Search results for: Business organizations

Authors: Yuri Nikitin, Veronika Rukas

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Within the framework of the FP7 project "START" the cooperation with European research centres has had a positive impact on raising the level of innovation researches and the introduction of innovations Institute for Superhard Materials of the National Academy of Sciences (ISM NAS) of Ukraine in the economy of Europe and Ukraine, which in turn permits to speeds up the way for Ukrainian science to the European research area through the creation in Ukraine the scientific organizations of innovative type.

Keywords: Programs of the EU, innovative scientific results, innovation competence of the staff, commercialization in business of industry of the Europe and Ukraine.

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Authors: Hang T. T. Truong, Ronald S. Laura, Kylie Shaw

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Within Vietnam's system of higher education, its schools of business play a vital role in supporting the country’s economic objectives. However, the crucial contribution of soft skills for maximal success within the business sector has to date not been adequately recognized by its business schools. This being so, the development of the business school curriculum in Vietnam has not been able to 'catch up', so to say, with the burgeoning need of students for a comprehensive soft skills program designed to meet the national and global business objectives of their potential employers. The burden of the present paper is first to reveal the results of our survey in Vietnam which make explicit the extent to which major Vietnamese industrial employers’ value the potential role that soft skill competencies can play in maximizing business success. Our final task will be to determine which soft skills employers discern as best serving to maximize the economic interests of Vietnam within the global marketplace. Semi-structured telephone interviews have been conducted with the 15 representative Head Employers of Vietnam's reputedly largest and most successful of the diverse business enterprises across Vietnam. The findings of the study indicate that all respondents highly value the increasing importance of soft skills in business success. Our critical analysis of respondent data reveals that 19 essential soft skills are deemed by employers as integral to business workplace efficacy and should thus be integrated into the formal business curriculum. We are confident that our study represents the first comprehensive and specific survey yet undertaken within the business sector in Vietnam which accesses and analyses the opinions of representative employers from major companies across the country in regard to the growing importance of 19 specific soft skills essential for maximizing overall business success. Our research findings also reveal that the integration into business school curriculums nationwide of the soft skills we have identified is of paramount importance to advance the national and global economic interests of Vietnam.

Keywords: Business curriculum, business graduates, employers’ perception, soft skills.

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Authors: Natanya Meyer, Johann Landsberg

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Globally, many women are still disadvantaged when it comes to business opportunities. Entrepreneurship development programs, specifically designed to assist women entrepreneurs, are assisting in solving this problem to a certain extent. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that motivate females to start their own business. Females, from three different groups (2013, 2014 and 2015), who were all enrolled in a short learning program specifically designed for women in early start-up stage or intending to start a business, were asked what motivated them to start a business. The results indicated that, from all three groups, the majority of the women wanted to start a business to be independent and have freedom and to add towards a social goal. The results further indicated that in general, women would enter into entrepreneurship activity due to pull factors rather than push factors.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship programs, South Africa, female entrepreneurship, motivational factors.

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Authors: Zuzana Crhova, Karel Kolman, Drahomíra Pavelkova

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Knowledge is considered as an important asset which can help organizations to create competitive advantage. The necessity of taking care of these assets is more important in these days – in days of turbulent changes in business environment. Knowledge could facilitate adaption to constant changes. The aim of this paper is to describe how the knowledge sharing can be supported in the manufacturing companies. The methods of case studies and grounded theory were used to present information gained by carrying out semistructured interviews. Results show that knowledge sharing is supported in very similar ways in respondent companies.

Keywords: Case Study, Human Resource Management, Knowledge, Knowledge Sharing.

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Authors: Rowland R. Ogunrinde, Yusmadi Y. Jusoh, Noraini Che Pa, Wan Nurhayati W. Rahman, Azizol B. Abdullah

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Enterprise Applications (EAs) aid the organizations achieve operational excellence and competitive advantage. Over time, most Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which are known to be the major drivers of most thriving global economies, use the costly on-premise versions of these applications thereby making business difficult to competitively thrive in the same market environment with their large enterprise counterparts. The advent of cloud computing presents the SMEs an affordable offer and great opportunities as such EAs can be cloud-hosted and rented on a pay-per-use basis which does not require huge initial capital. However, as there are numerous Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) offering EAs as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), there is a challenge of choosing a suitable provider with Quality of Service (QoS) that meet the organizations’ customized requirements. The proposed model takes care of that and goes a step further to select the most affordable among a selected few of the CSPs. In the earlier stage, before developing the instrument and conducting the pilot test, the researchers conducted a structured interview with three experts to validate the proposed model. In conclusion, the validity and reliability of the instrument were tested through experts, typical respondents, and analyzed with SPSS 22. Results confirmed the validity of the proposed model and the validity and reliability of the instrument.

Keywords: Cloud service provider, enterprise applications, quality of service, selection criteria, small and medium enterprise.

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Authors: P. Ondee, S. Pannarunothai

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In Thailand, both the 1997 and the current 2007 Thai Constitutions have mentioned the establishment of independent organizations as a new mechanism to play a key role in proposing policy recommendations to national decision-makers in the interest of collective consumers. Over the last ten years, no independent organizations have yet been set up. Evidently, nobody could point out who should be key players in establishing provincial independent consumer bodies. The purpose of this study was to find definitive stakeholders in establishing and developing independent consumer bodies in a Thai context. This was a cross-sectional study between August and September 2007, using a postal questionnaire with telephone follow-up. The questionnaire was designed and used to obtain multiple stakeholder assessment of three key attributes (power, interest and influence). Study population was 153 stakeholders associated with policy decision-making, formulation and implementation processes of civil-based consumer protection in pilot provinces. The population covered key representatives from five sectors (academics, government officers, business traders, mass media and consumer networks) who participated in the deliberative forums at 10 provinces. A 49.7% response rate was achieved. Data were analyzed, comparing means of three stakeholder attributes and classification of stakeholder typology. The results showed that the provincial health officers were the definitive stakeholders as they had legal power, influence and interest in establishing and sustaining the independent consumer bodies. However, only a few key representatives of the provincial health officers expressed their own paradigm on the civil-based consumer protection. Most provincial health officers put their own standpoint of building civic participation at only a plan-implementation level. For effective policy implementation by the independent consumer bodies, the Thai government should provide budgetary support for the operation of the provincial health officers with their paradigm shift as well as their own clarified standpoint on corporate governance.

Keywords: Civic participation, civil society, consumerprotection, independent organization, policy decision-making, stakeholder analysis.

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Authors: K. Ö. Kartal, L. Maul, M. Hägele

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With the development of new technologies come additional opportunities for the founding of companies and new markets to be created. The barriers to entry are lowered and technology makes old business models obsolete. Incumbent companies have to be adaptable to this quickly changing environment. They have to start the process of digital maturation and they have to be able to adapt quickly to new and drastic changes that might arise. One of the biggest barriers for organizations in order to do so is their culture. This paper shows the core elements of a corporate culture that supports the process of digital maturation in incumbent organizations. Furthermore, it is explored how ideation and innovation can be used in a strategy in order to facilitate these core elements of culture that promote digital maturity. Focus areas are identified for the design of ideation strategies, with the aim to make the facilitation and incitation process more effective, short to long term. Therefore, one in-depth case study is conducted with data collection from interviews, observation, document review and surveys. The findings indicate that digital maturity is connected to cultural shift and 11 relevant elements of digital culture are identified which have to be considered. Based on these 11 core elements, five focus areas that need to be regarded in the design of a strategy that uses ideation and innovation to facilitate the cultural shift are identified. These are: Focus topics, rewards and communication, structure and frequency, regions and new online formats.

Keywords: Digital transformation, innovation management, ideation strategy, creativity culture, change.

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Authors: Mei L. Lin, Pi-Yueh Cheng

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Classes on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship are becoming quite popular at universities throughout the world. However, it is not easy for business students to get involved to innovative activities, especially patent application. The present study investigated how to enhance business students- intention to participate in innovative activities and which incentives universities should consider. A 22-item research scale was used, and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to verify its reliability and validity. Multiple regression and discriminant analyses were also conducted. The results demonstrate the effect of growth-need strength on innovative behavior and indicate that the theory of planned behavior can explain and predict business students- intention to participate in innovative activities. Additionally, the results suggest that applying our proposed model in practice would effectively strengthen business students- intentions to engage in innovative activities.

Keywords: discriminant analysis, growth need strength, innovative behavior, TPB model

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Authors: A. J. Otjen

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Native American communities are struggling with unemployment and depressed economies. A major cause is a lack of business knowledge, education, and cultural desire. And yet, in the history of the American West, Native Americans were considered the best traders and negotiators for everything from furs to weapons to buffalo. To improve these economies, there has been an effort to reintroduce that heritage to todays and tomorrows generation of tribal members, such Crow, Cheyenne, and Blackfeet. Professors at the College of Business Montana State University-Billings (MSUB) teach tribal students in Montana to create business plans. These plans have won national small business plan competitions. The teaching and advising method used at MSUB is uniquely successful as theses business students are now five time national champions. This article reviews the environment and the method of learning to achieve a winning small business plan with Native American students. It discusses the five plans that became national champions. And it discusses the problems and solutions discovered in the process of achieving results. Students who participated in this endeavor have graduated and become CPAs, MBAs, and gainfully employed in their chosen professions. They have also worked to improve the economies of their native lands and homes. By educating members of these communities with business strategy and plan development, they are better able to impact their own economies.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Native Americans economies, small businesses.

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Authors: Vichada Chokesikarin

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The study aims to determine which factors account for customer satisfaction and to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business success, in particular, context of the information understanding of hostel business in Pranakorn district, Bangkok and the significant element of entrepreneurship in tourism industry. This study covers 352 hostels customers and 61 hostel owners/managers nearby Khao San road. Data collection methods were used by survey questionnaire and a series of hypotheses were developed from services marketing literature. The findings suggest the customer satisfaction most influenced by image, service quality, room quality and price accordingly. Furthermore the findings revealed that significant relationships exist between entrepreneurial orientation and business success; while competitive aggressiveness was found unrelated. The ECSI model’s generic measuring customer satisfaction was found partially mediate the business success. A reconsideration of other variables applicable should be supported with the model of hostel business. The study provides context and overall view of hostel business while discussing from the entrepreneurial orientation to customer satisfaction, thereby reducing decision risk on hostel investment.

Keywords: Customer satisfaction, ECSI Model, entrepreneurial orientation, small hotels, hostel, business performance.

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Authors: Bassam Atieh Rajabi, Sai Peck Lee

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Business Process Modeling (BPM) is the first and most important step in business process management lifecycle. Graph based formalism and rule based formalism are the two most predominant formalisms on which process modeling languages are developed. BPM technology continues to face challenges in coping with dynamic business environments where requirements and goals are constantly changing at the execution time. Graph based formalisms incur problems to react to dynamic changes in Business Process (BP) at the runtime instances. In this research, an adaptive and flexible framework based on the integration between Object Oriented diagramming technique and Petri Net modeling language is proposed in order to support change management techniques for BPM and increase the representation capability for Object Oriented modeling for the dynamic changes in the runtime instances. The proposed framework is applied in a higher education environment to achieve flexible, updatable and dynamic BP.

Keywords: Business Process Modeling, Change Management, Graph Based Modeling, Rule Based Modeling, Object Oriented PetriNet.

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Authors: Laila Yasir Al-Harthy, Ali H. Al-Badi

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As an emerging business model, cloud computing has been initiated to satisfy the need of organizations and to push Information Technology as a utility. The shift to the cloud has changed the way Information Technology departments are managed traditionally and has raised many concerns for both, public and private sectors.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of cloud computing services replacing services provided traditionally by IT departments. Therefore, it aims to 1) explore whether organizations in Oman are ready to move to the cloud; 2) identify the deciding factors leading to the adoption or rejection of cloud computing services in Oman; and 3) provide two case studies, one for a successful Cloud provider and another for a successful adopter.

This paper is based on multiple research methods including conducting a set of interviews with cloud service providers and current cloud users in Oman; and collecting data using questionnaires from experts in the field and potential users of cloud services.

Despite the limitation of bandwidth capacity and Internet coverage offered in Oman that create a challenge in adopting the cloud, it was found that many information technology professionals are encouraged to move to the cloud while few are resistant to change.

The recent launch of a new Omani cloud service provider and the entrance of other international cloud service providers in the Omani market make this research extremely valuable as it aims to provide real-life experience as well as two case studies on the successful provision of cloud services and the successful adoption of these services.

Keywords: Cloud computing, cloud deployment models, cloud service models and deciding factors.

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Authors: Nikola Vlahovic, Blazenka Knezevic, Petra Batalic

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In this paper, we will present a research about feasibility of implementing unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as 'drones', in logistics. Research is based on available information about current incentives and experiments in application of delivery drones in commercial use. Overview of current pilot projects and literature, as well as an overview of detected challenges, will be compiled and presented. Based on these findings, we will present a conceptual model of business process that implements delivery drones in business to business logistic operations. Business scenario is based on a pharmaceutical supply chain. Simulation modeling will be used to create models for running experiments and collecting performance data. Comparative study of the presented conceptual model will be given. The work will outline the main advantages and disadvantages of implementing unmanned aerial vehicles in delivery services as a supplementary distribution channel along the supply chain.

Keywords: Business process, delivery drones, logistics, simulation modelling, unmanned aerial vehicles.

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Authors: Evisa Mitrou, Nicholas Tsitsianis, Supriya Shinde

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In the age of digitisation and globalisation, businesses have shifted online and are investing in big data analytics (BDA) to respond to changing market conditions and sustain their performance. Our study shifts the focus from the adoption of BDA to the impact of BDA on financial performance. We explore the financial performance of both BDA-vendors (business-to-business) and BDA-clients (business-to-customer). We distinguish between the five BDA-technologies (big-data-as-a-service (BDaaS), descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics) and discuss them individually. Further, we use four perspectives (internal business process, learning and growth, customer, and finance) and discuss the significance of how each of the five BDA-technologies affect the performance measures of these four perspectives. We also present the analysis of employee engagement, average turnover, average net income, and average net assets for BDA-clients and BDA-vendors. Our study also explores the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on business continuity for both BDA-vendors and BDA-clients.

Keywords: BDA-clients, BDA-vendors, big data analytics, financial performance.

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Authors: Mehdi Shami Zanjani, Shohreh Mehrasa, Mandana Modiri

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In the current economy of increasing global competition, many organizations are attempting to use knowledge as one of the means to gain sustainable competitive advantage. Besides large organizations, the success of SMEs can be linked to how well they manage their knowledge. Despite the profusion of research about knowledge management within large organizations, fewer studies tried to analyze KM in SMEs. This research proposes a new framework showing the determinant role of organizational dimensions onto KM approaches. The paper and its propositions are based on a literature review and analysis. In this research, personalization versus codification, individualization versus institutionalization and IT-based versus non IT-based are highlighted as three distinct dimensions of knowledge management approaches. The study contributes to research by providing a more nuanced classification of KM approaches and provides guidance to managers about the types of KM approaches that should be adopted based on the size, geographical dispersion and task nature of SMEs. To the author-s knowledge, the paper is the first of its kind to examine if there are suitable configurations of KM approaches for SMEs with different dimensions. It gives valuable information, which hopefully will help SME sector to accomplish KM.

Keywords: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management Approach, SME, Organizational Dimension.

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Authors: Soe Winn, May Thwe Oo

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Business process automation is an important task in an enterprise business environment software development. The requirements of processing acceleration and automation level of enterprises are inherently different from one organization to another. We present a methodology and system for automation of business process management system architecture by multi-agent collaboration based on SOA. Design layer processes are modeled in semantic markup language for web services application. At the core of our system is considering certain types of human tasks to their further automation across over multiple platform environments. An improved abnormality processing with model for automation of BPMS architecture by multi-agent collaboration based on SOA is introduced. Validating system for efficiency of process automation, an application for educational knowledge base instance would also be described.

Keywords: Business process management system, businessprocess automation, multi-agent collaboration, Service OrientedArchitecture, extensible service application

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Authors: Wan Hasrulnizzam Wan Mahmood, Mohd Razali Muhamad, Nurulain Mat Tahar

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This paper is prepared to provide a review of how an automotive manufacturer, ISUZU HICOM Malaysia Co. Ltd. sustained the supply chain management after business process reengineering in 2007. One of the authors is currently undergoing industrial attachment and has spent almost 6 months researching in the production and operation management system of the company. This study was carried out as part of the tasks in the attachment program. The result shows that delivery lateness and outsourcing are the main barriers that affected productivity. From the gap analysis, the authors found that new business process operation had improved suppliers delivery performance.

Keywords: Supply Chain Management, Business Process Re- Engineering, Delivery, Outsourcing, Automotive Manufacturer.

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Authors: Claudiu Brandas

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Several recent studies have shown that the transparency of financial reporting have a significant influence on investor-s decisions. Thus, regulation authorities and professional organizations (IFAC) have emphasized the role of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) and interactive data as a means of promoting transparency and monitoring corporate reporting. In this context, this paper has as objective the analysis of interactive reporting through XBRL and its use as a support in the process of taking decisions in corporate governance, namely the potential of interactive reports in XBRL to increase the transparency and monitoring process of corporate governance.

Keywords: Corporate Governance, decision, financial reporting, transparency, XBRL.

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Authors: Jaya Mathew

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Many organizations are faced with the challenge of how to analyze and build Machine Learning models using their sensitive telemetry data. In this paper, we discuss how users can leverage the power of R without having to move their big data around as well as a cloud based solution for organizations willing to host their data in the cloud. By using ScaleR technology to benefit from parallelization and remote computing or R Services on premise or in the cloud, users can leverage the power of R at scale without having to move their data around.

Keywords: Predictive maintenance, machine learning, big data, cloud, on premise SQL, R.

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Authors: Amir Sanayei, Seyed Farid Mousavi, Catherine Asadi Shahmirzadi

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Despite of many scholars and practitioners recognize the knowledge management implementation in an organizations but insufficient attention has been paid by researchers to select suitable knowledge portal system (KPS) selection. This study develops a Multi Criteria Decision making model based on the fuzzy VIKOR approach to help organizations in selecting KPS. The suitable portal is the critical influential factors on the success of knowledge management (KM) implementation in an organization.

Keywords: Knowledge management, Knowledge portal system, Fuzzy VIKOR.

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Authors: Alan Dormer

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Business rules are widely used within the services sector. They provide consistency and allow relatively unskilled staff to process complex transactions correctly. But there are many examples where the rules themselves have an impact on the costs and profits of an organisation. Financial services, transport and human services are areas where the rules themselves can impact the bottom line in a predictable way. If this is the case, how can we find that set of rules that maximise profit, performance or customer service, or any other key performance indicators? The manufacturing, energy and process industries have embraced mathematical optimisation techniques to improve efficiency, increase production and so on. This paper explores several real world (but simplified) problems in the services sector and shows how business rules can be optimised. It also examines the similarities and differences between the service and other sectors, and how optimisation techniques could be used to deliver similar benefits.

Keywords: Business rules, services, optimisation.

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Authors: Farzaneh Noori

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Entrepreneurs face different sort of difficulties especially with customers, organizations and employees. Emotional intelligence which is the ability to understand and control the emotions is an important factor to help entrepreneurs end up challenges to the result they prefer. So it is assumed that entrepreneurs especially those who have passed the first challenging years of starting a new business, have high emotional intelligence. In this study the Iranian established entrepreneurs have been surveyed. According to Iran Gem 2014 report the percentage of established entrepreneur in Iran is 10.92%. So by using Cochran sample formula (1%) 96 Iranian established entrepreneurs have been selected and Emotional intelligence appraisal questionnaire distributed to them. The SPSS19 result shows high emotional intelligence in Iranian established entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, Emotional intelligence appraisal questionnaire, Entrepreneurs, Iran.

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Authors: Alireza Ghasemizad

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In Both developed and developing countries, governments play a basic role in making policies, programs and instruments which support the development of micro, small and medium enterprises. One of the mechanisms employed to nurture small firms for more than two decades is business incubation. One of the mechanisms employed to nurture small firms for more than two decades is technology business incubation. The main aim of this research was to establish influencing factors in Technology Business Incubator's effectiveness and their explanatory model. Therefore, among 56 Technology Business Incubators in Iran, 32 active incubators were selected and by stratified random sampling, 528 start-ups were chosen. The validity of research questionnaires was determines by expert consensus, item analysis and factor analysis; and their reliability calculated by Cronbach-s alpha. Data analysis was then made through SPSS and LISREL soft wares. Both organizational procedures and entrepreneurial behaviors were the meaningful mediators. Organizational procedures with (P < .01, β =0.45) was stronger mediator for the improvement of Technology Business Incubator's effectiveness comparing to entrepreneurial behavior with (P < .01, β =0.36).

Keywords: Technology, Incubators, Effectiveness, Explanatorymodel.

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Authors: Sareh Rajabi, Taha Anjamrooz, Salwa Bheiry

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Sustainability of construction projects is an important issue to be addressed since the sector will continue to be developed in the coming years, especially in developing countries. Thus, it is significant to discover approaches and solutions for improving sustainability. Currently, the construction industry is the largest consumer of natural resources. This is the same in other countries in the Gulf region, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has limited natural resources such as water, electricity, etc. Recently, the UAE has taken several actions in order to implement sustainable initiatives within its construction industry. Within the industry, the contractors’ role is significant in promoting sustainable development by taking the responsibility to minimize their negative impacts on the environment and society, and maximize their economic distribution. In this research, sustainability will be studied as an important key to bring competitive advantages to contracting organizations. The contractors should understand the need to improve their sustainable performance in order to expand their business competitiveness. Competitiveness at the construction project level refers to a contractor’s ability to compete for a project. There is less focus on how to improve contractors’ competitiveness by implementing sustainable construction practices. Based on an inclusive literature review on the relationship between sustainability performance and business competitiveness, this research will conduct a study of sustainable practice in the construction industry and the relationship between sustainability performance and business competitiveness in order to develop a framework for evaluating how contractors can improve their competitiveness in terms of more efficient processes, enhancements in productivity, and lower costs of compliance in order to reduce the initial project cost and obtain market opportunities in the UAE. The research findings will provide a framework that can be a useful guideline for contractors to develop their sustainability policy, strategy and practice for meeting the increased requirements for sustainable development in construction.

Keywords: Sustainable construction practice, sustainability, competitiveness, construction industry, contractors.

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Authors: Bhim Singh

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Due to increased pressure from global competitors, manufacturing organizations are switching over to lean philosophies from traditional mass production. Lean manufacturing is a manufacturing philosophy which focuses on elimination of various types of wastes and creates maximum value for the end customers. Lean thinking aims to produce high quality products and services at the lowest possible cost with maximum customer responsiveness. Indian Industry is facing lot of problems in this transformation from traditional mass production to lean production. Through this paper an attempt has been made to identify various lean implementation hurdles in Indian industries with the help of a structured survey. Identified hurdles are grouped with the help of factor analysis and rated by calculating descriptive statistics. To show the effect of lean implementation hurdles a hypothesis “Organizations having higher level of lean implementation hurdles will have poor (negative) performance” has been postulated and tested using correlation matrix between performance parameters of the organizations and identified hurdles. The findings of the paper will be helpful to prepare road map to identify and eradicate the lean implementation hurdles.

Keywords: Factor analysis, global competition, lean implementation and lean hurdles.

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Authors: F. Di Pillo, G. Capece, L. Cricelli, N. Levialdi

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The liberalization and privatization processes have forced public utility companies to face new competitive challenges, implementing strategies to gain market share and, at the same time, keep the old customers. To this end, many companies have carried out mergers, acquisitions and conglomerations in order to diversify their business. This paper focuses on companies operating in the free energy market in Italy. In the last decade, this sector has undergone profound changes that have radically changed the competitive scenario and have led companies to implement diversification strategies of the business. Our work aims to evaluate the economic and financial performances obtained by energy companies, following the beginning of the liberalization process, verifying the possible relationship with the implemented diversification strategies.

Keywords: Business diversification strategies, M&A, the Italian energy market liberalization, economic and financial performances.

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Authors: Wijittra Srisorn

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This research studied about green logistics and the expected benefit that organization gotten when adapted to green logistics also the organization concerned about the important activity in green logistics to apply in implementation from study was found that the benefit of green logistics that organization was gotten by logistics management which was the increased efficiency process of management the product from producer to customer all of reduce production cost, increased value added save energy and prevented environment together From study was found that the organization had green logistics to apply in logistics activities in supply chain since downstream till upstream to prevent environment as follow 1). Purchasing process, trade facilitation enhance such as linking of information technology during business to business (B2B business). 2). Productions process improved by business logistics improvement 3). Warehouse management process such as recycled packaging, moving goods in to warehouse, transportation goods and inside receiving and delivery products plan.

Keywords: Green Logistics, Trade Facilitation, Business Logistics Improvement, Double handling.

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Authors: Zhongjie Wang, Xiaofei Xu, Dechen Zhan

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With deep development of software reuse, componentrelated technologies have been widely applied in the development of large-scale complex applications. Component identification (CI) is one of the primary research problems in software reuse, by analyzing domain business models to get a set of business components with high reuse value and good reuse performance to support effective reuse. Based on the concept and classification of CI, its technical stack is briefly discussed from four views, i.e., form of input business models, identification goals, identification strategies, and identification process. Then various CI methods presented in literatures are classified into four types, i.e., domain analysis based methods, cohesion-coupling based clustering methods, CRUD matrix based methods, and other methods, with the comparisons between these methods for their advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, some insufficiencies of study on CI are discussed, and the causes are explained subsequently. Finally, it is concluded with some significantly promising tendency about research on this problem.

Keywords: Business component, component granularity, component identification, reuse performance.

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Authors: Anne Sorebo, Oystein Sorebo

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The present study was designed to test the influence of intrinsic ICT-motivation, perceived usefulness and ease of use on business students- willingness to use a particular software package. A questionnaire was completed by 196 business students in Norway. We found that 34% of the variance in the students- willingness to use the software could be explained by the three proposed antecedents. Intrinsic ICT-motivation seems to be the most important predictor of students- satisfaction willingness to use the software package.

Keywords: Spreadsheet, business students, technology acceptance, intrinsic motivation.

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Authors: Inga Lapiņa, Indra Borkus, Olga Stariņeca

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Creating shared value (CSV) is a newly introduced concept whose essence and expressions, relationship to Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and implications for the business and society is now at the core of management and social responsibility debates of the scientific world. The aim of the paper is to gain clearer understanding of the CSR and CSV concepts, their implementation and role in sustainable development of organizations in Latvia. In this paper the authors discuss and compare the two conceptsand, based on the results of Sustainability Index (SI) initiative and analysis of publically available company information, evaluate their implementation in Latvia and draw conclusions on the development trends and potential of these approaches in Latvian market.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating Shared Value, Sustainability Index.

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