems help users faced with the problem of information overflow and provide personalized recommendations. Social networks are used for providing variety of business or social activities, or sometimes a combination of both. In this paper, by considering social network of users and according to users’ context and items, a new method is introduced that is based on trust and context aware for recommender systems in social networks. The purpose of this paper is to create a recommender system which increases precision of predicted ratings for all users especially for cold start users. In the proposed method, walking on web of trust is done by neighbor users for finding rating of similar items and users’ preference is gotten of items’ context. The results show that suitable recommendation with user’s context is provided by using this method. Also, this system can increase precision of predicted rating for all users and cold starts too and however, do not decrease the rating’s coverage.

This paper investigates the role of corporate disclosure policy on risk assessment and market value on selected firms from Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2004-2012. The study considers four risk namely; business risk, cash flow risk, financial risk and systemic risk. Using regression analysis with panel data under fixed effect, the study shows that there was a meaningful relationship between two risks, business risk and systematic risk, and market value before and after corporate disclosure. In other words, after corporate disclosure, the relationship between risk and market value becomes stronger.

This paper investigates the role of exports in the regional markets on the performance of supply chain. The study first determines critical variables affecting exports for entering into the regional markets and then measures the effects of these variables on the effectiveness of supply chain performance. The study uses two questionnaires, one for measuring the effects of various factors on export development and the other for measuring supply chain performance in Likert scale. Cronbach alpha for the mentioned questionnaires were calculated as 0.84 and 0.78, respectively. The population of the survey includes all small and medium enterprises active in city of Tehran, Iran and the study selects a sample of 250 people as a sample size. Using factor analysis, the study has determined seven factors including product development, government support, strategic orientation, customer satisfaction, competitive pressures, organizational capability and distribution strategies for entry into regional markets. In addition, the implementation of structural equation modeling has disclosed that product development and distribution strategies maintained the highest impact on export activities.

This paper investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence, organizational communications and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) for a case study of Islamic Azad University, Gorgan Branch, and Sama Institution in Iran. Statistical population includes all heads and assistants and employees of Islamic Azad University and Sama Institution in city of Gorgan, Iran as 300 people. Sample size was determined as 169 people according to Korjesi and Morgan table. This research is operational by goal, and survey and correlation by method. To determine questionnaire reliability and questionnaire validity, Cronbach Alpha coefficient for emotional intelligence questionnaire, organizational communications questionnaire, and OCB questionnaire were calculated as 0.86, 0.86, 0.87 and 0.85, respectively. To analyze data and information, Pearson correlation coefficient by inferential level was used. Results indicate that there was a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational communication and OCB.

Emotional intelligence is defined to guide behavior, thoughts, effective communicating with family and within organizations. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and entrepreneurship of trainees in vocational and technical organization of Zanjan in 2014. Method of this study is practical and survey method has been conducted for data collection. The population of the survey consists of 500 trainees and the study selects a sample of 300 people. The study uses two questionnaires, one for emotional intelligence based on Bar-On questionnaire and the other for entrepreneurship, which was made by authors. Reliability for Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire was calculated 0.85 by Cronbach & apos; s alpha and for entrepreneurship was 0.81. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS software and the results showed that there was a meaningful and positive relationship between entrepreneurship and all five dimensions of emotional intelligence, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, mood, impulse control and compatibility.

This study aims to study the relationship between organizational culture and organizational success in order to offer solutions for improving the performance and increasing the efficiency level of staffs. The statistical community of this research includes 1518 employees in organizations of Khorasan Razavi province. Sample volume is calculated through Morgan’s formula. Stratified sampling is the selected sampling method of this research. The results shows that organizational culture affected the organizational success and increasing of organizational culture could lead to more organizational success. Also it could be applied in components of organizational culture. According to results, there is no significant relationship between stability and integrity culture and organizational success and between adaptability culture and organizational success in Welfare organization. Moreover, analysis indicates that participative culture had more effect on organizational success in comparison with other criteria and one unit change of participative culture leads to 0.365 of unit change in organizational culture. Finally, the study indicated that although mission culture had significant relationship with organizational success solely, but it had negligible role in organizational success in comparison with other components of organizational culture.

This study examined the relationship between personality types and leadership styles in the city & apos; s high school principals. The population of this survey includes all principals of secondary schools in city of Zanjan, Iran. Using a stratified random sampling, 48 principals were surveyed. To assess the reliability of the questionnaire, a pretest was accomplished by distributing 20 questionnaires among the target population and Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.79. To analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics has been used. The study has confirmed that there was a positive and meaningful relationship between personality and leadership style. In addition, the study has confirmed that there were positive and meaningful relationships between task/relationship-oriented leadership style and principals’ competition/ Impatience and restlessness behavior.

Efficiency is one of the fundamental concepts in any organization including ministry of education of Iran. Teachers and counselors are the main assets of this organization and education plays a key role in achieving the organization & apos; s goals. In-service training is a technique for improving the quality and effectiveness of the advisors. This paper presents a study on the effect of in-service training on advisors’ effectiveness through psychological empowerment. The study uses a questionnaire developed by Spreitzer (1995) [Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of management Journal, 38(5), 1442-1465.] to examine the effects of five variables; namely self- efficacy, self-determination, impact, meaningfulness and trust. Using structural equation modeling, the study has determined that all five psychological empowerment components had positive and meaningful effects on in-service training. In addition, in-service training maintained positive and meaningful impacts on all components on psychological empowerment. Moreover, in-service training positively influenced on psychological empowerment.