This paper presents a study to measure the effect of personal characteristics including neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness and agreeableness on word of mouth advertisement. The population of this survey includes all people who use mobile phone in city of Tehran, Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scape and distributes it among 400 randomly selected people who use mobile devices. Using Spearman correlation test, the study confirms the positive of effects of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience on word of mouth advertisement and the negative impact of agreeableness on word of mouth advertisement. However, the study does not find any meaningful relationship between conscientiousness and word of mouth advertisement.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between intellectual capital and investment opportunities on selected firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) over the period 2005-2011. In our survey, Tobin Q represents investment opportunity and intellectual capital is measured based on different variables such as value added intellectual capital and human capital. The study uses regression technique with panel data and random effect and the results indicate that there was no meaningful relationship between intellectual capital and investment opportunity. In other words, most investment opportunities on TSE do not depend on intellectual capital and they mostly depend on traditional methods of investment.

For years, there have been growing interests on cost reduction for products and services. Privatization is considered as one of the most important techniques to increase relative efficiencies of publically held firms. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to rank important barriers on privatization of television (TV) media industry in Iran. The proposed study of this paper designs and distributes a questionnaire using a sample of 234 out of 600 graduate students who were enrolled in media communication studies. The survey considers social, cultural, economic as well as rules and regulations factors influencing privatization of TV media industry. The survey uses the ranking method presented by Cook and Kress (1990) [Cook, W. D., & Kress, M. (1990). A data envelopment model for aggregating preference rankings. Management Science, 36(11), 1302-1310.]. The results of the investigation indicate rules and regulations are the most important barriers on privatization of Iranian TV followed by cultural, social and economic factors.

In order to manage a project seamlessly, there is a need to establish effective communication be-tween different departments and identify the risks in the project, determine the affected or influ-encing stakeholders, provide timely resources and logistics, and manage the available resources to make a framework for project implementation. In order to successfully complete the project it is also necessary to focus on approved costs, project completion time and quality within the specified range. Project management is the coordination among different parts of the project to achieve the main goals of the project and the stakeholders’ expectations. To achieve this, there are several standards and one of the most recognized standards is the Project Management Knowledge Facility (PMBOK), which has come with the assistance of Project Managers for professional, targeted and comprehensive management. PMBOK is not just a guideline and a methodology for project management. Building Information Modeling (BIM), a project man-agement methodology has been adopted in recent years to design a project integrated as a 3-D information model, which adds all project information in the various phases of the project to a 3-D information model. The purpose of this research is to gather some date from experts using some questionnaires in the area of project management to build an information modeling. The study determines that each of the basic BIM capabilities had positive effects on different domains of PMBOK knowledge. Moreover, using SAW analysis, the study suggests that BIM had the greatest impact on project integration management, and finally, the BIM general process model is introduced to implement each of the areas of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of different conflict management strategies including competition, cooperation, prevention and compromise on brand promise. The proposed study uses the questionnaire developed by Putnam and Wilson (1982) [Putnam, L. L., & Wilson, C. E. (1982). Communicative strategies in organizational conflicts: Reliability and validity of a measurement scale. Communication yearbook, 6, 629-652.] to measure conflict management measures and to measure the components of brand promise, the study develops a questionnaire. The proposed study is executed among some employees of bank Melli Iran in city of Tehran, Iran. Cronbach alphas have been calculated as 0.76 and 0.83 for conflict management and brand promise, respectively. Using Pearson correlation ratios as well as multiple regression technique, the study determines that there was a reverse relationship between two conflict management strategies, cooperation and compromise, and brand promise. In addition, there was a positive relationship between two conflict management strategies, competition and compromise, and brand promise.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of the tax expenses on accounting conservatism on firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange. In this study to measure the conservatism accruals is used to test the research hypotheses based on the information gathered from 61 firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2004-2009. Findings indicate that the relationship between conservatism accounting and corporate tax burden was positive and significant. In addition, firms with high book-tax conformity had higher motivation to use the conservative accounting to reduce their tax payments.

Due to the thrive of family businesses in the current economic situation, to solve the problem of the definition of these businesses, in this paper we suggest using a scale that measures the quality of family influence through three dimensions: power, experience, and culture. The family influence on power, experience and culture (F-PEC) scale, as well as strategic planning, have been tested precisely using a random sample of more than 211 people from two companies of Golestan and Shemshal industrial group located in Tehran, Iran through using the confirmatory factor analysis technique. The Scale shows a high level of reliability. F-PEC has been used in a number of studies to theoretical development, particularly in terms of the impact of family influence on the individual resources and as a source of competitive advantage. In this research, strategic planning is also considered as a source of competitive advantage and its impact on the success of the family business has been investigated.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of corporate governance on risk taking of private insurance firms and banks in Iran. The proposed study of this paper considers the financial information of 13 banks and 19 private insurance firms over the period 2006-2011 in Iran. The study investigates the effects of five variables including size, CEO duality task, composition of the board of directors, ownership concentration and having an internal auditing system on risk taking of private banks and insurance firms in Iran. Using some panel data and regression analysis, the study confirms the positive effect of the ownership concentration as well as negative impact of non-bound board members on risk taking.

An appropriate supply chain design helps survival in competitive markets. Achieving maximum efficiency may also help decision makers have a better selection for the supply chain network. The purpose of this paper is to design an efficient supply chain model in terms of the distribution channels under uncertain conditions. The proposed study produces multi products using different materials by considering four layers of multiple suppliers, producers, storages and customers. There are two objectives of maximizing efficiency of distributers and minimizing total cost of supply chain management. The proposed model locates producers as well as suppliers and determines the amount of orders from different suppliers. In order to measure the relative efficiency, the study uses the method developed by Klimberg and Ratick (2008) [Klimberg, R. K., & Ratick, S. J. (2008). Modeling data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficient location/allocation decisions. Computers & Operations Research, 35(2), 457-474.]. In addition, to handle the uncertainty, the study uses the robust optimization technique developed by Molvey and Ruszczy?ski (1995) [Mulvey, J. M., & Ruszczy?ski, A. (1995). A new scenario decomposition method for large-scale stochastic optimization. Operations research, 43(3), 477-490.]. The preliminary results indicate that the proposed model is capable of providing efficient solutions under various uncertain conditions.

Export is the backbone of business development in any industry and it plays essential role on the success of organizations. The objective of this study is to determine factors influencing on food industry for development of export activities. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 247 randomly selected experts who were active in production of foods in city of Tehran, Iran. Using principle component analysis based on varimax rotation, the study detects six factors including social opportunities, international opportunities, customer orientation, business opportunities, new technologies, organizational capabilities, commercialization of ideas on the development of export markets.