ABSTRACT
Introduction: The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most critical industries in the country, and solving its problems is of great importance. In the current situation, on the one hand, many sanctions have been imposed on the country. On the other hand, with the outbreak of Covid-19, the importance of medicine for the country's health system has received more attention. Therefore, given the political and economic conditions, the development and accurate planning of the government to support the pharmaceutical industry must be given priority. Thus, this study examines and explains the role of the government and its support for the pharmaceutical industry during the Covid-19 pandemic by identifying policies to determine their effectiveness and rank. Methods: In the present applied-descriptive research, a questionnaire and interviews with experts were used. The number of experts participating in this study was ten;they were managers of different departments of pharmaceutical knowledge-based companies who were selected using purposive, non-random sampling method. Causal relationships and the effect of model variables were identified using the fuzzy DMATEL technique. Finally, the importance of each support was determined using the fuzzy ANP method and Super Decisions software. Results: Three categories of support policies and eight supports related to the influential role of the government in the development of the country's pharmaceutical industry were identified. As a result, exemptions were recognized as the most influential support policies, including customs exemption protections, tax exemptions for pharmaceutical companies, and exemptions or deferral of previous loans. Conclusion: Drug safety is one of the main goals of development policies, and ending dependence on the aid of other countries and self-sufficiency in this industry requires the formulation of special protection principles.The government can use the results obtained in this study in determining its support policies for the pharmaceutical industry in the face of sanctions and Covid-19 pandemic. © 2022, Journal of Health Administration. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>International collaboration is a crucial requirement of entrepreneurship, particularly in developing emerging economies. This collaboration seems so necessary in the food industry as a major contributor to environmental, social and economic problems. This paper aims to identify, analyse the influential network relationship and prioritise the key success factors (KSFs) of international collaboration formation in the entrepreneurial food industry with a case study on Iran's emerging economy.Design/methodology/approach>To identify a list of KSFs, a qualitative method, literature review, is initially used. A quantitative method, fuzzy-Delphi, then is employed to finalise the main KSFs based on the entrepreneurial food industry experts' opinion. To analyse the causal relationship, and prioritise the KSFs, a fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL)-analytic network process (ANP) methodology, i.e. FDANP, is applied. At the first stage, the cause–effect diagram of KSFs is extracted using fuzzy DEMATEL and then, the KSFs weights and priorities are evaluated using a fuzzy ANP.Findings>The results illustrate that the characteristics of effective development workers are the leading dimension of a successful international collaboration that directly affects other dimensions. On the other hand, increased marketing and trading is the most important KSF that is directly related to international entrepreneurial collaboration team capabilities and professionalism. The leading and casual role of team members also plays a vital role in strategic and communication issues affecting the collaboration success, e.g. market research and new product development. Availability of financial resources and the ability of partners in continuous financing is also a crucial and required factor for a successful collaboration.Originality/value>Using an extensive review of the literature to extract the KSFs of international entrepreneurial collaboration and finalising them using a fuzzy-Delphi method and examining the cause-effect relations between them, as well as prioritising the KSFs are the main contributions of this paper.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has bring so many impacts on various aspects including education. Nearly two years into the pandemic, close to half of the world's students, including Malaysia, are still affected by partial or full closures of educational institution. In spite of this, to ensure the continuity of learning, one of the initiatives taken by our government is introducing online distance learning (ODL) as the new platforms of learning. However, undeniably, ODL is so stressful and this situation is obviously non-pleasant, especially for the long-term development of the students. Therefore, a research to find out the most influential factors, which contribute to these stresses has been conducted. In this research, a decision-making tool known as the Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) has been applied. Five main factors which are time management, environment of studies, resources, family and lecturer's concerns, with additional of twenty-one sub-factors were studied. The percentage value of each factor was calculated using the FANP, which produced the rank for each factor. Results shows that, environment of study dominates the ranks, followed by time management, lecturer's concern, resources and the last one is family's concern. © Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.