Sharif Digital Repository

This study analyzes determinants of customers’ switching intentions. The context of this study is service area and we have studied customers’ behavior of internet service providers. In this research we focus both on transactional and relational variables. We have tried to clarify the role of consumers’ commitment on their intentions to switch. Drawing from literature and based on previous service switching research we have developed a switching model. This includes two component of customer commitment and the antecedents of commitment. We have developed our hypothesis according to this model and the literature review. The survey was administered to ADSL internet home users. A sample of 130... 

Customer needs of Iran Print Industry have permanently been a secret for all producers, print centers and even many of the customers themselves. This research tries to find the relationship gaps between Iran Print Industry and its Individual /Industrial Customers, by identifying their needs. This will give recommendations on how manufacturers can increase their customers' satisfaction by providing them with what they need. Also it helps find the customers` satisfaction coefficient of the needs, which is a good guide for Customer Relationship Management in this industry.Therefore, manufacturers can spot these results by providing appropriate machines which can achieve these goals and offer... 

Based on symbolic theories BRANDS have personalities and according to this, brands like human beings have personality and stable behaviors in a period of time. Customers can imagine brands like a live creature according to different causes such as marketing communications, social responsibility of brand, CEO behaviors, clients, customers, etc. “BRAND PERSONALITY” is an interesting concept in world of marketing and it is one of the most important part of the brand identity. Brand personality makes people think at “brands” as friends. We consider “personality” as a perception of knowing, feelings and motivations that make people reactions toward their environment. Consuming is a way 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... 

One of the subjects that have been title for many research proposals in recent years is application of Nano Zero Valent Iron (NZVI) particles in contaminant removal from groundwater sources. Despite many studies being done, field application of this particles in a practical scale is not widespread yet which is due to many challenges like rapid settlement of particles or their unclear behavior through field application. The main purpose of this thesis in the first place is to find a practical and productive method for stabilization of particles and enhancement of their transport properties. To reach this goal, application of a natural polymer like starch has been studied as a solution. To... 

This thesis seeks to answer the following research questions: 1-How customers’ engagement with social media activation campaigns is conceptualized and operationalized? 2- What are the main antecedents of customers’ engagement with such campaigns? 3-How customers’ engagement with these campaigns affects brand image? The first research question is addressed in the first section of this research and includes five phases. Using the conceptualization of engagement in psychology, marketing, information systems, and some other fields, Phase 1 conceptualizes customers’ engagement with social media activation campaigns. This phase offers a comprehensive definition of this construct and discuss the... 

Brand perceptual map is a practical tool for visualizing the position of a brand and its competitors in the mind of customers. In traditional ways of building a brand perceptual map, the researcher identifies important aspects of the product and designs a questionnaire to measure the scores of different brands to gather the required information from users. With the increasing development of online shopping, users have been voluntarily registering their reviews in online shops, in a free and unstructured manner, and have created valuable data sources in these online stores. Due to the large size of registered reviews, processing them requires the use of automated methods in computers. In... 

One way for businesses to grow and compete, in any age (especially the digital age), is to create a Brand Relevance through creating or finding, and then owning new categories or subcategories. In this way, instead of beating competitors; they become irrelevant by enticing customers to buy a new category or subcategory for which other alternative brands are not considered relevant. Firms traditionally rely on interviews and focus groups to identify these subcategories and customer needs. Nowadays, with the growth of social media, user-generated content (UGC) is also a good alternative source. However, Due to the large size of UGC and the non-informative or repetitive data it contains,... 

Nowadays, different technologies help businesses in their various processes, especially marketing, so that their activities can be carried out in a better way.One of the emerging technologies that has come to the attention of retailers in recent years is augmented reality. With the help of this technology and only with a smartphone, a product can be viewed virtually and three-dimensionally in real space. There have been several studies on the effect of augmented reality technology on marketing processes and customers' shopping experience. Most of these studies have focused on the online shopping experience. This study examines how augmented reality technology, allows buyers to have more... 

In the past two decades, there have been significant advancements in responsible management education at the international level. These developments have led to new discourses and pathways in the field of management education and research. Responsible Management Education (RME) involves considering perspectives related to the responsibilities of enterprises, the social impacts of private sector activities on society, attention to the environment and sustainable development, and business ethics in the curriculum of business schools. Business schools worldwide have initiated numerous programs, studies, initiatives, lessons, and events to address social issues, responsible management, and... 

In this research the tendency of the Iranian companies in using marketing metrics will be examined. Business orientation and size of the firms have been considered as factors to be effective on diversified taste of companies in using financial, non-financial or a combination of both measures in evaluating marketing performance. An export-oriented sector of our country such as companies affiliated in IDRO must be able to measure the marketing performance as a prerequisite to be able to enter a global competition. In this research it has been attempted to determine the metrics favored by Iranian firms. It has been also concluded that the size of the companies has a direct relation with the... 

Among businesses operating under the sharing economy model, ride-sharing platforms or Internet taxis have attracted a lot of attention and have been able to encourage millions of people to use them in a few years. Meanwhile, what has been the subject of numerous researches in recent years is the motivation of people to use this type of business. Understanding what motivates users to use these businesses is important to them because it helps them allocate their resources optimally by focusing on the benefits, shortcomings, and potential disadvantages of their product, And then by improving the provided service, have more advantages and attractiveness in the eyes of customers. Accordingly, in... 

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... 

Customer relationship management is a comprehensive strategy for managing the relationships with customers. Customer relationship management involves technology for automation, organizing, and adaptation of business processes, including sales activities, marketing and customer service. Main purpose of CRM is finding and attracting new customers, maintaining current customers, attracting the organization's former customers, reducing marketing costs and customer service. Most studies in this area are related to B-C organizations and few studies are related to B-B and especially project based organizations. This study aimed to identify the factors affecting the implementation of customer... 

Launching new food product is more difficult than the marketing of an existing product. Usually companies focus on their ability, and process (product orientation) in New Product Development but many scholar researches say that market orientation is a highly critical factor for new product success. Some literatures have been studied, and many success factors found out but some of them that were related to beverages were chosen. It is concluded by analysis of survey that Functionality, Being Healthy, Manufacture, Packaging, Availability, Repeat use, Trial cost, Feedback, Endorsement, Distribution Channel, Branding, and Awareness are important success factors in NPD in beverage marketing... 

This thesis presents the results of the performance of a novel technology called submerged membrane electro-bioreactor (SMEBR). The SMEBR treats wastewater by combining membrane filtration, electrokinetic phenomena, and biological processes in one reactor, and improves treatment performance while helping to control membrane fouling. The newly designed SMEBR system was based on applying an intermittent direct current (DC) field between immersed perforated electrodes around a membrane filtration module. The SMEBR system significantly reduced the fouling rate when iron worked as electrodes and an intermittent DC with an operational different mode was applied.
In Phase 1 of this project,... 

Previous studies and field evidences show that creating appropriate interactions between sales and marketing departments is a challenge for many organizations. The main objective of this research is to develop and elaborate a conceptual framework in which "cooperation mechanisms" between sales and marketing and it’s "consequences" determined and provide an explanation that shows how configuration of sales and marketing relationship affects its consequences. The results show that "organizational ambidexterity" is the core consequence in proper architecture of the relationship between sales and marketing. In the strategy literature, combination of the dual capabilities of exploration and... 

Right from the start, customer need has been the center of focus for every firm. It’s hard to find a single firm which is not focused and customer centric. Firms are spending millions of dollars every year to make customer surveys and interviews to find out customer needs, new product development and brand perceptions. After the invention of the internet and the rise of home computers people started to act differently. Most of the purchases went online and customer reviews flooded over the internet. They freely express their mind on websites which is a rich resource for market researchers and marketing firms. UGC is rich enough to analyze customer’s thoughts and needs. The volume of UGC has... 

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitude of young people towards luxury brands from the point of view of social identity (Case study: Luxury cars shopping in Tehran by young people).In this regard, while reviewing the concepts of attitude and luxury brands dimensions, using the method of regression and structural equation modeling, we investigated the attitude of young people towards luxury brands.The statistical population of this research includes customers of Del's Brandy Benz and BTBMW District 1 in Tehran. Their number is estimated to be 500, and the sample size is determined using Morgan Crujsi's table to determine the sample size of 217 people. Using the Simple random... 

Health Tourism Industry is an emerging and beneficial trend in Iran. This sector however, does not possess a long story in Iran, and therefore most of the facilitators and companies related to health tourism in Iran are SMEs. These small to medium size companies face different challenges in their process of growth. One of the major challenges is the problem of Customer Relationship Management. In order to manage relations with customers in a successful way, health tourism companies must have a comprehensive view of all needs and challenges related to customers, among their expectations, from the first contact between customer and company to the last moment of relationship. To design a useful...