This study examines the relationship between the working capital management and profitability for a real-world case study in Iran over the period 2004-2012. There are three components associated with working capital including account payable period, inventory turnover period and receivable account period. The study uses cash conversion cycle to investigate the impacts of working capital management on profitability, simultaneously. We use Pearson correlation ratios as well as regression techniques to study different hypotheses. The result indicates an inverse relationship between variables of working capital and profitability. It means if account receipt, cash conversion cycle and period of debt payment increase, the profitability of this company will decrease so managers can create more value that is positive for shareholders by decreasing period of debt payment, period of inventory turnover and period of demand collection.

Developing a national brand is one of the most important issues for development of a brand. In this study, we present factor analysis to detect the most important factors in building a national brand. The proposed study uses factor analysis to extract the most influencing factors and the sample size has been chosen from two major auto makers in Iran called Iran Khodro and Saipa. The questionnaire was designed in Likert scale and distributed among 235 experts. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 84%, which is well above the minimum desirable limit of 0.70. The implementation of factor analysis provides six factors including “cultural image of customers”, “exciting characteristics”, “competitive pricing strategies”, “perception image” and “previous perceptions”.

University of applied science and technology has been designed to create a platform for multilateral activities such as industrial, military and academic in developing countries to promote science and scientific research applications. These universities are responsible to promote practical training in quantitative and qualitative indicators and they provide appropriate infrastructure to implement theoretical graduates to solve practical problems to build necessary infrastructure to transfer modern technology into developing countries. During the past few years, there have been tremendous development on these units but some of them have not been efficient. In this paper, we present an empirical study to measure the relative efficiencies of various units of applied science and technology universities using data envelopment analysis. The proposed model of this paper uses two inputs including human resources as well as total assets and two outputs including the number of graduate students as well as operating profit. The results of the study have indicated that some of the units are inefficient and need to be merged with other units to increase the relative efficiency of these universities.

This research aims to study the effects of the quality of financial information companies on the accreditation of loans and bank contracts of the branches of Bank Mellat in the East Azerbaijan province. This is an applied research using 67 branches of Bank Mellat of the East Azerbaijan province. The study chooses a sample of 31 branches to evaluate the effects of the quality of financial information companies on the accreditation of loans and bank contracts. There are variables associated with quality of financial information such as their relevance, timeliness, and reliability over the period 2010-2011 using multi-variables linear-regression technique. The results of this study show that relevance, timeliness, and reliability variables are effective on the accreditation of loans and bank contracts of the branches.

Human resource management plays an essential role on the success of any business units such as utility firms. In this paper, we present a study to investigate the effects of different human resource management on employee performance. The proposed study is applied on one of gas distribution units in province of Charmahal-Bakhtiari, which is located west part of Iran. There were 161 people working for this firm where 75 employees were working in center of province and 86 employees were working in other sides of province. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.83, which is well above the minimum desirable limit. The study uses Pearson correlation test to investigate the effects of Hiring system, Training system, Job design, Organizational relationship and Share ownership programs on employee performance. The results of our survey indicate that job design is the most important technique for employee management followed by training system, organizational relationship and share ownership programs.

Leadership style plays an essential role on personality trait in educational systems. In this paper, we present a study among 180 school principals in city of Khomeinishahr, located in province of Esfahan, Iran. The study selects a sample of 123 principals and examines ten hypotheses including the effects of personality trait neuroticism, extroversion, resilience, participative, conscientiousness on leadership style. The study examined the effects of two groups of leadership, namely transactional leadership and Laissez-fair leadership styles on five personality traits. The results have shown that there were some meaningful relationship between transactional leadership and personality trait extraversion, resilience, participative and consciousness but there was not meaningful relationship between transactional leadership and personality trait neuroticism. In addition, while there were meaningful and positive relationship between Laissez-fair leadership style and personality trait extraversion as well as being resilience, our survey did not find any meaningful relationship between Laissez-fair leadership style and personality trait neuroticism, extraversion and being consciousness.

Earning reports are the primary basis of investment decisions among many individuals and fund managers. Any positive/negative adjustment on quarterly financial report could influence investment strategies, which consequently make significant change on market value. In this paper, we present an empirical study on some selected firms on Tehran Stock exchange by looking the effects of quarterly earning adjustment on firm and market’s return. The proposed study selects all firms whose shares were actively and publicly traded over the period 2006-2011. The study investigates whether there is a meaningful relationship between the content of quarterly earnings report and stock price with/without the presence of control variables. The results have concluded that there are some meaningful relationships between change in earning and market value and return on firm with market value but market value seems to have no relationship with market return changes.

The present exploratory study aims to find critical components of retail brand among some retail stores. The study seeks to build a brand name in retail level and looks to find important factors affecting it. Customer behavior is largely influenced when the first retail customer experience is formed. These factors have direct impacts on customer experience and satisfaction in retail industry. The proposed study performs an empirical investigation on two well-known retain stores located in city of Tehran, Iran. Using a sample of 265 people from regular customers, the study uses factor analysis and extracts four main factors including related brand, product benefits, customer welfare strategy and corporate profits using the existing 31 factors in the literature.

The recent advances on information technology have made tremendous change on traditional banking. These days, people do not carry cash and prefer to use electronic devices such as point of sale system (POS) or PIN entry devices (PinPad) to do desirable transactions. These technologies could facilitate e-business and increase profitability in various industries including banking sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of five new products namely ATM, POS Machines, PinPad machines, online and swift branches on banking performance indicators including return on assets (ROA), return on equities (ROE) and operating investment return (OIR). We use the information of 19 private and governmental banks, which were active in Iran over the period of 2005-2010. The study uses linear regression analysis as well as VAR technique to study the effects of the independent variables on bank performance indicators. The results indicate that while there are some weak and positive relationships between three technology indicators including POS, PinPad and online businesses and ROA as well as ROE, there is relatively strong and positive relationship between these three independent variables and OIR. In addition, while the results of VAR analysis have shown that any reduction on PinPad will reduce OIR but this reduction will disappear after approximately four periods.