درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Achieving business-IT alignment is one of the main purposes and also challenges of organizations. Many studies have indicated the importance of aligning information systems (IS) function with other business functions. The main purpose of this survey is evaluating business-IT alignment focusing on social and technical dimensions of business-IT alignment in Bank Mellat. The data was collected through a questionnaire which was designed based on Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and also the models provided by Reich and Benbasat (2000), and Lee et al. (2008). By using three questionnaires, the status of social and technical dimensions of business-IT alignment has been investigated under 3 groups of questions: (a) Business-IT strategic planning alignment; (b) Business-IT processes, organization and relationships, and (c) Managing IT human resources and training users. The collected data was analyzed by applying one-tailed T-Test, ANOVA and Tukey-Kramer post- test. The results of analysis show that the status of all technical indicators was at ‘Defined’ stage, while there was some weakness in social dimension of business-IT alignment. Also, the overall results show that the status of business-IT alignment regarding all of the three mentioned dimensions is at ‘Defined’ stage. A comparative analysis of the results that has focused on the perceptions of different sample respondent groups show significant differences between the perceptions of external auditors who believe in ‘Repeatable’ level of business-IT alignment and other respondent groups who believe in ‘Defined’ level of business-IT alignment toward all three mentioned dimensions. JEL Classification: C12, C18, D1, D21, D22, D73

 Given that improvement in efficiency is a major resource to economic development, this can be applied to each domestic sector of an economy. The objective of this paper is to measure technical efficiency of the Iranian Post Company across the country€™s provinces using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The ranking of technical efficiency has been calculated by using collected data on post offices across 32 Iranian provinces in 2011 based on assumption of constant return to scale imposed.   The study has specified two models of DEA to explore efficiency of post offices for all Iranian provinces. The first model has shown that provinces of Alborz, Semnan, Mazandaran, Isfahan, Tehran and Bushehr are technically efficient, while the second model has clarified the efficient units, which have been located in the 13th, 14th and 19th zones of Tehran province and the 16th zone of Bushehr province.  JEL Classification: C14, L87

This study aims at investigating the factors effective on poverty as one of the notable socioeconomic problems in Iran. To overcome the limitations of the prior research, the present study makes use of a multilevel model so as to simultaneously analyze the individual-level (personal characteristics) and macro-level (economic and institutional characteristics) factors. The provincial household budget data are obtained from Statistical Center of Iran and regional-national accounts of 2014 are used to explore the individual and institutional factors that might influence the poverty status of a family. Comparing the individual and institutional effects within the analytical process revealed that the model can empirically make it clear which of the two levels has the highest effects on poverty likelihoods in poor families. The study results indicate that none of the institutional and macro-level variables affects the poverty occurrence or eradication likelihoods and, in the meantime, the majority of the individual level variables, including the number of family members, employment status, age and education level of the family head are found strongly and significantly associated with poverty occurrence likelihood in a household.