This paper presents an integrated supplier selection and inventory management using grey relationship model (GRM) as well as multi-objective decision making process. The proposed model of this paper first ranks different suppliers based on GRM technique and then determines the optimum level of inventory by considering different objectives. To show the implementation of the proposed model, we use some benchmark data presented by Talluri and Baker [Talluri, S., & Baker, R. C. (2002). A multi-phase mathematical programming approach for effective supply chain design. European Journal of Operational Research, 141(3), 544-558.]. The preliminary results indicate that the proposed model of this paper is capable of handling different criteria for supplier selection.

Paradigms are some principles and assumptions, which define frameworks and research priorities in each discipline. Many believe that operational research (OR) is not a science and like many other sciences does not have any paradigm. However, since OR is committed to scientific methods, therefore it contains a methodological paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to consider theoretical methodologies in the field of OR. This paper performs a review on the existing literature based on interpretive hermeneutic approach. Based on literature review, the study determines four principles and assumptions for each OR paradigms and a classification of the methods are presented. The results show that OR has four main paradigms and there are many methods in OR fields to tackle a particular problem where each problem belongs to a particular paradigm. In addition, instead of using a particular method in problem situations, we can implement a combination of methodologies.

The proposed study of this paper present an empirical investigation to detect important factors impacting on food market using factor analysis. The proposed study designed a questionnaire, distributed among 207 customers who were regular customers of two food chains in city of Tehran, Iran named Shahrvand and Hyperstar. The results of our survey indicate that six major factors including brand loyalty, physical characteristics, pricing effects, performance characteristics, brand relationship and brand position influence food industry, significantly. In terms of the first factor, brand loyalty, “Trust”, “Packaging design characteristics”, “Competitive pricing strategy”, “Stability in quality”, “External relationships” and “Meeting expectations” are important factors in different categories.

This paper presents an empirical investigation on procrastinating behavior among some high school students in city of Esfahan, Iran. The proposed study uses APSS test developed by Solomon and Rothblum (1984) [Solomon, L.J., & Rothblum, E.D. (1984). Academic procrastination: Frequency and cognitive-behavioral correlates. Journal of Counseling, 31, 503-509.]. The study selects a sample of 60 students who were enrolled as secondary high school in city of Esfahan, Iran. The study performs some intervention sessions including seven 75-minute sessions and finally post-test has been performed. The results of ANOVA test between these two groups of pre-test and post-test have revealed that the sessions could help students reduce their procrastination and increase their motivation on their education.

This research surveys the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational indifference through a commitment. The study first presents theoretical models over the investigation then six hypotheses are developed based on the conceptual model for this opinion. Questionnaire contains 16 questions for organizational indifference and 20 questions for organizational commitment and 23 questions for emotional intelligence. The Cronbach & apos; s alpha of organizational indifference questionnaire is 0.938 and the Cronbach & apos; s alpha of organizational commitment questionnaire is equal to 0.802 and Emotional Intelligence questionnaire reliability coefficient is 0.961. Both questionnaires maintain sufficient reliability because their Cronbach alphas are more than 0.7. The sample size is chosen according KREJCIE and Morgan table and is equal to 235 people. Kolmongrov – Smirnov test is used for normality of the obtained data. Research hypothesis and the correlations between variables are tested by Spearman correlation test. The results imply approval of all research hypotheses and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational indifference.

This paper presents an empirical study to investigate the relationship between organizational justice and professional commitment in Kermanshah official organizations. The study uses 20 questions to measure professional commitment from a questionnaire originally developed by Spell et al. (2007) [Spell, C. S., & Arnold, T. J. (2007). A multi-level analysis of organizational justice climate, structure, and employee mental health. Journal of Management, 33(5), 724-751.]. In addition, the study adopts 12 questions from another questionnaire developed by Vallas (1999) [Vallas, S. P. (1999). Rethinking post?Fordism: The meaning of workplace flexibility. Sociological theory, 17(1), 68-101.] to measure organizational justice. Cronbach alpha for organizational justice questionnaire and professional commitment are 0.81 and 0.89, respectively, which are well above the minimum acceptable level. Based on the results of this survey, there is a positive and meaningful relationship between organizational justice and professional commitment. The implementation of the linear regression analysis also reveals that there is a positive and meaningful relationship between inter-organizational justice and professional commitment. The study performs Freedman test to rank three components of organizational justice and the results indicate that interactional justice maintains the highest level of importance while distributive justice comes last in terms of priority.

This paper presents an empirical study to investigate the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational entrepreneurship. The proposed model of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some employees of Islamic Azad University of Semnan branch. For the proposed study, organizational entrepreneurship is considered as independent variable and intellectual capital components are considered as dependent variables. The questionnaire consists of 25 questions in eight different categories. In order to validate the overall questionnaire we have used Cronbach alpha where it was 72.9 for intellectual capital and it was 79.2 for Intrapreneurship. The results of testing various hypotheses indicate that there were positive and meaningful relationships between these two components.

Customers are believed to be the main part of any organization’s assets and customer retention as well as customer churn management are important responsibilities of organizations. In today’s competitive environment, organization must do their best to retain their existing customers since attracting new customers cost significantly more than taking care of existing ones. In this paper, we present a hybrid method based on neural network and Cox regression analysis where neural network is used for outlier data and Cox regression method is implemented for prediction of future events. The proposed model of this paper has been implemented on some data and the results are compared based on five criteria including prediction accuracy, errors’ type I and II, root mean square error and mean absolute deviation. The preliminary results indicate that the proposed model of this paper performs better than alternative methods.

Education is one of the most important parts of every one’s life, higher education helps people get better job offers and build their future, more successfully. Any failure in educational programs could possibly hurt society as well as country’s economy. Therefore, we need to find the major causes of educational failure and setup appropriate plans to reduce the undesirable consequences. In this study, we perform a comprehensive study on previous studies on finding major causes of educational failure in different provinces of Iran and try to focus on major factors influencing this problem. The results of our survey have concluded that there are three common factors including little interest in learning, working along with education and living status. The implementation of some statistical tests has revealed that these factors have some moderate impacts on educational failure.

Interest rate plays an important role on financial market in any different sectors from real state to auto industry. An increase on interest rates will increase cost of borrowing money from banks, which reduces profitability. The proposed study of this paper investigates the relationship between bank interest rates on performance of stock exchange over the period 2001-2010. The proposed study categorizes interest rates into five different categories including short-term interest rate, special short-term rate, one-year, two-year, three-year, four-year and five-year terms. The results of performing regression analysis have confirmed that there are some positive and meaningful relationship between interest rate in all groups and performance of stock exchange.