An empirical investigation to analysis the dimensions of cultural security: A case study of educational system

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of cultural security and its practical implications in a case study of educational system. There are several definitions of culture, which describe different aspects of cultural security. In fact, cultural security tends to show various behaviors, thinking, beliefs and other people’s perspectives in a society, which represents the overall circumstances. Cultural security and its issues make it possible to have a clear image of a society or community. This paper aims to identify the important dimensions of cultural security in terms of basic components of cultural security identified in a framework. Therefore, after identifying the components, using a questionnaire, required data are gathered from the universities of the city of Ilam, Iran and they are analyzed by SPSS18.0 software and its appropriate statistical tests

Researching corporate social responsibility in the Middle East - the current state and future directions

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has the potential to yield economic and social value in the Middle East (ME), especially given the current high environmental flux in the region. Although much scholarly has been paid to CSR issues, a key question remains about how to operate responsibly in the ME, particularly since institutional environments and stakeholders’ needs vary across ME states. The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the current state of CSR in the ME. We identify thirty-eight articles that are most pertinent to CSR in the ME and examine the main theoretical frameworks, methodologies, trajectories for further conceptual development, gaps where new research pathways need to be created and also future research questions. From the systematic review, we reveal how attention on CSR in the ME is slowly gaining traction. A snapshot of the gaps identified include the collaboration between business and NGOs, the impact of stakeholders and institutions on CSR, the impact of political and economic crisis on CSR and the influence of individualistic characteristics shaping managers’ CSR behaviour. In addition to such gaps, we present an agenda for future research

An Empirical Analysis to Design Enhanced Customer Lifetime Value Based on Customer Loyalty: Evidences from Iranian Banking Sector

The more a marketing paradigm evolves, the more long-term relationship with customers gains its importance. Also, the move towards a customer-centred approach to marketing, coupled with the increasing availability of customer transaction data, has led to an interest in understanding and estimating customer lifetime value (CLV). There are several researches about the CLV formulas and calculating relations. But the effect of the CLV on the other departments of the organization and especially the effect of the CLV on the key parameters for organization‟s profitability such as customer loyalty and satisfaction had little attention. This research is about these shortcomings and covers another essential element for organizational sustainable profitability, customer loyalty. The main purpose of this research is to demonstrate the effect of customer loyalty on the customer lifetime value. For this purpose one of the biggest parts of service sector in Iran is selected and the data from this sector are gathered and analyzed. Banking sector is the biggest body of Iranian service sector of economy. By means of a valid questionnaire, data were gathered from banking sector and after analyzing the hypotheses, results show that the high customer loyalty strongly affects on the enhanced customer lifetime value. In the final section of this paper, both applied and theoretical recommendations will be provided. Keywords

Analyzing Strategic Position of Universities and Nonprofit Institutes in Iran: Using a Strategic Analysis Comprehensive Approach

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challengesand problems of nonprofit institutes and universities. The researchmethod is a survey in which non-profit institutes’ strategy wasdetermined based on SWOT analysis. The research populationincluded all faculty members and administrators of non-profitinstitutes, 108 of which were selected based on clustering and simplerandom sampling method. To collect the data, two researchers-madequestionnaires were used. The content validity was confirmed viaexperts’ point of view and its reliability was confirmed usingCranach’s alpha test (α=0.86). The data analyzed in two levels:descriptive statistics such as determining the factors and indexes, andfrequency; and inferential statistics such as nonparametric Binomialtest and SWOT used in order to access the internal and externalfactors. The results show that opportunity is more than threat, andstrength is more than weakness, so non-profit institutes anduniversities on SWOT axis are located in aggressive strategy

A Conceptual Model to Explain the Readiness of Iranian Commercial Banks towards Islamic Banking Implementation: Using Grounded Theory Strategy

Today, banking is considered as the beating heart and vital artery of economy; in other words, banking sector is the most important economic, monetary and financial entity. On the other hand, in Islamic economics system, this vital role has been entrusted to Islamic banking system. The process of establishing Islamic banking in Iran’s economy after more than three decades of passing the Interest-Free Banking Operation Law which despite its defects, failed to execute completely and successfully. Accordingly, the current research based on a fundamental and comprehensive approach has investigated and presented a conceptual model to explain Iranian commercial banks in order to implement Islamic banking in the economy of Iran. For this purpose, the exploratory mixed approach was used. On this basis, in the qualitative phase the grounded theory strategy encompasses open coding, axial coding and selective coding and also the basic framework of this strategy was applied to achieve the extracted research model. Then, in the quantitative phase, the descriptive survey method was used to analysis and explain the proposed model. The results derived from this research have been presented in the form a confirmed and fitted model including six main categories and forty-three subcategories