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This paper was aimed at investigating the impact of knowledge management (KM) procedures on enriching human resources in Water and Waste Water Company in East Azerbaijan, Iran.

The samples used in this study included the employees of Water and Waste Water Company in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan, Iran. A questionnaire was used for collecting data from the employees of the abovementioned company. Its reliability and validity were first examined and checked. Then, Smart partial least squares 2.0 was used for analyzing the structural model.

The results acknowledged the validity of the introduced model for enriching human resources. The findings indicated that five variables, namely, kind of knowledge, top managers, information technology, culture and organization of knowledge, have significant impact on enriching human resources.

It is undoubtable that research studies might have specific limitations which should be pointed out and addressed in future studies. The followings are the major limitations of the study: because the present study was carried out in Water and Wastewater Company in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan, hence, generalizing the findings of this study to other professional contexts and organizations should be made with caution. In fact, the present study need to be replicated in other context to find whether the same or different results are obtained. In other words, different cultural, contextual and professional conditions might result differently from the ones reported here. Inasmuch as the present study was a cross-sectional study and the data were collected via questionnaire, a longitudinal study with a longer observation and investigation might shed more light on the efficacy of KMS in organizations. The present study focused on a specific dependent variable (human resource empowerment) which was explained by different dimensions of an independent variable, i.e. KM. However, the impact and efficacy of KMS can be investigated on other organizational variables and parameters. In this study, due to certain logistic and real-life limitations such as the limited time of the staff members of the target organization, we had to use only one data-collection instrument. Nevertheless, future studies can use data triangulation so as to better capture professional contexts of the study. Furthermore, another limitation of the study is related to the individual variables of the employees which remained untouched. That is, whether employees’ personal, emotional and cognitive variables can modify the impact of KM on human resource empowerment was not investigated in the present study.

Organizational managers are recommended to provide the background for employees to share their experiences. Organizations should invest on designing and developing patterns and strategic perspectives in human resource empowerment as a key factor toward becoming knowledge-based organizations.

This paper is one of the few applied studies which acknowledged the relationship between knowledge management initiatives and empowering human resources. It addresses the gap between knowledge management and human resource empowerment.

Few reports considering drug use among earthquake survivors exist. The present study aims to examine the Bam earthquake's impact on prescribing patterns and drug use among residents five years post‐disaster.

In this study, 297,104 prescriptions, issued by general practitioners in Bam city in 2008, were investigated for drugs/prescriptions, drug name, drug category, using WHO appropriate general practice prescribing indicators.

Mean drugs per prescription was 3.1. Drugs affecting the central nervous system were the most frequently used among Bam residents, representing 25.1 per cent, followed by antimicrobials, respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal tract drugs. Benzodiazepines were the most frequently used central nervous system drugs (15.8 per cent) followed by narcotic analgesics and tricyclic antidepressants. Penicillins (6.4 per cent) and cephalosporines (2.3 per cent) were the most frequently used antimicrobial drugs.

Results emphasize increased drug use for psychological disturbances and the need for strategies to improve mental health among disaster survivors.

In the case of Iran, about 19 years have passed since the announcement of general energy policies. Policies adopted in the past included too many approaches and goals for the energy sector that some of them are in conflict with each other and their simultaneous implementation was impossible. Therefore, many of the expected goals of these policies have not been achieved. It is very important to adopt an appropriate approach that is compatible with the country’s characteristics and can steer energy policies. Therefore, this study aims to adopt an appropriate approach for the country’s energy sector according to the conditions and needs of the country.

A participatory scenario technique is designed and used to develop plausible projections in the case of Iran’s energy futures. Based on the proposed methodology, the research process starts with data gathering through interviews and national plans analysis. Then, findings were used as inputs to a simulation-based scenario development process. Scenarios are developed based on Monte Carlo simulation via cross-impact analysis technique purified based on expert judgments.

In this paper, to recognize Iran’s general approach to energy in the next 20 years, driving forces of change were introduced and used as input for the scenario development phase. Results showed sanctions play a significant role in Iran’s energy future and determine the directions of other driving forces. For renewable energy, it was proposed to increase the renewable share in Iran’s electricity generation mix to 5% of the total installed capacity. In the case of fossil fuel extraction, the maximum efficient rate was proposed for both oil and natural gas national production strategy.

This research is novel both in terms of application and theory. A new participatory scenario development method is used using simulations that are equipped based on experts’ judgments. Also from the practical perspective, this research targeted a future-oriented challenging problem to initialize national policy in a resource-rich developing economy (i.e. Iran).

The purpose of this study is to introduce and evaluate the effect of critical success factors (CSF) in rescue operations in burning buildings by calculating the partial least squares structural equation modeling of PLS-SEM.

To do this, success criteria (SC) and CSF in the literature, which are related to the topic, articles, standards and relevant books, will be identified and then evaluated through the extended PLS-SEM model.

The results show that technological factors, awareness, resources and safety play an effective role in successful performance management in fire accidents.

Appropriate use of these factors will promote incident management and decrease casualties and financial loss in the event of accidents.

Fire-fighting is of great importance, especially in tall and complex buildings. In recent years, extended studies have been carried out regarding fire accident management in terms of CSFs in the category of rescue and firefighting. However, attention has not been paid to the relation and severity of impact between SC and CSF by researchers in addition to the identification of the most important criteria during rescue operations.

The purposes of this study are to develop an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) model by adding customer intimacy, perceived risk, trust and Sharia compliance as external variables, in which TAM is used as the evaluation method for the use of e-banking and m-banking by customers of Islamic bank; and to study the role of customer intimacy in increasing satisfaction and encouraging loyalty of Islamic bank customers in using e-banking and m-banking.

Data collection is carried out by the self-administered survey method with Islamic bank customers as target population. Multivariate analysis of variance and multiple linear regression are applied for data analysis.

Customer intimacy not only encourages the emergence of customer loyalty directly, but also affects the factors that determine customer loyalty itself, such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, trust, sharia compliance and satisfaction. In other words, customer intimacy has a direct and indirect influence on loyalty.

This paper offers an extended TAM constructs to study the role of customer intimacy in increasing loyalty by considering various variables, namely, perceived risk, trust, Sharia compliance and satisfaction. Similar research is still very limited in the banking marketing literature, especially in Islamic banks context.

Sustainability is one of the major factors in the way of creating new structures in historical contexts. The economic principle plays a very significant role in sustainability besides the environmental and social components. Tabriz Historic Bazaar that has been inscribed on the World Heritage list has witnessed various developments in its surrounding area over recent years. The purpose of this study is to analyze the infill structure indicators in this region in terms of economic sustainability.

First, based on related literature reviews and approaches, the indicators that should be considered in the creation of infill structures in historical contexts were collected. Later, by considering the vicinity zone of Tabriz Historic Bazaar, the effect of each indicator on the economic sustainability of the building was gathered by means of AHP questionnaires and in-person interviews with experts and analyzed by the Expert Choice software.

The findings present a guideline which indicates that the type of materials being used is the most important factor in order to create an economically sustainable infill structure in this setting. Accordance with the Climate of the region ranks second place and the Cultural land-use as the Suitable land use for this site goes for the third. The mentioned guideline includes 25 indicators and can help designers with a clear path.

This paper clarifies the order of indicators' importance for enhancing the design and consequently function of infill structures, being built in this historic context, with the aim of economic sustainability. The prioritization of indicators in this research depends mainly on their relevance to the conditions of the study area, but the methodology can be used helpfully in similar cases.

New food technologies based on biotechnological organisms are increasingly becoming a cause for debate and conflicting discussions. This paper aims to investigate hypothetical consumer behaviour, and the willingness to pay (WtP), towards a specific type of genetically modified food in relation to particular indications on the label about the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives by manufacturing companies.

For this purpose a choice experiment was used on a representative sample of more 1,300 Italian families, interviewing the component in charge of the buying choices within the selected household. A random parameter logit-error component model allows for heterogeneity in consumer preferences and potential correlation across utilities and across taste parameters. Beyond investigating consumers’ preferences regarding that product through a choice experiment, the aim was to detect the drivers of that purchase and preference heterogeneity across consumers’ choice, and the WtP, for the products with those features.

Results also offer a topic for further discussion and are useful for companies’ strategies to understand how to address such concerns through appropriate CSR policies. The main results are: CSR initiatives always have a strong effect on consumer choice; the price is consistently important, exerting a negative influence in the decision-making process for individuals; consumers may also know possible effects of genetically modified foods, but that does not always translate into purchase behaviour.

The research considers a particular link between genetically modified food and CSR not addressed in details; moreover, it is also based on the author’s own previous research and is its natural continuation and development, but also important for future researches.

Firms operating in the service sector must have a dynamic structure to be competitive in a volatile business environment. The dynamic structure brings skilled employees and talented managers together to create effective strategies for global competition. In traditional retail service companies, the majority of the staff interacts intensively with the clients and engaged in advanced facilities. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the performance results of the banks in Turkey based on the level of customer service and satisfaction within an interdisciplinary frame.

The fuzzy VIKOR and AHP method has been applied to analyse the performance levels of Turkish banks registered in Borsa Istanbul. In order to obtain the dynamics of data, the customer satisfaction competencies have been identified as the reference points for experts.

The empirical results confirm that the performance results of the banks vary based on customer satisfaction level and ownership types. The fundamental conclusion clarifies the facilities of the state-owned banks are suitable for meeting customer expectations, private bank's performance level is higher than foreign banks, foreign banks have the weakest performance results based on customer satisfaction level with a negative financial outcomes in local countries and finally, state-owned banks with their strong assets serve the customers in expected manner.

Generating sales revenue based on effective customer services and quality improvement requires prompt response to changing competitive conditions and customer demands. Effective customer service in performance evaluation process has a strategic role in adopting competitive strategies. The originality of the study is to evaluate the performance results of the customer satisfaction using the hybrid approach under the fuzzy environment.

This study aims to analyze the effect of the board of directors on financial performance, either directly or indirectly, through the existence of risk management after the issuance of the Palestinian Code on Corporate Governance in Palestine.

This study uses a panel data of 31 Palestinian listed companies from 2010 to 2016. It also uses structural equation modeling (SEM) model.

The results of the SEM model show a significant positive relationship of the existence of risk management and the tenure-chief executive officer (CEO) with financial performance. However, CEO duality has a significant negative relationship with financial performance. The results also show a significant positive relationship of CEO duality and board size with financial performance through the existence of risk management.

This study adds to the existing literature by analyzing the effect of the board of directors on financial performance, either directly or indirectly, through the existence of risk management in Palestine, one of the youngest stock exchanges in the region, which assists in testing the validity of agency theory in a young and small emerging Islamic market context.

The results of this paper are significant for shareholders and managers of companies to make proper choices to secure the interests of stakeholders and increase the flow of capital and foreign investment.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is one of the first papers to investigate the effect of the board of directors on financial performance, either directly or indirectly, through the existence of risk management in Palestine.