Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

4.5 Comparative Advantage
Seyed Esmaeil Asgharpour and Gholamreza Taleghani
Theory <strong>of</strong> absolute advantage <strong>of</strong> Adam Smith brought some questions to economist’s minds after
Adam Smith. For example, in case that a country has advantage over o<strong>the</strong>r countries in production <strong>of</strong>
all goods, what role can it have in international trade<strong>of</strong>fs? Adam Smith’s attitude was that such
country cannot benefit from foreign trade<strong>of</strong>fs. Therefore, it will not participate in such trade<strong>of</strong>fs.
Ricardo in book <strong>of</strong> political economics principles which was published in 1817 rejected claim <strong>of</strong> Adam
Smith and mentioned that when a country can have absolute advantage over o<strong>the</strong>r countries in
production <strong>of</strong> all goods, it can produce and export <strong>the</strong> goods which have <strong>the</strong> highest efficiency and
import <strong>the</strong> goods which have <strong>the</strong> least efficiency from o<strong>the</strong>r countries. Execution <strong>of</strong> such policy will
benefit from foreign trade<strong>of</strong>f. This attitude which was mentioned with stronger economic arguments
was known as comparative advantage <strong>the</strong>ory.
4.6 Preceding studies
Regarding to this paper, critical success factors <strong>of</strong> knowledge management and competitive
advantage, several similar researches have been performed in different division <strong>of</strong> industries in Iran.
Also, a lot <strong>of</strong> papers have been published on <strong>the</strong> international magazines .The author tries to point out
briefly to some <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>m.
One research entitled "The role <strong>of</strong> KM in acquiring competitive advantage in Alborz insurance
company was done in Mazanderan province in 2009.The results showed that six variable elements
related to KM such as: knowledge creation, knowledge acquirement, organizational learning
,knowledge transferring, applied knowledge and knowledge reserving comparing with variable
elements <strong>of</strong> competitive advantage .The results suggested that significant differences were seen.
Ano<strong>the</strong>r study which was done by Tehran university in 2008 on <strong>the</strong> branches <strong>of</strong> national bank, entitled
"Key factor for obtaining competitive advantage" with emphasizes on communication management
with bank customers. The results indicated that <strong>the</strong> effect <strong>of</strong> KM on competitive elements was not
considerable .Ano<strong>the</strong>r research has been performed on two electric industries in 2007 entitled "The
role <strong>of</strong> critical success factors <strong>of</strong> KM in acquiring competitive advantage. Its results suggested that <strong>the</strong>
only considerable significant difference was based on using information technology in <strong>the</strong>se two
industries .On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r items, <strong>the</strong>y had <strong>the</strong> similar situation.
4.7 Voluminous and semi-voluminous breads
As it was mentioned, rate <strong>of</strong> bread wastes in Iran is very considerable. The high percentage relates to
traditional breads. In this case, bread wastes can be reduced and traditional bread production to be
converted into industrial bread. In order to replace traditional breads with voluminous and semivoluminous
breads, effective steps must be taken. The first step is culture building and informing
people about voluminous and semi-voluminous breads. We should note that some traditional bread
such as Sangak bread has more advantages to <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r bread. It should be preserved.
Bread is divided into some classes in terms <strong>of</strong> thickness: Flat bread such as Lavash, Taftoon,
Barbari, Sangak and some kinds <strong>of</strong> bread were produced by machine. Lavash bread is mostly
consumed (45%) due to its durability. Sangak bread is not consumed a lot due to production problem
and low income for <strong>the</strong> producer (8%). Voluminous and semi-voluminous breads are <strong>the</strong> breads which
are baked from flour, water, salt, leaven, and additives. In case that thickness <strong>of</strong> bread is between 2.5
and 5 cm, it is regarded as semi-voluminous. Voluminous and semi-voluminous breads have <strong>the</strong>ir
specifications in terms <strong>of</strong> shape, crust, porosity, elasticity, odor, and flavor. Nearly, 137 kg voluminous
bread is produced out <strong>of</strong> 100 kg flour.
5. Results
The collected data which extracted from questionnaires, were analyzed and <strong>the</strong>ir results were
summarized in tables 1,2 and 3. By analyzing (tables 1 and 2), we realized that differences among
five critical factors for success <strong>of</strong> knowledge management were insignificant.
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