The role of experience on techno-entrepreneurs’ decision making biases

Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind the prospect and growth of the societies. Sound and wise decisions pave the way for them to carry out these highly important functions. Entrepreneurs are to discover and exploit opportunities. Therefore, they must gather sufficient and pertinent information. Entrepreneurs, like most human beings face complex and ambiguous decision-making situations, not to mention their lack of time and source to gather and process the data. Under these circumstances, entrepreneurs are prone making biases decisions. There are many reasons identified for this entrepreneurial decision making biases, such as the high cost of rational decision making, limitations in information processing, differences in their styles and procedures, or information overload, environmental complexity, environmental uncertainty. These biases are neither totally harmful nor completely useful and have to be seen as natural human characteristics. What makes entrepreneurial decision-making biases important is their effects on the decisions and thus the outcome of the enterprises. Entrepreneurial decision-making biases, deliberate or unintentional can seal the fate of the enterprises, therefore studying them meticulously is crucial. Literature has shown that experience could be an effective factor in decision-making biases. In this paper, we try to find out the impact of experience in Iranian high tech entrepreneurs’ major decision-making biases by a qualitative approach. Finally, it was concluded that experience is influential in shaping overconfidence bias

Technology change priorities influencing competition quality promotion: Case study of Iran Keaton Polyester Manufacturing Company

In the changing world with various customers’ demands the businesses tend to improve their advantages to beat their rivals by means of better quality, lower prices and so. For Iranian polyester market quality is of crucial importance and is achieved through changing and updating technologies. According to highly regarded model of CAPTECH, which is recommended by UNIDO, technology parameters are defined in each phase and not generally as a whole. In the end the biggest gaps are defined. The main goal is to prioritize the main parameters affecting Iranian polyester company's quality. In order to fulfill our goal, 20 high and medium managers were questioned for this paper. The questions were gathered according to UNIDO samples. After a qualitative and quantitative test we concluded that the biggest gap is for supply chain(56.91) and the lowest gap is for combination phase(43.97)

Which product would be chosen? A fuzzy VIKOR method for evaluation and selection of products in terms of customers' point of view; Case study: Iranian cell phone market

Product selection is always one of the troubles that decision makers are facing with it. Correct selection requires having suitable method for this important issue. In this article, we concern to introduce an approach of fuzzy decision making for selection to decision makers. The nature of decision making is usually complex and without structure. Totally, most of qualitative and quantitative factors such as quality, price, and flexibility should be concerned for determining a suitable product. In this study, it is attempted to use recent advances in ranking methods for product selection. The proposed study uses oral preferences language shown in terms of triangular and trapezoid fuzzy numbers. Then, a multi criteria hierarchical decision making is suggested on the basis of fuzzy collection theory for product selection where the proposed fuzzy VIKOR uses different qualitative and quantitative criteria

A survey on how different factors impact entrepreneurs' success in food industry

In this paper, we present an empirical study to detect important factors influencing the success of entrepreneurs who were active in food industry in Tehran, Iran. The proposed study selects a sample of 174 people out of 318 entrepreneurs who were involved in this industry and distributed a questionnaire, which consists of two groups of questions among them. The first group of questions is associated with personal characteristics of the survey people and the second group of questions are related to different financial, infrastructure and supply chain management categories. The study defines entrepreneurs' mental desirability of success in terms of 15 different questions and asks them to provide their insights in terms of five Likert based responses. The results of questions are analyzed using Pearson correlation test and the preliminary results indicate that, among personal characteristics, education and age play important roles on the success of a business plan. The other observation is that the easier entrepreneurs can get loans and financial support, the higher abilities to absorb new customers and the higher chance of success for absorbing new financial resources. Distributions of sales, compared with competing products as well as distribution of after sales service for customers are negatively associated with infrastructures. The rate of success in using new technologies and supply chain management are correlated, which means the better supply chain, the better achievement to information technology

Theories of opportunity creation and effective entrepreneurial actions in opportunity creation context

Created opportunities are refered as the opportunities in which none of the supply and demand parties exists clearly and obviously one or both of them must be created. Therefore, several economic inventions should take place in marketing, franchising, etc. so that opportunity can be created. This perception of opportunity deals with the creation of new markets. In the meantime, identifying some entrepreneurial actions influencing on the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities can provide backgrounds for the formation and empowering the opportunity creation. In this paper, some basic ideas about the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities and the evolution of opportunity creation theories are examined. Then effective actions on the opportunity creation are identified. Finally, the structure of the investigated actions is examined using the DEMATLE Method. The results which were according to the opinions of 15 experts of entrepreneurship showed that leadership, decision making, and strategy actions influence other entrepreneurial actions

Antibiotic use during the first 6 months of COVID-19 pandemic in Iran : a large-scale multi-centre study

WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE: Although antibiotics are ineffective against viral infections, epidemiological studies have revealed that the COVID‐19 pandemic resulted in the overuse of antibiotics and disruption of antimicrobial stewardship programmes. We investigated the pattern of antibiotic use during the first 6 months of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Iran. METHODS: A multi‐centre retrospective study was designed to investigate the use of 16 broad‐spectrum antibiotics in 12 medical centres. The rate of antibiotic use was calculated and reported based on the Defined Daily Dose (DDD) per 100 hospital bed‐days. The bacterial co‐infection rate was also reported. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Totally, 43,791 hospitalized COVID‐19 patients were recruited in this study. It was found that 121.6 DDD of antibiotics were used per 100 hospital bed‐days, which estimated that each patient received approximately 1.21 DDDs of antibiotics every day. However, the bacterial co‐infections were detected only in 14.4% of the cases. A direct correlation was observed between the rate of antibiotic use and mortality (r[142] = 0.237, p = 0.004). The rate of antibiotic consumption was not significantly different between the ICU and non‐ICU settings (p = 0.15). WHAT IS NEW AND CONCLUSION: In this study, widespread antibiotic use was detected in the absence of the confirmed bacterial coinfection in COVID‐19 patients. This over‐consumption of broad‐spectrum antibiotics may be associated with increased mortality in hospitalized COVID‐19 patients, which can be an alarming finding

SD1000: High Sustained Viral Response Rate in 1361 Patients With Hepatitis C Genotypes 1, 2, 3, and 4 Using a Low-cost, Fixed-dose Combination Tablet of Generic Sofosbuvir and Daclatasvir: A Multicenter, Phase III Clinical Trial

Background. The combination of sofosbuvir and daclatasvir is a potent, pangenotypic regimen suitable for mass-scale hepatitis C treatment, especially in resource-limited countries where newer, expensive combinations are not available. This combination has been widely tested on genotype 4. However, Phase III trials of this combination in other genotypes have been cost prohibitive. With the introduction of generic, low-cost sofosbuvir and daclatasvir, large-scale studies in resource-limited countries are now possible. Methods. Sofosbuvir at 400 mg and daclatasvir at 60 mg were coformulated into a fixed-dose combination (FDC) tablet (Sovodak, Rojan Pharma, Tehran, Iran). Patients from 46 centers were dosed for 12 or 24 weeks with or without ribavirin, in line with existing guidelines. Responses to treatment were evaluated 12 weeks after the end of treatment (for a sustained virological response at Week 12; SVR12). Results. There were 1361 patients recruited. Overall, the patients were 21% female, with a mean age of 50 years; 39% were cirrhotic; 22% were treatment-experienced; 47% were genotype 1, 41% were genotype 3, and 2% were other genotypes. The genotype was not known in 10% of the patients. The intention-to-treat and per-protocol SVR12 rates were 94.7% and 98.8%, respectively. The safety profile was unremarkable, treatment was well tolerated, and compliance with the single-tablet regimen was excellent. Conclusions. The treatment with FDC of sofosbuvir and daclatasvir achieved high SVR12 rates, equivalent to those seen in Phase III trials of other pangenotypic options, and has been conducted at a similar scale in a representative, real-world population at a cost of under $100 per patient, which makes this combination suitable for elimination protocols in resource-limited countries. Keywords:sofosbuvir; daclatasvir; Hepatitis C; sustained virological response; generic drug