Papers by Mohammad Shafia
Cornell University - arXiv, Jan 23, 2019
Nowadays, we are surrounded by a large number of complex phenomena such as virus epidemic, rumor ... more Nowadays, we are surrounded by a large number of complex phenomena such as virus epidemic, rumor spreading, social norms formation, emergence of new technologies, rise of new economic trends and disruption of traditional businesses. To deal with such phenomena, social scientists often apply reductionism approach where they reduce such phenomena to some lower-lever variables and model the relationships among them through a scheme of equations (e.g. Partial differential equations and ordinary differential equations). This reductionism approach which is often called equation based modeling (EBM) has some fundamental weaknesses in dealing with real world complex systems, for example in modeling how a housing bubble arises from a housing market, the whole market is reduced into some factors
A conceptual model is proposed which facilitate the process of technology transfer by applying a ... more A conceptual model is proposed which facilitate the process of technology transfer by applying a virtual R&D team. The underlying hypothesis is responded to competitive challenges, the complex customer requirements and the high instability on the market. The context of the knowledge-based economy introduces a major shift from serial to simultaneous R&D activities in the way technology transfer is conceived. The traditional model of R&D team work is relies on the visual and face-to-face teams. The complexities involved in organizing face-to-face interactions among team members from one side, and the rapid developments of electronic communication technologies from the other ,caused firms to turn towards employing virtual R&D teams. The paper postulates that in the new perspective, virtual R&D team to be considered as a specific technology transfer means. It depends on the ways firms and other institutions are managing them, in particular the co-evolution of their absorptive capabiliti...
Journal of Optimization in Industrial Engineering, 2018
Production is a key economic activity with potential long-term social benefits that can be thorou... more Production is a key economic activity with potential long-term social benefits that can be thoroughly realised only if governments comply with their duties towards domestic production. Governments are responsible for the production of sustainable agricultural products via appropriate allocation of subsidies and regulation of price policies that would help take advantage of the potentials underlying agricultural production. In this paper, a model is developed to investigate the interaction between two decision makers in the stackelberg game, government as leader and agriculture as follower, with the ultimate aim of providing benefits to all sectors in the society in the sustainable agriculture paradigm. The proposed model is validated and its efficiency demonstrated via a case study of cotton production as a strategic agricultural production. The model is first solved using a combination of fuzzy mathematical and grey quadratic programming methods to account for the inherent uncertai...
ArXiv, 2018
Nowadays, competition is getting tougher as market shrinks because of financial crisis of the lat... more Nowadays, competition is getting tougher as market shrinks because of financial crisis of the late 2000s. Organizations are tensely forced to leverage their core competencies to survive through attracting more customers and gaining more efficacious operations. In such a situation, diversified corporations which run multiple businesses have opportunities to get competitive advantage and differentiate themselves by executing horizontal strategy. Since this strategy completely engages a number of business units of a diversified corporation through resource sharing among them, any effort to implement it will fail if being not supported by enough information. However, for successful execution of horizontal strategy, managers should have reliable information concerning its success probability in advance. To provide such a precious information, a three-step framework has been developed. In the first step, major influencers on successful execution of horizontal strategy have been captured t...
Iranian Journal of Management Studies, 2018
We live in a very complex world where we face complex phenomena such as social norms and new tech... more We live in a very complex world where we face complex phenomena such as social norms and new technologies. To deal with such phenomena, social scientists often use reductionism approach where they reduce them to some lower-lever variables and model the relationships among them through a scheme of equations. This approach that is called equation based modeling (EBM) has some basic weaknesses in modeling real complex systems so that assumptions such as unbounded rationality and perfect information are strongly emphasized while adaptability and evolutionary nature of all engaged agents along with network effects go unaddressed. In tackling deficiencies of reductionism, the complex adaptive system (CAS) framework has been proven very influential in the past two decades. In contrast to reductionism, under CAS framework, complex phenomena are studied in an organic manner where their agents are supposed to be both boundedly rational and adaptive. As the most powerful methodology for CAS mo...
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2021
Sustainability, 2020
Understanding the mechanism underlying the mobile telecommunications technologies (MTTs) diffusio... more Understanding the mechanism underlying the mobile telecommunications technologies (MTTs) diffusion in a country is crucial for telecom planners to know how to accelerate their diffusion by designing appropriate scenarios. Considering the technology diffusion as a bottom-up process, this study is aimed at exploring this mechanism, drawing on insights from diffusion of innovation theory and social network theory. Accordingly, an agent-based model is proposed to investigate how MTTs are diffused in Iran over time. The results of this study show, (1) social network of Iranian society seems more similar to a Watts–Strogatz small-world network than a Barabási–Albert preferential attachment network, where the clustering coefficient is high and average path length is low, (2) compared to the compatibility parameter, the advertisement parameter not only is less influential on diffusion of a targeted MTT (i.e., 4G) but also is not necessary for it, and (3) scenarios having the least number of...
African Journal of Business Management, Nov 30, 2012
Providing internet to the customers is a huge and highly competitive market. Offering internet wi... more Providing internet to the customers is a huge and highly competitive market. Offering internet with a competitive price and high level of quality to the customers is a challenging issue to all server-owners at large. Internet providers usually have a limited bandwidth which should try to allocate it to different services as such to maximize profitability. As a result, they should care about several factors such as the amount of bandwidth allocated to each service, amount of marketing expenditure, selling price, level of system's reliability, and so forth. On the other hand, presence of uncertainty makes it almost impossible to achieve a good estimation on the model's key parameters such as price elasticity. Therefore, in this study, we present the outcome of our investigations as a mathematical model to maximize the profit of a server-owner in an uncertain and competitive environment. The uncertain parameters are taken as a triangular fuzzy numbers. The resulted problem is modeled as a general form of Possibilistic Geometric Programming (PGP). It is evident that the developed model is a highly nonlinear one. As a result, we use CVX to solve it optimally. Finally, the numerical analysis is applied for validation of the model.
Decision Science Letters, 2015
Technology transfer, from research and technology organizations (RTOs) toward local industries, i... more Technology transfer, from research and technology organizations (RTOs) toward local industries, is considered as one of important and significant strategies for countries' industrial development. In addition to recover the enormous costs of research and development for RTOs, successful technology transfer from RTOs toward local firms forms technological foundations and develops the ability to enhance the competitiveness of firms. Better understanding of factors influencing process of technology transfer helps RTOs and local firms prioritize and manage their resources in an effective and efficient way to maximize the success of technology transfer. This paper aims to identify important effective factors in technology transfer from Iranian RTOs and provides a comprehensive model, which indicate the interactions of these factors. In this regard, first, research background is reviewed and Cummings and Teng's model (2003) [Cummings, J. L., & Teng, B.-S. (2003). Transferring R&D knowledge: The key factors affecting knowledge transfer success. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 20(1-2), 39-68.] was selected as the basic model in this study and it was modified through suggesting new factors identified from literature of inter-organizational knowledge and technology transfer and finally a Delphi method was applied for validation of modified model. Then, research conducted used Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) to evaluate the relationship between the factors of final proposed model. Results indicate that there were twelve factors influencing on technology transfer process from Iranian RTOs to local firms and also the intensity of absorption capability in transferee could influence on the intensity of desorption capability in transferor.
Introduction There is no agreement on what city and urban lifestyle are. It is not just about min... more Introduction There is no agreement on what city and urban lifestyle are. It is not just about minimum factors that each city must have, but also about social interactions, social needs and individual perceptions which are dependent on cultural characteristics and geographical details. Generally speaking, cities have complex systems of transportation, sanitation, utilities, land usage, social connections and economic actions. These systems are always in the process of changing and developing. So, development of cities leads to new lifestyles and create what we may call urban life. Development of urban life causes concentration of equipments and resources in cities. Also, it is clear that a mere focus on quantitative facts of urban development is not enough to get to the efficient way of life. Hence researchers and managers have decided to pay more attention to factors which are more related to quality of urban life. In other words, after an initial attention to quantitative development of cities, the concept of quality of life is now getting attention in terms of qualitative factors. Due to this shift, a great deal of scientific and practical studies have been conducted and many new things have been revealed. Medical, sociological, psychological, environmental and economic points of views led to create new indexes and multidimensional frameworks. More than that, each city arrives at special findings which are linked to its local specifications. Because of diversity of results in different cases and cities, reaching to a shared and unique conclusion for urban quality of life is not easy. So the purpose of this study is to centralize and summarize the results of various studies on this topic in Iran. Meta-analysis is a research method for arriving at a specific knowledge from different studies. This research method was introduced in the late 1970s and soon became famous because of its abilities to get clear conclusions. Material & Methods This paper has analyzed Iranian scientific studies on quality of life, whi [...]
In today's competitive world, different methods are used for acquisition and development of techn... more In today's competitive world, different methods are used for acquisition and development of technology. The ultimate goals for acquisition and transferring technology in developing countries are absorption and localization of technological knowledge. However, due to the interference of some obstacles and factors, the very goals of technology application do not seem to be achieved. Like other developing countries, Iran confronting some obstacles in its path towards localization of technology. Among them, the imposed sanctions are generated more concern to the development affairs. In the current study, factors affecting localization of technology are identified by conducting in-depth interviews with the present experts at Collegiate Jihad of Iran University of Science and Technology and Tajrobeh Nour Turbine Company as pertinent organizations involved in the issue. Then, the relationships of these factors with localization of technology at micro and macro (i.e., firm) levels are illustrated applying a structural equation model. The findings suggest that the companies which are interested in localizing a technology & seeking the success should invest primarily on five influencing areas of learning styles, technological cooperation, technological adaptation, absorption capacity, and main localization activities.
Multi-objective nature of socio-economic systems has made budget planners faced with some budget ... more Multi-objective nature of socio-economic systems has made budget planners faced with some budget allocation challenges among which the unbalanced allocation of budget among organization's multiple goals is believed to be the most important one. To surmount this challenge, budget planners need to be informed of powerful budget allocation methods. To do so, different budget allocation methods have been developed among which the goal programming (GP) models seem to be widely applied. But, GP models in turn have different performances in terms of balanced allocation of budget among goals. The prime purpose of this study is to use a type of GP model which has a far better performance in terms of balanced allocation. This paper is organized into seven sections. Section I deals with the introduction. The problem is introduced in this part. Section II deals with reviewing some studies that have been conducted on university budget planning so far. In this section, related literature is somewhat reviewed. Section III is about research methodology. In this section, problem of interest is defined in details and widely used GP models are explained which Integer Chebyshev Goal Programming (ICGP) is finally selected as the model of research. Furthermore, all problem parameters are elucidated in this section. Section IV focuses on normalization computation techniques. In this section, normalization techniques are explained and Euclidean normalization is selected for computing normalization constants. Section V is about goal's preferential weights computation. In this section, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a multi criteria decision making aid is explained and used for computing preferential weights. Section VI is about model implementation and solution analysis. In this section, the model is applied in a non-public higher education institution to solve the budget allocation problem and the comparison of the model solutions with the current situation while applying the model, indicates that the quantity of resources and products available at this institution is suboptimal. Section VII as the final one ends with conclusion. In this section, model's advantages along with some suggestions are proposed. The managers of the studied institution can use the solutions of this model as effective guidelines because institution's inflows and outflows as system's sources and outputs have been properly covered according to a manufacturing systems approach.
Sharing common resources is amongst critical factors creating competitive advantages in business ... more Sharing common resources is amongst critical factors creating competitive advantages in business and manufacturing. In today's competitive and dynamic environment, application of the resource sharing approach has become the focal point of attention for business managers. By resource sharing and through common platform guidelines, the possibility of producing an extended variety of products using the least variable production elements is provided. Meanwhile, today's manufacturing industries are trying hard to plan and manage an effective foundation for creating a value stream from the point of supplying resources to the stage of delivering the final product to the customer. Standardizing and sharing product components and common platforms is of great assistance to this effort. This paper presents a mathematical model to contribute to making the decision of choosing the best combination of common components and analyze the time effects of commonality approach and its possible consequential savings as one of the key performance indicators of a supply chain based on common platform.
This paper aims at emphasizing the importance of establishing a Project Management (PM) system in... more This paper aims at emphasizing the importance of establishing a Project Management (PM) system in Technology Transfer (TT) processes and developing a conceptual framework for it. TT is an important process in Technology Management affairs for all enterprises. Most of the time, lack of a particular concentration on technical, commercial and legal aspects of TT process, leads to mismanagement of other aspects of transferring project, like Time and Project Integration. This situation may lead to failure and loss of many opportunities in transfer process. To overcome this problem, inputs, outputs and activities of a typical TT processes are identified and based on these components, a conceptual framework for managing this project & prevent the loss is developed using Project Management models and methodologies.
This paper investigates capacitated facility location-network design problem under uncertainty. A... more This paper investigates capacitated facility location-network design problem under uncertainty. A stochastic probust optimizing approach is applied to face the uncertainty. The developed model optimizes location for predefined number of capacitated facilities and underlying transportation network in such a that way total expected costs of links construction, facility construction, and transportation be minimized while the relative regret in each scenario must be no greater than an positive digit (0 p ≥). Uncertainty is characterized by given finite number of scenarios. Moreover, some basic behaviors of the problem are concluded through sensitive analysis from several random generated test problems.
Uncertain Supply Chain Management, 2014
The objective of this study is to measure the performance improvement of supply chain (SC) stages... more The objective of this study is to measure the performance improvement of supply chain (SC) stages through implementing the national standardization system (NSS) in an innovative way. There are many studies on the positive effects of standardization system on supply chain performance (SCP), but very few studies have measured and prioritized the impact of this system on SCP. This paper introduces a new approach to the performance improvement of each stage of SC through implementing the NSS. First, we use fuzzy analytical hierarchical process method to measure the relative importance of each stage and determine the characteristics of SC. Then, the amount of SC stages improvement after implementing the NSS is determined. Finally, using a combination of results, the stages of SC are ranked according to the effectiveness of NSS implementation. In order to validate the proposed approach, the case analysis of Iran NSS is carried out on broiler SC. The stages of SC are ranked according to the performance improvement through implementing standardization system, subsequently. This approach can be generalized to other standardization systems and SCs.
African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2013
ABSTRACT It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the positive impacts of advanced manufac... more ABSTRACT It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the positive impacts of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) on organizational performance. Many firms from developing countries attempt to import AMTs from foreign suppliers in order to improve their products' qualities, reduce costs and so on. This article, in addition to articulation of AMTs' benefits, tries to open up a new window of opportunity to analyze their possible threats as well. It seems that importing machinery without adequate planning may only gain short-term profits, and cause long-lived dependence on suppliers. To examine this assumption, a conversation analysis is conducted to identify the possible threats by interviewing 33 people, including middle managers and engineers from some developing countries which try to move in line with development, such as Iran, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Malaysia, and China. After eliciting the current problems of importing AMTs, Grounded theory (GT) is conducted to design a framework to overcome the threats and benefit from beneficiaries of imported goods. The final extracted model, which is confirmed by the participant experts of this investigation, is named Organizational Self-Sufficiency Theory. The core implication of this theory is that organizations should design a structure in which they can communicate with their external environment and maintain their independence by employing appropriate strategies.
Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, 2014
Standardization of information is regarded as one of the three main approaches of supply chains a... more Standardization of information is regarded as one of the three main approaches of supply chains and one of the effective strategies in integrating of their components. One of the most effective standardization systems is utilizing product coding at the national level which creates an appropriate framework for the integrated management of information in the chains. The identification and fulfillment of the customers' needs (CNs) with the functional requirements (FRs) of this system would satisfy the customers. However, considering the limitation of resources, an appropriate ranking and selection of FRs is of vital importance. In this paper, a new procedure is presented by utilizing fuzzy TOPSIS and fuzzy KANO techniques aiming at two issues: (i) identifying and classifying CNs, and (ii) ranking and categorizing the FRs. By giving priority to the FRs that increases the beneficiaries' satisfaction, investment will be more efficient. In order to validate and verify the credibility of the proposed procedure, a case in the commodity and service standardization system of Iran, known as "Iran Code" was employed. The outcomes include ranking and categorizing the present FRs of the system according to the satisfaction, extent and having the more favorable accuracy compared to the existing methods.
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Papers by Mohammad Shafia