---

Abstract
Aims: By 1404, Tehran will be a knowledge-based, smart, and global city. Having the proper infrastructure and consequently a metropolis with national and global functions with a modern economy are its other features. The global experience of metropolises management shows that optimal urban management requires comprehensive attention to the city's economic, social, and environmental structures, and this has been measured in recent decades, globally, by the urban competitiveness index. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the urban competitiveness and Tehran’s status among the metropolises of Iran.
Instruments and Methods: The present study is an applied and survey research that was conducted in 2011. Eleven variables were selected as economic indices of urban competitiveness such as unemployment rate, economic participation rate, etc., by the library method and from three official sources of the country: statistical yearbooks of the provinces, results of census of industrial workshops with 10 employees and more, published by the Statistical Center of Iran and statistics of Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare. Standardized score and numerical taxonomy were used.
Findings: Tehran metropolis ranked first in terms of urban competitiveness index and economic aspect. Tehran was the first metropolis of Iran with a score of 3.13 in terms of the urban competitiveness index in standardized score method and 0.72 in numerical taxonomy.
Conclusion: Although Tehran does not have a good status in terms of the urban competitiveness index compared to other metropolises in the world, it ranked first in this index among Iranian metropolises.
 

---

---

This research is conducted on the basis of the relational view of competitive advantage. In this view, competitive advantages are created by not only corporate-level resources but by inimitable capacities and mixed into dynamic relations. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze and quantify the impact of external social capital dimensions on organizational competitive advantage. For this purpose, after an extensive study of literature, the initial conceptual model was designed. The questionnaires were distributed among senior executives and board members of Color and Resin Company and 64 questionnaires were returned and the data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, inferential analysis and Structural Equation Modeling. Results show that the size of a firm impacts innovation and external social capital significantly affects the organizational competitive advantage. Also, structural dimension of external social capital is the most effective among the dimensions of competitive advantage, and strategic flexibility dimension is the most impressible dimension of external social capita. Additionally, the cognitive dimension of external social capital has the minimal impact on competitive advantage. It seems that the warm personal relationships, business relationships and working closely with many diverse groups and work teams in complex industrial organization are the most important tools for achieving the desired organizational results.    

---

    Developments, changes and increased competition in the field of industry in recent years, has forced organizations to focus on gaining competitive advantage. In general, many experts believe that organizational performance improvement will increase profitability, and therefore the organization's competitive position relative to other competitors will be dramatically enhanced. It can be accomplished through environmental conditions, resources and practices required. As results, organization can enhance its ability to value creation and achieve profitability. In this study, regarding to resources in achieving high level performance, the key sources of influence on organization performance is derived by reviewing the results of previous researches and according to experts’ points of view. Using the experimental design method, appropriate framework of factors presented. The results show that contribution percentage of following factors: total number of employees, inventory levels, the value of capital assets, the ratio of manufacturing employment to total employment and the cost of advertising on firm performance.    

---

Nowadays, customer is known as the organizations’ most important source of information. The competitive advantage was lately obtained by innovation of product and creating a brand, but in twenty first century, companies are facing more interactions creating a competitive advantage which is obtained by gathering customer knowledge. This study intends to determine a structural model by the application of interpretive structural modeling (ISM). According to the interpretive structural modeling findings, twenty five important and effective factors on the process of implementing the customer knowledge management in the bank have been identified. The structural model analysis showed that following variables of the superior management commitment, the middle managers, organizational culture, financial resources and information technology are the main factors, and act like the foundation of the model. Any type of change on other factors which have high levels of guidance and dependency, could affect the system and system outcome could also change these variants again. The final result of factor in model expresses that executing and implementing the customer knowledge management process is effective at achieving factors such as customers' satisfaction, increase of service quality and keeping customers as a valuable asset and finally obtaining a competitive advantage.    

---

The Competitive Intelligence is the energy resulting from the systematic process of collection, review, and analysis of the information of environment, competitors, customers, suppliers, and market trends. It should be mentioned that Iran includes multiple subcultures. Now the major question that arises is whether we can try to promote competitive intelligence in an environment consisting of subcultures, without benefiting from cultural intelligence and compatibility with different cultures, or not? This research seeks to design a developed & organized framework in regards to the concepts of “Cultural Intelligence” and “Competitive Intelligence” in connection with each other and in Iranian knowledge based corporations; It also tries to take action towards development of borders of the knowledge available in this area. This research is of an applied type, with surveying nature. The required data has been collected through a premeditated sampling, from Iranian knowledge-based corporations, being active in Information Technology. Structural Equation method and SmartPLS software were used for data analysis. The results indicate that the Cultural Intelligence affect the Competitive Intelligence of Iranian Knowledge-Based Corporations.

---

This paper presents a framework for long term transmission expansion planning in competitive, electricity markets. Transmission lines and phase shifters are taken into account as expansion options. Maximization of the network users' benefits, with satisfying security constraints are considered as the criterion for transmission expansion planning. The elements of the objective function are the benefits of each network. The proposed model is as a non-linear mixed-integer programming (NLMIP) optimization problem. A GA (Genetic Algorithm) based method and quadratic programming (QP) approach is used to solve the problem. The discrete decision-making variables of the expansion plan are optimized by genetic algorithm, while QP optimizes the continuous variables.

---

According to great number of experts, having a distinct positioning regarding other competitors in one or more cases, are Critical factors of industrial success. These CSFs can create a golden and exceptional opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. Therefore, main goal of this study is to identify and prioritize CSFs in lubricants industry of Iran. Research method is practical use and as data collecting method is descriptive – survey. Interviews and questionnaires used to collect data in research population which is Iran lubricants industry experts. In this study, Thompson and Strickland models has been used to identify these factors. This model define critical success factors in seven different dimension and sets indicators for each one. Based on those factors and network analysis process a questionnaire has been prepared and has been placed at the disposal of industry experts. Obtained data were analyzed by using "super decision" software and five factors of " experience in product innovation", "technical knowledge", "production quality", "access to raw materials and additives", "access to skilled labor" were identified as critical success factors in this industry.  Therefore successful companies in this field can gain the competitive advantages investing on these factors.

---

Organizations have no choice but gaining and maintaining sustainable competitive advantage to remain safe from competitive environment’s surges and be consistent with the requirements of the environment. Transcendental leadership is a new paradigm in management and leadership that is one of the best ways to deal with turbulent environments. This paper aims to recognize the effect of transcendent leadership on organizational performance with the mediating role of competitive advantage in food industry SMEs in Tehran. Data gathered based on 195 questionnaires and analyzed using Structural equation technique. Results show that transcendent leadership has a positive effect on both competitive advantage and organizational performance and competitive advantage has a positive effect on organizational performance.

---

Competitiveness is considered as a key criterion for appraising the degree of success for countries, industries and enterprises in the political, economic and commercial competition areas. Research findings show that competitiveness has been discussed in three levels of national, industry and enterprise (organization or company). Among all these levels, the enterprise level seems to be more considerable. In this study enterprise competitiveness has been viewed from two main perspectives: construct and behavioral. According to construct perspective, competitiveness includes two groups of factors which are composing and affecting factors. Based on behavioral perspective an enterprise faces two types of factors in its decisions and actions which are strategic and operational ones. As a result of literature review, summarization and complementary edition, totally 28 factors have been identified as competitiveness factors ({16 composing f. and 12 affecting f.} and {15 strategic f. and 13 operational f.}). A questionnaire has also been developed based on these factors. The findings show that in Iranian business context, all competitiveness factors of enterprises are highly important but very weak

---

Sustainable competitive advantage is crucial for organizations to survive in modern competitive environment. Since competitive advantage based on creativity is one of the most crucial factors for the survival of current organizations, factors influencing organizational creativity processes should be considered at organizational decision-making level. As many people and factors are involved in organizational creativity, decision-making becomes complex and unstructured real world issues with chaotic systems behavior, and consequently, hard operation research methods are not able to represent and solve it properly.  Soft system methodology is one operation research’s methods applied to represent, structure and solve complex problems. Therefore, in this study, which is part of a PhD thesis, in addition to explaining the soft system methodology’s steps, we describe how the first four stages of the Checkland soft system methodology were applied to represent and structure the sustainable organizational creativity problem in detail. The conceptual model was created based on information gathered from experts and specialists in organized meetings and in-depth interviews who were exposed to data previously collected in reviewing individual, group and organizational creativity existing research results. At the end of these meetings and interviews we designed and developed a rich picture, root definitions, CATWOE analysis and the conceptual model for organizational creativity.

---

E-Banking is a new type of banking service where banking services are provided using -environments. This kind of banking activity has spread throughout the world since 1991. Customers are migrating from traditional banking to modern banking with the increase of e-banking services and the provision of various tools for banking transactions. Accordingly, it is important to examine the progress of banks in these tools and the level of customer satisfaction. This study first analyzes the extent of customer satisfaction with these tools by examining customer transactions in Branch, ATM, Internet Bank and Mobile Bank Which has conducted this survey for a hundred thousand customers. After an initial analysis of the use of tools, Customers were clustered using k-Mean Method and Imperialist Competitive Algorithm with MATLAB software and grouped into seven clusters. Then the characteristics of each cluster are examined and strategies for each cluster are presented. In the final stage, we analyzed the strategies proposed by the Shapely value-based game theory approach and the most important strategies proposed.

---

Nowadays, with the intensification of competition in various business areas, especially service industries, organizations achieve their goals such as creating a positive attitude in the target community, creating customer satisfaction with the services provided, and ultimately gaining more profit, seeking to create and use Optimized for their competitive advantage over competitors. This is especially true in the private sector, given the important position of the customers, and it can be argued that the more their competitive advantage is more stable, they can be more successful in this regard. Considering the importance of this issue and the necessity of examining the effect of sustainable competitive advantage on brand image of the organization, the present study has been conducted with a descriptive / survey approach and with a developmental and applied purpose. More than 489 questionnaires were distributed among customers and users of private hospitals in Mazandaran province. In the validity of the questionnaire, the content / content validity and convergent and divergent validity were used. To determine its reliability, Cronbach's alpha method (84%) and combined reliability method (81%) were used. The results of the research showed that the sustainable competitive advantage of an organization can be influenced by brand marketing strategies through appropriate marketing strategies, which depends on the social interactions of customers as a moderating variable.

---

  With ever increasing competition, enterprises as well as researchers are focusing on consumer and its priorities and thus everyday, new aspects of determinants of consumer choice become clear. One of such determinants is brand perception. Perception of consumer about technology of production -which is derived from brand and packaging-, can play a great role in the consumer choice when differentiation is little. Such role is investigated in this research work. We have studied a group of food products with very low level of differentiation and correlation between demand and technology perception is elaborated. Field study has been performed in Shahrvand department stores. Results show that in simpler, more commodity type products, technology perception has a greater role in finalizing customer choice. So making a more positive perception of technology can be considered as a rather inexpensive way for gaining competitive advantage. Additionally, based on interviews, it can be claimed that technology perception consists of sub-elements such as environment friendliness perception, healthiness perception, quality perception, etc. 

---

From exports point of view, competitiveness concept is a very restricted approach. Competitiveness is a reflection of microeconomic decisions, socio-political problems and public welfare and it must also potentially be able to help countries achieve a sustainable value added creation. Due to this reason, most studies on this issue consider competitiveness in terms of efficiency and labor productivity. This paper uses competitiveness indexes and competitiveness factor of international management development to examine the country's competitiveness power such as knowledge based competitiveness, education, technology and information infrastructures, innovation and economic and institutional performances. The results indicate that a quadratic form explains the relationship between competitiveness and human capital. It confirms that the average years of schooling has a positive effect on labor productivity. Moreover, technology and information infrastructures (ICT), defined as the ratio of ICT expenditures over GDP, has a positive effect on labor productivity. Government size and the degree of openness have a negative effect on competitiveness. Economic and institutional performances have a positive effect on competitiveness, the more freedom of speech, the higher the competitiveness power.

---

Understanding sources of sustained competitive advantage for organization has become a major area of research in the field of strategic management. By reviewing its literature, sources of competitive advantage fall into three categories including environmental resources and capacity models, resource-based view, and network view. The environmental model emphasises on environmental factors such as attractiveness and structure of industries and five forces in gaining competitive advantage. But resource-based view emphasises on organizational resources, competencies and capabilities in gaining competitive advantage. In contrast network view emphasises on interorganizational relations and dynamic networks for gaining competitive advantage. Having verified that the need to integrate new and old theories seems to be greater than their apparent irreconcilability, thus this research tries to provide a jeneric framework by integrating three different views and present a contributional framework congruence for global competition. By using data gathering for auto industry and appling path analysis, research assumptions and conceptual model was tested.

---

Reviewing literature of the international market attractiveness evaluation and operational practice in Iran demonstrates that two approaches for international market selection are proposed: expansion approack and systematic approach. In expansion approach, firms gradually enter low geographical and cuftural distance markets. But, in systematic approach, by considering some factors and models, firms systematically evaluate and select foreign market(s). The importance and need for systematically evaluating and selecting potential foreign markets has been stressed by many researchers and several models for selecting international markets had been propos. But, current models do not pass the test of reality, because they are not adapted with exporter decision making process and they are not considered important aspect of reality. So, in this paper, we introduce a comprehensive international market attractiveness model that include demand attractiveness, attainment attractiveness, adaptation attractiveness and competition attractiveness. At last, according to the tested model, a fuzzy decision support system is developed.

---

This study aims to develop a native scale of competitiveness in Iran's commercial banks. Based on the review of theoretical and empirical literatures, a comprehensive competitiveness scale is developed to show the various dimensions of international performance of commercial banks. The validity of the scale is confirmed by 50 experts. The information of the scale is collected using a sample of 300 questionnaires distributed among officers of commercial banks working at international departments of Iran's commercial banks. The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows. 1. The main determinants of native scale for measuring the performance of international departments of commercial banks are financial and non-financial performance, respectively. 2. the Non-financial performance is confirmed in the international departments of all commercial banks. Moreover, the financial performance of international departments in the Melli, Saderat, Mellat and Sepah Banks is approved while the financial performance is not confirmed in the Tejarat Bank.

---

WTO as one of the 118th elements of third wave paradigm and also strategic shift from traditional management to brand management in global automotive industry, are regarded as the most important strategic challenges for local new established automotive companies particularly Iranian automotive companies. This article represents findings of a study which has examined growth models and learning barriers in Iranian automotive companies. This research has examined first, competition issues regarding Iran Khodro Company (as a pilot to apply results of research) by means of SD modeling in comparison with other internal competitors. And then simulates Iran automotive industry sector in a real competitive environment with presence of other foreign competitors by applying two scenarios. These two scenarios express that what are the growth enablers and impediments for Iran Khodro (in micro term) and Iranian automotive industry section (in macro term), whether or not the infrastructures of joining Iran to bilateral or multilateral WTO negotiates are strengthened. Finally, complementary policies for survival of Iranian automotive companies in a completely competitive situation is examined and addressed and necessary suggestions for their survival are presented.

---

The World in the 21th century is filled with competition, development of new arising markets, uncertain environmental factors, wide use of high technology and the expansion of trade. Successful achievement in this World requires to use opportunities efficiently and remove challenging obstacles. This requires to know the internal and external environments and stay in this competitive World by designing an effective strategy. This paper aims to design and formulate organizational and functional strategies of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Customs (IRIC). To this end, strategic factors are first identified in the internal and external environments and then a questionnaire is designed to collect information. Using a sample of custom’s senior and middle managers and experts, the questionnaire is screened by Delphi method. Based on the internal and external Factors, a matrix is calculated. Moreover, based on the strategic factors, guidelines, suggestions and requirements of the World Customs Organizational (WCO), the fourth Iranian development plan and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the mission, Vision and objectives of the IRIC are formulated. Then the internal and external matrixex, the strengths, weaknesses, Opportunities and threats (SWOT) matrix are analyzed by using the strategic factors and the results of the internal and external evaluation matrixes. In addition, the quantitative strategic planning is proposed and the IRIC’S strategies are prioritized. Finally, the IRIC’s organizational strategy are designed.