This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of macro-economic factors on the performance of stocks listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The proposed study considers the effects of money supply, inflation rate, oil price, unforeseen changes in the course structure of interest rates as well as unanticipated changes in industrial production on stock price. Using seasonal information of stock price over the period 1997-2007 as well as regression analysis, the study has determined that risk premium of unforeseen changes in the course structure of interest rates, money supply, inflation rate and unanticipated changes in industrial production are meaningful when the level of significance is five percent. In other words, Arbitrage pricing theory model describing the expected return per share is reasonable and macro-level variables explain systematic risk on TSE.

The new era introduced as a technology era, is important as promising of a new world with modern methods in better and more useful teaching, which result in progress in qualitative teaching of students in education. The aim of the present study is to learn more about the effect of electronic courses in mathematics on students’ social growth, cognitive growth and the quality of learning. Statistical population includes 55 teachers of junior high school in city of Khash located in south part of Iran, selected randomly based on Morgan Tables. To gather data, social growth, cognitive growth and learning quality questionnaires were used. To analyze data one-way analysis of covariance (ANOCOVA) test was used. The results reveal that electronic educational courses were effective on social growth and cognitive growth but not on learning quality.

This paper investigates the effects of different marketing strategies including basic marketing, reactive marketing, accountable marketing, proactive marketing and partnership marketing on brand equity. The proposed study uses two questionnaires, one for measuring the effects of different marketing strategies and the other for brand equity in Likert scale. Cronbach alphas for brand equity and marketing strategies are calculated as 0.71 and 0.86, respectively. The study has been implemented among 385 regular customers of a Picnic Gas distributer in city of Karaj, Iran. Using Spearman correlation ratio as well as stepwise regression analysis, the study has detected that there were positive and meaningful relationship between marketing strategies and brand equity.

Employee deviance is prevalent and could have significant consequences to organizations and/or its members. Drawing upon deterrence theory, this study examined the mediating role of self-regulatory efficacy on the relationship between punishment certainty, punishment severity and organizational deviance. The participants were 197 employed postgraduate students who enrolled in the Master of Business Administration programme at two universities located in the north-west geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The model tested suggests that both punishment certainty and punishment severity predict organizational deviance through the influence of self-regulatory efficacy. Results suggest that self-regulatory efficacy partially mediates the relationship between punishment certainty and organizational deviance. Similarly, results suggest that the relationship between punishment severity and organizational deviance was partially mediated by self-regulatory efficacy.

One of the primary concerns on most business activities is to determine an efficient method for ranking mutual funds. This paper performs an empirical investigation to rank 42 mutual funds listed on Tehran Stock Exchange using Sortino method over the period 2011-2012. The results of survey have been compared with market return and the results have confirmed that there were some positive and meaningful relationships between Sortino return and market return. In addition, there were some positive and meaningful relationship between two Sortino methods.

This paper performs an investigation to rank different strategies in an engineering firm in Iran. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among all experts who worked for a firm in engineering field named Kara Sazeh Matin. The study first determines four key strategies for development of firm’s objectives including improvement in buy/sell system and marketing planning, financial and cost management, human resources management and technology management. The study ranks these attributes based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) in fuzzy format. The results indicate the firm must take over one of the well-known construction firms to develop its operations.

Job satisfaction is normally referred to cognitive, affective and evaluative reactions or attitude and state, which is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or experience. Organizational commitment has been defined as the extent where an individual accepts, internalizes, and views his/her role based on organizational values and objectives. The purpose of present research is to investigate the relationship between employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment of Red Crescent Society’s Textile Industries of Islamic Republic of Iran. (N=180 and n=106). Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and Allen and Meyer’s Organizational Commitment Questionnaires are used for collecting data. There were significant relationships between employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and their dimensions as descripted in results and conclusion.

This examines the impact of strategic thinking on the performance of Mashhad municipal mangers. Strategic thinking as one of the ways of thinking has a crucial place in the modern world and plays essential role in major issues at different organizational levels including individual decision-making and planning. We expand our horizons and take the opportunity to increase our performance using strategic thinking. Organizations are being involved in competitive and chaotic situations; therefore, they need managers with strategic thinking. Nevertheless, there are some organizations throughout the world managing their business activities in increasingly difficult situations with highly developed duties. Therefore, they need strategic thinkers to cope up with the mentioned problems and Mashhad Municipality is no exception to this policy because it has a special place among all aspects of metropolitan districts. Thus, this study has attempted to explain of the impact of strategic thinking on the performance of Mashhad municipal managers. The results obtained from the study show that strategic thinking had an acceptable level among municipal managers of Mashhad City and all factors of strategic thinking improved their performance.

There are many studies on how to share women’s involvement in economic activities and what sectors of industries could contribute more to their job involvement. This paper presents an empirical investigation to learn how economic growth in service industry, agricultural industry as well as other industries could contribute on economic growth. The study uses vector error correction to study the relationship between value added and women’s job opportunities in Iran over the period 1951-2003. In industrial sector, the results of the survey indicate that an increase of one percent on growth domestic product (GDP) and wage increases 4.47% and reduces 1.95 % of women’s employment, respectively. In addition, an increase of one percent on GDP and wage increases 0.24% and reduces 0.25 % of women’s employment in service industry, respectively. Finally, an increase of one percent in GDP increases wage by 4.47% and reduces women’s employment by 1.95%, respectively.

This paper prioritizes the trust factors among electronic banking clients of an Iranian bank named Parsian Bank. The study first analyzes and reviews the literature and interviews with experts of electronic banking and academicians and determines client trust as the most important factor for development of electronic banking. The study also determines different factors associated with trust, which includes individual factors, banking factors and infrastructural factors. The sample populations consist of 25 experts who are academicians, managers and bank officers, clients of electronic banking. The necessary data was collected through conducting interviews and questionnaires and they are analyzed using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The research findings indicate that the attitudinal factors, telecommunication infrastructure and cultural factors were the most influential factors accordingly and the customer orientation and ease of access were the least influential factors.