In this research, we use Hofstede method and Noble’s framework in strategy execution to evaluate the effect of organization culture on the successful implementation of strategies in a case study of Payam-e-Noor University of Iran. Data Collection is performed with the standard Hofstede survey, an evaluation tool for organization culture, and researchers’ survey tool to evaluate the effective implementation of strategies. The reliability coefficient was calculated as 0.846 using the Cronbach alpha. The target population includes 600 senior managers of Payam-e-Noor university of Iran at the time of data collection Cochran formula was used to calculate the required sample number of 120 individuals. The results show that according to the Hofstede dimensions, the dominant cultural aspects of high power distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, and femininity were identified. The first two have a direct influence on effectiveness of strategies. While individualism is known to have an invert effect on effectiveness of strategies, no connection was identified between masculinity and effectiveness of strategies, and thus, this theory was not confirmed in this research.

This study aims to assess the relationship between structural dimensions of organization including centralization, complexity and formalization on one side and strategy effectiveness on the other side. Structural dimensions are determined based on Robbins theory, and each of them is considered as independent variables of research. Strategy effectiveness, which includes achieving strategic goals or successful implementation of strategies are the independent variable of the research, based on Noble’s strategy implementation model. One primary thesis and three secondary these are defined. This is a descriptive research of two variable correlation. The target population includes 600 senior managers of Payam-e-noor university around the country, including staff administrative managers, province and unit headmasters, of Iran at the time of data collection. Simple random sampling is used, with sample size of 120. Library resources are used for theoretical foundation data collection and note-taking. Questionnaires are used to collect data and evaluate research theses. Inferential Statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient are used to analyze the research theses. The first two theses are confirmed, at 95% and 99% respectively, but the third thesis is rejected based on the collected data. Therefore, based on this study, complexity and formalization have respectively inverse and direct effect on strategy effectiveness, but centralization does not affect strategy effectiveness in Payam-e-noor University.

We present a study to investigate the impacts of various factors on juvenile delinquency. The study distributes 400 questionnaires among young people aged 19-26 who are involved with some sort of crime and analyzes their feedbacks. There are three hypotheses including family income, tendency to spirituality and religion and educational backgrounds of families and juvenile delinquency among these people. The results show that while family income and religious as well as spirituality characteristics play important role on juvenile delinquency, educational background of the parents do not statistically have any influence on juvenile delinquency. The study recommends that a better family condition could contribute society to reduce juvenile delinquency and people could guide their children through better consultations.

Explaining and the determinants of dividend policy is one of the biggest challenges that have long been the center of attention of accounting and financial researcher and theoreticians. There are many evidences that confirm the effects of dividend and there are a lot of other potential factors whose effects on the dividend policy have not been studied yet. In this study, the effects of four variables including asymmetric information, growth opportunities, cash holding and firm size in payout dividend policy are investigated, simultaneously. The study uses the information of 140 companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2005-2010. In this study, 4 hypotheses are proposed and investigated. There are positive and significant relationships between asymmetric information, growth opportunities, cash holding and company size on one side and payout dividend policy on the other side.

This paper attempts to find important factors influencing on insurance issued by export guarantee funds. The study uses factor analysis to detect important factors based on a questionnaire in Likert scale. The study has determined four factors including risk management, customer oriented, quality management and trade management. The first factor is associated with risk management and it includes four sub-factors. The factors include being responsive, reliability, service quality and customer detection and reliability plays the most important factor. The second factor is associated with being customer oriented where the factor includes four components including cost recognition, access, marketing knowledge and the level of management training. The third factor is associated with quality management, which includes four variables including responsiveness, reliability, quality of services and customer recognition. Finally, the last factor is associated with trade management, which includes three variables including trade risk, insurance premium and currency.

The recent development on internet banking has contributed to this industry, significantly. People could do their banking transactions by clicking a bottom and transfer funds, pay bills, etc. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to find out the effects of different factors on continuous internet banking. The proposed study of this paper has adopted a questionnaire, which was originally developed by Ho and Ko (2008) [Ho, S. H., & Ko, Y. Y. (2008). Effects of self-service technology on customer value and customer readiness: The case of Internet banking. Internet Research, 18(4), 427-446.]. We have used Pearson correlation test as well as stepwise regression techniques to verify the effect of different factors and the results of our survey show that four variables of easy implementation, usefulness, cost reduction and self-control positively influence continuous internet banking.

Building a competitive brand is a key success specially in banking industry. This paper presents a study to investigate important factors influencing brand loyalty among special customers in one of biggest Iranian banks in Iran. The study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among 249 regular customers who are special customers in various banks in city of Tehran, Iran. The study uses structural equation modeling to find important factors and they are ranked using TOPSIS method. In our study, Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.815 and there are eight influencing factors including flexibility in offering various services, building good relationship with customers, technology and processes, customers’ experiences, brand identity in continuous advertisement, organization size, customer perception on reputation of brand and customers’ tendency to build better brand loyalty. In our survey, flexibility in offering various services received the highest rank followed by building good relationship with customers.

This paper measures the likelihood of bankruptcy based on some financial ratios such as debt ratio, current ratio, sales to total assets, etc. using logistic regression and classification and regression tree techniques (CART). The proposed study gathers the information of 36 bankrupted firms and 36 non-bankrupted firms based on Tobin Q ratio. The study gathers the necessary information over the period 2005-2011. The preliminary results indicate that both methods have the capability to predict bankruptcy but with different accuracy. The likelihood of bankruptcy based on CART method were 97.2, 97.5 and 86.1 in the event of bankruptcy, one year before and two years prior to bankruptcy, respectively. These figures were changes to 98.6, 94.4 and 84.7 based on logistic method.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to measure different dimensions of hospital service quality (HSQ) by gap analysis and patient satisfaction (PS). It also attempts to measure patients’ satisfaction with three dimensions extracted from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) by Principle component analysis method and conformity factor analysis (CFA). In addition, the study analyzes relationship between HSQ and PS in the context of Iranian hospital services, using structural equation modeling (SEM) from patients’ perspectives. The maximum gap observed in “responsiveness” and the minimum one in “assurance”. In addition, patients had the most satisfaction in “trust” with the mean of 3.83 followed by “General Satisfaction” with the mean of 3.68 and they had the least satisfaction in “Acceptance” with the mean of 3.53. Two measurement models were used for measuring hospital service quality and patient satisfaction and one structural model, which showed the relationship between them. The result of this study showed that there was a positive and significant impact from hospital service quality on patient satisfaction (0.463). In addition, there was a positive and significant relationship between hospital service quality and five dimensions. Furthermore, it was shown that patient satisfaction and three dimensions (General Satisfaction, Trust, and Acceptance) were associated with each other, significantly and positively. At last management strategies and practical suggestions were presented to hospital.