Quality of services is considered as one of the most important factors for customer retention as well as having a healthy business. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to determine the most important factors influencing patients’ satisfaction in one of Iranian hospitals. The proposed model of this paper uses fuzzy analytical network process (FANP) to rank different factors. The proposed model considers four major criteria including employee, management as well as organization, physicians and nurses. Our survey indicates that management and organizational issues are the most important factors followed by issues associated with physicians, nurses and employees. In terms of management and organization, waiting time to receive services is the most important factor followed by geographic location of the hospital, peaceful and quiet environment and quality of services. In addition, our surveyed patients expected their patients to listen to them very carefully and this is the most important item. They also expect nurses to provide a fast and reliable response while they expect employees to treat them with respect.

Empowering employee plays essential role in having sustainable social capital. When social capital is depreciated, we may expect some negative consequences on society and working environment. Therefore, we need to investigate different factors influencing depreciation of social capital as well as empowering employees. The proposed model of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some randomly selected employees who worked for treasury department in Iran. The study uses two regression models, where empowering employees is a function of four independent variables including being effective, having the right to select, competency and being meaningful. The other regression model studies the relationship between depreciation of employee as dependent variable and four independent variables including job involvement, television, living affairs and generation change. The results of both regression analyses indicate that there were some positive and meaningful relationship between empowering employees as well as depreciation of employees as dependent variable and independent variables.

Many women may have some experiences on having depression after they give birth to their children. When a husband provides continuous support during his wife's pregnancy, his presence may be effective in reducing her dissatisfaction with the childbirth process. This paper presents a survey on measuring the effect of counseling programs for husbands to provide more support for their pregnant wives. The study selects a sample of 60 people from pregnant people who approached Shahid Beheshti hospital in city of Esfahan, Iran in 2012. The findings of the survey indicate that there was no relationship between women’s age, educational background, infant’s gender, pregnancy type and depression. However, the study detects some meaningful relationship between pregnancy type, i.e. surgery or natural, and depression (t-student=3.19 ?=0.003).

Job satisfaction plays an important role on increasing business productivity and efficiency. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between job satisfaction and employees’ personal characteristics including gender, marital status, etc. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among 244 out of 800 employees who worked for cement industry in Iran. The data are analyzed using different statistical tests such as t-student and analysis of variance. The results indicate that while there was not any meaningful relationship between gender and job satisfaction there was some meaningful relationship between marital status and job satisfaction.

This paper performs a study on testing the effect of training program on marital satisfaction among parents of children with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. The main hypothesis of this paper studies whether parental training influences on marital satisfaction among parents having to children with ADHD or not. The population of this survey includes all parents having children ages 5-12 year with ADHD who approached medical centers during the first three months of fiscal year of 2011 in city of Esfahan, Iran. The study designs a questionnaire, which includes 12 marital satisfaction characteristics with 47 questions. The study has selected a random sample of 30 couples and divided them into two equal groups with 15 people where half were considered as experiment and the other half were considered as control. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.92. The result of Greenhouse-Geisser test specifies that there was not any meaningful difference between two groups before/after the exam. In other words, applying training program did not have any meaningful effect on marital satisfaction among parents of children with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder.

This paper investigates the role and the effect of the life cycle theory on explanation of dividend payout policy in Tehran Stock exchange listed companies over the period 2006-2011. For measuring the firm’s life cycle, two criteria namely retained earnings to equity ratio and retained earnings to assets ratio have been used as proxies of firm’s life cycle. The findings of this research show that only retained earnings to assets ratio has a meaningful and positive effect on dividend payout policy; In the companies that are growing, retained earnings to assets ratio is low; Whereas this ratio is high in the more mature companies and these firms have abundant retained earnings, hence they are good candidates to pay dividends. However, there was no meaningful relationship between another life cycle criteria namely retained earnings to equity ratio and dividend payout policy.

This paper presents a study to investigate the effect of world’s financial turmoil on performance of petrochemical firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 87 selected people from 250 existing experts who were active in TSE. The study considers four groups of questions associated with liquidity ratios, operating ratios, leverage and profitability ratios. The questions consider whether financial turmoil has influenced on these four groups of financial ratios or not and the results have been verified using t-student test. According to our survey, although financial turmoil does not seem to have any important impact on operating ratios in this sector, the chaos has influenced on other three financial ratios including liquidity, leverage and profitability ratios.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between the opportunism behavior and leverage. In this study, opportunism behavior is calculated based on discretionary accruals using the method proposed by Jones [Jones, J. J. (1991). Earnings management during import relief investigations. Journal of accounting research, 29(2), 193-228.]. In addition, the proposed study uses return on assets, return on equities, financial burden and financing for investigation. Using statistical data from Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2006-2011, the study applies linear regression model and the results have indicated a positive and meaningful relationship between leverage and discretionary accruals, which is also called earnings management.

This paper presents an empirical investigation on the effect of exports of non-oil goods and services on economic growth in Iran over the period 1991-2011 using Vector Autoregressive method. We also analyze the existing causal relationships between total factor productivity and non-oil exports. The results show that total factor productivity has direct and significant relationship with non-oil exports in long-term, it means that if total factor productivity increases, non-oil exports also increases. The results of the survey also indicate that the existing shock on non-oil exports does not have any significant impact on total factor productivity but the incoming shock on total factor productivity reduces non-oil exports during the first period. It also increases non-oil exports during the first period to the fourth period and from the fifth period; it continues until it reduces to a small amount, remains in that amount and eventually disappears.

Researchers and clinicians from many disciplines are interested in learning more about the effects of self-esteem. Self-esteem affects motivation, functional behavior, and life satisfaction, and it is associated with well-being throughout life, significantly. What individuals choose to do and the way they do it in part may depend on their self-esteem and it can also fulfill the aims of mental health. This paper presents an investigation to determine the effect of play on children’s self-esteem and surveys appropriate interventions in this area. This study was semi experimental and the sample was 3rd grade elementary students who were randomly assigned into control (n=15) and experimental (n=15) groups. The instrument was Rosenberg self-esteem scale [Rosenberg, M. (1965). Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSE). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Measures Package, 61.]. Independent variable was 12 group sessions of self-esteem games executed among experimental group. Data was analyzed with univariate analysis of covariance. Results showed that self-esteem games in ? ? 0.05 were affected on self-esteem of children. Self-esteem game can be effective intervention for children self-esteem that with them control of factors such as time and children interactions with parent and teachers in future investigations could lead to greater confidence in its effectiveness discussed.