In this study, we estimate the macroeconomics instability index over the period 1963-2003. Using the definition of Fischer and Bleaney, the study calculates the “macroeconomics instability index”. In order to compute the macroeconomics instability index, four sub-indices of inflation rate, the fractional ratio of budget to the gross national product, the ratio of foreign debt to the gross national product, and the ratio of the free exchange rate to the official exchange rate as the determinant variables of the macroeconomics instability are considered. Then, the study estimates the equations for long-term processes for each variable and determines the deviations from the real values. We also obtain the time series for the macroeconomics instability index, using the calculated simple mean of the variables’ deviations and discuss the results.

Human resources development is one of the most important components of any organization and detecting important factors influencing on human resources management plays essential role on the success of the firms. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to determine different factors influencing productivity of human resources of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) in province of Mazandaran, Iran. The study uses analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to rank 17 important factors and determines that personal characteristics were the most important factors followed by management related factors and environmental factors. In terms of personal characteristics, job satisfaction plays essential role on human resources development. In terms of managerial factors, paying attention on continuous job improvement by receiving appropriate training is the most important factor followed by welfare facilities for employees and using a system of reward/punishment in organization. Finally, in terms of environmental factors, occupational safety is number one priority followed by organizational rules and regulations.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the impact of total quality management (TQM) as well as market orientation on organizational performance on some Iranian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among some experts in city of Shiraz, Iran. Using structural equation modeling, the study determines that three components of market orientation including intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and responsiveness through TQM influences on organizational performance components including financial and non-financial performance as well as efficiency. In addition, TQM components including training, process management, supplier quality management, employee relationships, quality of data and reports and top management commitment influence positively on organizational performance in SMEs.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to rank different factors influencing on maintenance strategies on Iranian oil terminals’ company. The study determines four main factors, production quality, reliability, cost and safety. Using fuzzy analytical process, the study determines various factors associated with each main factor and ranks them by performing pair-wise comparisons. The results indicate that reliability ranks first (0.255), followed by production quality (0.252), cost (0.25) and safety (0.244). In terms of reliability, the best utilization of resources is number one priority followed by increase access to maintenance tools, reduction in production interruption are among the most important issues. In terms of production quality, reduction in system failure as well as reworks is the most important factors followed by customer satisfaction and defects. In terms of cost items, ease of access to accessories and consulting are important factors followed by necessary software, hardware and training programs. Finally, in terms of safety factors, external, internal and employee services are the most important issues, which are needed to be considered.

During the past 65 years, there have been tremendous efforts on portfolio selection problem. The standard Markowitz mean–variance model to portfolio selection includes tracing out an efficient frontier, a continuous curve demonstrating the tradeoff between return and risk. This frontier can be often detected via standard quadratic programming, categorized in convex optimization. Traditional Markowitz problem has been recently extended into a new form of mixed integer nonlinear problems by considering various constraints such as cardinality constraints, industry limitation, etc. This paper proposes a mixed integer nonlinear programming to determine optimal asset allocation on Tehran Stock Exchange. The results have indicated that a petrochemical firm named Farabi has gained 44% of the portfolio followed by a drug firm named Kosar Pharmacy gaining 28%. In addition, banking sector was the third winning firm where Eghtesad Novin bank gained nearly 10% of the portfolio. Minerals and mining firms were the next sector in our portfolio where Gol Gohar Iron Ore and Tehran Cement collected 0.73% and 0.57% of the portfolio, respectively. In our survey, auto industry gained only 0.26% of the portfolio, which belonged to Saipa group.

Today, the ability to identify the profitable customers, creating a long-term loyalty in them and expanding the existing relationships are considered as the key and competitive factors for a customer-oriented organization. The prerequisite for having such competitive factors is the presence of a very powerful customer relationship management (CRM). The accurate evaluation of customers’ profitability is considered as one of the fundamental reasons that lead to a successful customer relationship management. RFM is a method that scrutinizes three properties, namely recency, frequency and monetary for each customer and scores customers based on these properties. In this paper, a method is introduced that obtains the behavioral traits of customers using the extended RFM approach and having the information related to the customers of an organization; it then classifies the customers using the K-means algorithm and finally scores the customers in terms of their loyalty in each cluster. In the suggested approach, first the customers’ records will be clustered and then the RFM model items will be specified through selecting the effective properties on the customers’ loyalty rate using the multipurpose genetic algorithm. Next, they will be scored in each cluster based on the effect that they have on the loyalty rate. The influence rate each property has on loyalty is calculated using the Spearman’s correlation coefficient.

During the past few years, there have been tremendous changes on banking services and many bank customers are able to do their daily banking activities using recent advances of technology such as internet banking, telephone banking, etc. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation on the effects of strategic positioning for development of modern banking services. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among some 385 randomly selected people who live in Tehran in 2013. The questionnaire consists of seven factors including property positioning, advantage positioning, consumer positioning, user positioning, competitive advantage positioning, quality positioning and merchandise category positioning. Using Spearman correlation as well as stepwise regression technique, the study has determined positive and meaningful relationships between different components of strategy positioning development of modern banking services.

Tourism industry plays an essential role on development of economy and it is considered as one of green industries. Many countries try to promote investment on tourism to create various job opportunities. This paper presents an empirical investigation to rank different factors influencing on tourism industry in city of Yazd, Iran. The proposed study uses three multiple criteria decision making techniques namely, Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) and Taxonomy to rank 40 factors. The results indicate that factors such as Being located in the center axis of communication, Strengths in transportation, The ease of access to tourism destinations and Sufficient knowledge of some historical attractions are among important factors influencing tourism industry.

This paper investigates the effects of different green marketing on brand fascination for a south Korean electronic producer, Samsung. The proposed study designs two questionnaires, one for measuring the effects of green marketing and the other for brand fascination in Likert scale. Cronbach alphas for green marketing and brand fascination are calculated as 0.72 and 0.79, respectively. The study has been implemented among 385 regular customers of Samsung’s electronic devices. Using Spearman correlation ratio as well as stepwise regression analysis, the study has concluded that two components of green marketing including green product and green promotion influence positively on brand fascination, positively.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effect of human resources management on employee performance in one of Iranian social security organizations. The proposed study designs a questionnaire for human resources management with 23 questions consists of five components including Beneficiary groups, Long-term achievements, Situational factors, Human resources achievements and human resources achievement for measuring human resources management figures. In addition, the study uses another questionnaire consists of 37 questions for measuring organizational performance. Cronbach alpha for human resources management and organizational performance are calculated as 0.885 and 0.873, respectively. Using Pearson correlation ratio as well as stepwise regression technique, the study detects a positive and meaningful relationship between human resources management and organizational performance.