This paper discusses Islamic financial reporting system as practiced in many Islamic states for economic development. The issue of Islamic accounting among scholars provided evidence of economic benefits among the countries that have Islamic financial institutions (IFIs). The IFIs have been reported to be the fastest-growing sector in the world with a greater contribution of the global total bank assets. Although the Muslim population in Nigeria is large, the contribution or participation of Muslim towards IFIs is low compared to other countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria. Furthermore, the accounting reporting in Nigeria is based on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for all listed firms in Nigeria, which includes IFIs, even though, IFIs apply dual reporting. Therefore, the need for the mandatory adoption of Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) standards is significant in Nigerian for IFIs to function better. Several countries have made it mandatory for IFIs to adopt AAOIFI instead of IFRS. The need for IFIs firms to report on their accounting system as an alternative to the conventional, will not only enhance transparency, improve reporting disclosures, greater Muslim investors, but will also improve Nigerian stock market. Policy makers, governments, and the regulator should make it mandatory for all IFIs to adopt AAOIFI for financial reporting.

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is one of the most popular methods used for measuring the relative efficiency of similar units by considering various input/output parameters. This paper implements DEA models to estimate the relative efficiency of selected banks in the United States. The proposed study uses two inputs, total assets and number of employees, and one output, net revenue for measuring the relative efficiency of selected banks. The relative efficiencies of different banks are analyzed. The preliminary results indicate that Santander Bank is the most efficient banks operating in the United States followed by SunTrust Bank and HSBC. Other banks preserve lower efficiency compared with these three banks.

In the past decades, a number of researchers have made their significant contributions to develop different approaches for solving a very challenging problem of commercial off-the shelf (COTS) selection. The development of software with high quality and minimum development time has always been a difficult job for the software developers. Therefore, in today’s scenario, software developers move towards the implementation of component based software engineering that relies on the integration of small pieces of code namely (COTS). In this study, we present a comprehensive descriptive explanation of the various COTS evaluation and selection approaches developed by various researchers in the past to understand the concept of COTS selection. The advantages and disadvantages of each COTS selection approach are also provided, which will give a better prospect to the readers to understand the various existing COTS evaluation and selection approaches.

Knowledge management is frequently identified as an important antecedent of innovation. However, few empirical studies have specifically addressed antecedents and consequences of effective knowledge management. Today, domestic organizations are compelled, as well as other international organizations and have to compete to stay in business environment. Hence, they must be innovative. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of knowledge management on employee's innovation in organizations through empowerment as a mediator for a case study of the Agricultural Bank of Qazvin province of Iran. Required information was gathered by a self-made questionnaire adapted and based on conceptual model adapted from previous studies. The population of this study consists of 369 employees of the Agricultural Bank of Qazvin. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed, in which 188 valid questionnaires were collected. These questionnaires were distributed randomly among the male and female employees in branches of Agricultural Bank. The questionnaire is conducted by factor analysis and the reliability is measured by Cronbach's alpha. The structural equation modeling is used for data analysis. The results reveal the fact that empowerment will lead to employee's innovation. However, other variables did not have any significant and direct or indirect effect on employee's innovation.

Reflecting investor expectations, most prior corporate governance research attempt to find a relationship between boards of directors’ composition and firm financial performance. Specifically, we try to examine the relationship between the boards’ size, board independence, CEO duality and gender diversity and two measurements of performance in listed companies in CAC 40, namely return on assets (ROA) and return of equities (ROE). We found evidence provide that board characteristics were positively correlated to the firm’ performance. However, our results show a significant association between ROE, ROA and the board of directors’ composition. We find significant negative association between financial information and equity-based management compensation. On the other hand, the presence of independent directors on the board seems to affect, positively, the level of financial performance of CAC 40 firms. Likewise, the stewardship theory assumption, the CEO duality is very high and is significantly associated with a higher level of firm performance. The results show that there was a significant relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance from our samples CAC 40 companies. In addition, we find significant negative impact of leverage on the financial performance for CAC 40 firms.

This survey research paper explores the methods most commonly used in over 190 studies determining life insurance efficiency. The purpose is to provide an overview of life insurance efficiency studies and guidance as to the (dis)advantages of the different techniques used plus their applicability to life insurance. An evaluation of the different approaches is undertaken plus an examination of the numbers and trends of methods and aspects of life insurance efficiency measurement. This paper also discusses the fundamental elements of life insurance efficiency estimation, such as the set-up and form of outputs and inputs. Findings include that the focus of life insurance efficiency studies considering individual nations has changed. Additionally data envelope analysis is the technique used most commonly with stochastic frontier analysis next. Another main result is that output proxies (akin to) premiums and investment income is utilized most. This study allows practitioners to determine the best techniques to employ in life insurance efficiency studies. Moreover an evaluation by regulators of the value and applicability of such studies is facilitated. This article builds upon those previous to enumerate and investigate the approaches most commonly used in over 190 papers determining life insurance efficiency and has described the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. Therefore an assessment of the overall results of efficiency studies is possible. In addition ideas for potential further research are discussed. Consequently this review will be useful to both practitioners and regulators concerned with this area.

The positive effect of globalization has continued to impact FDI inflow to developing countries during the last decade except for the rising influence of political risk in host locations. Mixed outcomes have trailed the findings related to the studies on FDI and political risk relationship and in particular on African countries like Nigeria. This paper investigated the effect of political risk on FDI inflow to Nigeria using secondary data from 2000 to 2014 using simple linear regression. The study combined from select variables, the institutional factors with location determinants peculiar to Nigeria’s risk environment. It is found that political risk holds a positive and significant association with FDI to Nigeria but not close enough to inhibit the inflow of foreign investment to the country. However, the findings provide a strong basis for policy shift in relation to security, country promotion and rebranding as well strengthening of institutions.

The growing field of behavioral economics (BE) has revolutionized the way we look at economic behavior at micro and macro levels. Importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) appeals for analysis of decisions made regarding it to be assessed from expanding view of BE. This research provides overview of previous studies and focuses on the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) as representative of emerging markets to investigate motivations for investing into this country by temporarily present foreign companies. Empirical analysis was based on the questionnaire that was disseminated among foreign investors to B&H. Questionnaire contained motivations for investing in B&H, where examined motivation factors were divided in two groups; namely irrational and rational ones. Choice of methodology was narrowed due to moderate sample size, but consisting of quality the sample members. In order to analyze data, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis were used. By regressing two groups of predictors on annual amount of foreign investments to B&H, it was shown that the highest motivation for investing was business instinct.

The primary objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between tax avoidance, income and cash held in companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2009 to 2013. In this regard, avoidance of paying taxes is independent variables and criteria for evaluating financial performance; namely return on assets, return on average equities, economic value added, market value added, and the ratio of free cash flow are considered as dependent variables. Firm size and financial leverage are also considered as control variables. In general, the statistical method used in this research is correlation and regression. The results of the research showed that there was a significant and reverse relationship between avoidance of paying taxes and performance evaluation criteria, cash held.

Clustering is absolutely useful information to explore data structures and has been employed in many places. It organizes a set of objects into similar groups called clusters, and the objects within one cluster are both highly similar and dissimilar with the objects in other clusters. The K-mean, C-mean, Fuzzy C-mean and Kernel K-mean algorithms are the most popular clustering algorithms for their easy implementation and fast work, but in some cases we cannot use these algorithms. Regarding this, in this paper, a hybrid model for customer clustering is presented that is applicable in five banks of Fars Province, Shiraz, Iran. In this way, the fuzzy relation among customers is defined by using their features described in linguistic and quantitative variables. As follows, the customers of banks are grouped according to K-mean, C-mean, Fuzzy C-mean and Kernel K-mean algorithms and the proposed Fuzzy Relation Clustering (FRC) algorithm. The aim of this paper is to show how to choose the best clustering algorithms based on density-based clustering and present a new clustering algorithm for both crisp and fuzzy variables. Finally, we apply the proposed approach to five datasets of customer's segmentation in banks. The result of the FCR shows the accuracy and high performance of FRC compared other clustering methods.