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Competitive advantage is an important issue emphasized in management and strategic planning over the past few years. This study was aimed to comprehensively evaluate competitive advantage and design and explain a hybrid model of competitive advantage based on Bourdieu capital theory and competitive intelligence using fuzzy Delphi and ISM-Gray DEMATEL in Iran Food Industry. This article applies a method to managers, with the findings indicating that the firms will not be able to achieve competitive advantage in the market unless they are formed by a high start-up capital and a high competitive intelligence and awareness on the part of the managers as to the business conditions. Such factors enable organizations to make better use of their own cultural and social capitals. Also, the optimal use of social and cultural capitals ameliorates the competitive advantages of the organizations. The authenticity and the economic values added of organizations are further enhanced by obtaining competitive advantage. Promoting organizations' credit and brand improves their economic and market value added, which, in turn augment their capitals and economic assets.

Misunderstanding of technology transfer and lack of a scientific viewpoint in this area are among the fundamental problems of some industries. A novel Delphi-decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL)-elimination and choice expressing reality (ELECTRE) decision-making method, which benefited from both qualitative and quantitative methods, is introduced on gray numbers to solve the selection problem of technology providers systematically. The technology provider evaluation criteria are developed according to a literature review and experts’ opinions. Next, the Delphi method is used to evaluate the criteria. Gray DEMATEL is used to investigate the cause and effect relationship between the selected criteria, based on which the criteria were ranked. Finally, using the gray ELECTRE method, the priority of companies is determined. Based on the results of the illustrative case study, the two most robust causal criteria are management/executive capability and cost. Moreover, cost and support through organization policies played a leading role in the system. Also, out of nine technology providers, company 4 is superior to other companies, whereas most companies were of greater advantage to company 5. According to the comparison of weights by Spearman's correlation coefficients, the proposed method is as efficient as the available methods. This novel method can be used in uncertain conditions to select the most reliable company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology development, especially in petroleum industries, is one of the most important ways of economic development in oil-rich countries. However, despite such challenges as structural economic problems, the issue of moral hazards, and the conflict of interests, government policies are crucial. This study analyzed the long-term behavior of the government and the private sector as two main actors using the evolutionary game theory and solved their strategies by replicator dynamic equations. Finally, based on a real-world case in Iran, a numerical study was performed to better understand the characteristics of the game model under realistic conditions. The outputs indicate that the main approach of the government, with minimal incentive mechanisms, should be legal monitoring. Sensitivity analyses on some key parameters show that the important factor in project implementation is attention to the private sector's revenues and expenditures, and the government's revenues and expenditures have little effect on the outputs and behavior change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 modeling, agent-based modeling (ABM) has gained a growing popularity among academics and practit ioners. ABMs show how agents' simple behavioral rules and their local interactions at micro - scale can generate surprisingly complex patterns at macro-scale. Despite a growing number of ABM publications, those researchers unfamiliar with it have to study a number of works to understand (1) why and what of ABM, (2) its differences with EBM (3) its main functionalities in scientific studies and (4) some of its applications in management science. So, this paper's major contribution is to help researchers particularly those unfamiliar with ABM to get insights regarding its philosophy and use and gain a big picture of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]