Sharif Digital Repository

Due to the intensive competition in the markets and high risk of other strategies, in recent decades, Strategic Alliances (SA’s) have been widely used as a frequent strategy by industries and service sectors especially tourism industry and travel agencies. In this research, using Transaction Cost Theory (TCT), we tried to determine the appropriate types of strategic alliances for Iranian Travel Agencies with regard to the expansion of such inter firm relationships among Iranian travel agencies. Using both qualitative strategy through depth interviews and qualitative strategy through survey and statistical tests, the results of research were determined according to the four main constructs of... 

Marketing nowadays is an extremely dynamic field in which brand plays a critical role. Although comparing to developed countries, marketing is not a very old science area in Iran, but in the past decade brand concept has become more and more important among marketing managers of domestic industries. Nevertheless, there is no scientific approach to manage this critical concept, i.e. brand among local companies.Since managing any concept requires measuring it, there have been many global research conducted in the past 4 decades in order to construct a measurement framework to evaluate brand equity. But in Iran however, there is a big gap in this area and brands are evaluated by marketing... 

The basal focus of brand management in the field of brand extension is tracking brand equity that can serve as a strategic tool in order to creating and sustaining long-lasting and profound associations between brand and the customers. Tracking brand equity executed in means of understanding that to what extend firms succeeds on appreciating their brand values on mindshare.This study aimed to assessing the intangible brand equity of Mahan Air among its mindshare and also clarifying the status of Mahan brand life cycle through Brand Asset Valuator approach. This model was designed by Young & Rubicam (Y&R) institute and is utilized for evaluating the non-financial value of creditable... 

In the last 4 years, while the annual investment return on 5 years bank deposits was 25 percent; the total index of Tehran Stock Exchange on average grew by 155 percent. Why the investors are not so willing to invest in the stock market? This research deals with existence of equity premium puzzle in Tehran Stock Exchange. Therefore, the Total Price Index of exchange market is considered as a risky asset and the return on long-term (5 years) deposit is a proxy for risk free asset. Data is monthly and covers the first month of 1380 (Persian Calendar) to the beginning of the second month of 1391 (equivalent to Aug 2010 to Jan 2013); which is converted to real term using monthly inflation rate.... 

The type of consumers’ perceptions of brands is a key factor in establishing long-term business-consumer relationships. As a result, building strong brand perceptions is a principal priority for companies today. Research in brand image has long been one of the main areas in marketing research, because it plays a vital role in building brand equity. Concerning the rise in the number of product categories and the number of similar brands, firms have felt a need to know their brand images among competing brands from the consumer’ s point of view in order to invest in their brands and approach their brand images to the consumer’ s preferable image. Because of the fact that the brand image... 

Today, many organizations have come to believe that one of their most valuable assets is their product and/or service brands. In today's complex and challenging world, we are all faced with increasing options and decreasing time for decision making and making our choices. On this basis, the ability of brands to simplify decision making for customers, reduce risks and define expectations for them is invaluable. In recent decades, the issue of branding has become an important part of business strategy. Branding plays an important and special role in service organizations, because powerful brands have a significant impact on customers' decisions and perceptions of the brand. In this research,... 

Regarding to the technology development during recent years, many businesses have lost their traditional style and lots of web-based services have emerged. Also, nowadays one of the most attractive business model is platform-based services. Among these, investment industry is not exceptional and crowdfunding platforms are known as new channel of investment. With respect to this fact that investment by itself can help the economic growth in countries and proper status of Iran from investment viewpoint, developing such platforms may facilitate the investment processes. Regarding to the researches, considering the high amount of uncertainty in platforms and investment processes, especially... 

According to official statistics, family businesses form the majority of businesses around the world. When we talk about businesses, we are more likely to say that those firms face issues related to family businesses.One of the trending topics that has recently been considered by researchers and a lot of research has been done in this regard, is specific issues related to marketing and branding of family businesses.In this study, we tried to examine the family business brand in terms of reputation. Reputation is the perception in the minds of brand stakeholders about the brand and the organization. So we tried to take as fair and accurate a sample as possible, to seek the opinions of... 

This study aims to develop a mathematical model for the equitable distribution of the drug or vaccine needed in a critical situation like the COVID-19 epidemic. This study has taken a unique look at the human dimension of social issues such as the cost of deprivation and equality. It seeks to ensure a fair vaccine distribution among priority groups and affected areas. Thus, it has developed a mixed-integer programming model to minimize distribution costs in the cold chain to reduce the social costs of the crisis while reducing logistical costs such as transportation, scarcity, and maintenance costs. To do this, we considered a three-tier chain consisting of a supplier, distributor, and... 

This thesis analyses the relationship between performance and capital structure of listed companies in the Tehran stock exchange. For examining this relationship, we use trade-off theory. This theory states that using debt comes with some benefits and costs for the company. If this theory holds true, we expect that in a low debt capital structure, as a result of benefits of using debt surpasses the costs of it, the relationship between debt and performance should be positive and in a high debt capital structure, as a result of costs of using debt surpasses the benefits of it, using more debt should have negative relationship with performance. For examining this relationship, we first gather... 

Privatization in Iran was primarily driven by the 2004 amendment to the Article 44 of the Iranian Constitution. Improving firms' efficiency is cited as the key goal of the privatization program. The two prominent characteristics of the privatization program in Iran are complex ownership structure and transferring ownership from the government to government-affiliated institutions and organizations. For these reasons, the consequences of privatization in Iran may differ from those of other countries. Therefore, this study explores the relation between privatization and firm performance, as measured by firm efficiency, labor efficiency, investment, and the number of employees. As a significant...