1. |
Analysts' use of earnings forecasts in predicting stock returns: Forecast horizon effects
, Pages: 531-536 Maryam Zabihi Soltan Ahmadi and Ali Baghani PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of quality of earnings forecasts in predicting stock returns on 121 selected firms traded on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2009-2013. The study investigates the effects of three year means of earnings forecast accuracy on investors’ investment decisions in terms of volume and time horizon, i.e. short term and long term investment sentiment. Using some regression analysis, the study has determined a positive and meaningful relationship between the quality of earnings forecast and investment time horizon. However, the study did not find any meaningful relationship between earnings forecast accuracy and volume of investment. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.5.001 Keywords: Tehran Stock Exchange, Earning forecast, Stock return |
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2. |
A feasibility study for using agile contractors to promote mass housing contractors
, Pages: 537-542 Faraz Pouyandeh and Mojtaba Hosseinalipour PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: During the past few years, there have been growing changes on managing different projects using the idea of agile manufacturing by moving from the idea of plan to planning. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study whether it is possible to apply the idea of agile in mass construction projects in Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 35 well-known contractors in the field of construction projects. The questionnaire consists of 8 questions, which is considered in terms of four perspectives including culture, projects, tools and processes and employee. Using some statistical test, the study has determined that it would be possible to apply the idea of agile contractors to promote mass housing contractors. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.013 Keywords: Agile, Contract, Agile project management |
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3. |
An analytic hierarchy process for benchmarking of automobile car service industry in Indian context
, Pages: 543-554 Bhupender Singh, Sandeep Grover, Vikram Singh and Rajesh Attri PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This paper proposes an application of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to help decision maker evaluate different processes to identify the weaknesses of an automobile car service where the best alternatives and critical success factors are identified to improve their performances against the market leader. The proposed benchmarking process may help provide effective systematic decision support tool. Thus the endeavor has been made for car service industry to exhibit proposed framework by applying AHP to enhance its competitiveness. The proposed study provides an opportunity to apply to other industries in addition with a diminutive alteration. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.012 Keywords: Benchmarking, Service Industries, Automobile Car, Alternatives, AHP |
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4. |
Evaluating viral marketing: isolating the key criteria in insurance industry
, Pages: 555-560 Maria Gooyandeh Hagh PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine the key criteria that viral marketing practitioners believe should be implemented to measure about the success of viral marketing campaigns in insurance industry. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale where the effects of four independent variables, personal, message, media and tools characteristics are measured on an Iranian insurance firm’s reputation as well as service expansion. Cronbach alphas were measured for all components of the survey and they were all well above the minimum acceptable level. Using regression analysis, the study has determined positive and meaningful relationships between insurance firm’s reputation as well as service expansion and four independent variables. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.011 Keywords: Insurance firm, Virtual marketing, Firm’s reputation |
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5. |
Agricultural labor productivity and sustainable development impacts and indicators
, Pages: 561-566 Hamideh Zehtab and Hayk Ghazaryan PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: The agricultural Jahad organization of Khorasan and Razavi province is one of Iran’s biggest agricultural firms, which is responsible in agricultural sector of the province. During the past few years, there has been a growth in organization’s responsibilities and the number of employees has increased. This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine different methods for increasing employees’ efficiency. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale consists of 20 questions, distributes it among 127 randomly selected employees who worked for this organization. Cronbach alphas for all components of the survey were calculated well above 0.70, which validate the overall questionnaire and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test has indicated that the data were normally distributed. Using t-student test, the study has confirmed three approaches for increasing efficiency including methods to improve employee management and organizational structures, methods to improve financial and moral encouragement system and methods for improvement of staff performance efficiency assessment. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.010 Keywords: The agricultural Jahad organization, Employee efficiency, Organizational structure |
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6. |
Product innovation as a key success factor to build sustainable brand equity
, Pages: 567-576 Jalal Hanaysha and Haim Hilman PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: In highly competitive markets, building brand equity has become one of the first priorities for many organizations as it brings several benefits and reputation for them. Past researches have acknowledged that consumers look for brands which provide them with differential values through innovative product and service features. However, despite the importance of product innovation in determining an organization’s success, very limited studies have intended to examine its effect on brand equity. In the present study, we aim to examine the effect of product innovation on brand equity in Malaysian automotive market. The data were collected from 287 passenger cars owners through self-administered questionnaire at several shopping malls in northern Malaysia. The findings revealed that product innovation had significant positive effect on overall brand equity and its dimensions namely; brand awareness, brand loyalty, brand image, and brand leadership. Based on the results of this study, several implications are discussed to enlighten our knowledge on important innovation activities that could develop favorable brand equity. Finally, limitations and future research suggestions are highlighted to gain better insights on brand equity development. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.009 Keywords: Brand equity, Product innovation, Automobile sector |
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7. |
Conditional selectivity performance of Indian mutual fund schemes: An empirical study
, Pages: 577-590 Subrata Roy PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: The present study seeks to examine the stock-selection performance of the sample open-ended equity mutual fund schemes of Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund Company based on traditional and conditional performance measures. It is generally expected that inclusion of some relevant predetermined public information variables in the conditional CAPM provides better performance estimates as compared to the traditional measures. The study reports that after inclusion of conditioning public information variables, the selectivity performances of the schemes have dramatically improved relative to the traditional measure and also found that conditional measure is superior to traditional measure in statistical test. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.008 Keywords: Conditional Model, Jensen, Ferson & Schadt, Birla Sunlife, Selectivity, Traditional Model |
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8. |
Credit reporting, relationship banking, and loan repayment
, Pages: 591-596 Tahereh Shirzad Kebria and Ali Aalikhani PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine factors influencing on loan repayment in one of Iranian banks named Sepah Bank over the period 2012-2013. The study selects a sample of 290 bank’s customers who received loans and, using logistic regression technique, tries to find whether or not qualitative as well as quantitative characteristics of loan receivers influence on repayment of loans. The results indicate that history of outstanding debt as well as customers’ past experiences with banks had meaningful relationships with having bad credit and non-payment of loans. In our survey, having a bad credit in the past had positive relationship with non-payment of loans but long-term customers had negative relationship with non-payment of loans. In addition, working capital turnover ratio, cash ratio, total liabilities, current assets and loan value had significant impact on non-repayment of the loan facilities. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.007 Keywords: Loan, Repayment, Bank |
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9. |
The impacts of product market competition on the quantity and quality of voluntary disclosures
, Pages: 597-602 Mojgan Saeidi, Fatemeh Saraf and Mohsen Hamidian PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between product market competition and voluntary disclosure among 124 selected firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2004-2013. The study uses Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) and Lerner (LLIA) index to measure competition in terms of capacity and price, respectively. In addition, the study uses the questionnaire developed by Botosan (1997) [Botosan, C. A. (1997). Disclosure level and the cost of equity capital. Accounting Review, 72(3), 323-349.] to measure voluntary disclosure. Using linear regression technique, the study has determined that there was a meaningful, direct and positive relationship between voluntary disclosure and competition in terms of price (LLIA). In addition, the results indicate that there was a meaningful and reverse relationship between voluntary disclosure and competition in terms of capacity (HHI). DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.006 Keywords: Tehran Stock Exchange, Product market competition, Voluntary disclosures |
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10. |
The effect of unethical behavior on brand equity
, Pages: 603-610 Seyedeh Faezeh Rezazadeh Baei and Zeinolabedin Rahmani PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This study explains the components of ethical behavior and their impacts on life insurance companies in province of Mazandaran, Iran. There were 367 insurance representatives and the study selects a sample of 187 ones based on Cochran formula and 2 questionnaires were distributed among them. The first questionnaire, unethical behavior, includes 8 items including Bribery, Cheating, Deception, Interact with colleagues, Act as social behavior, Uncommitted to firm and Irresponsibility. In addition, the questionnaire of brand equity contains three components of Awareness, Perceived quality and Loyalty. Using structural equation modeling, the study has determined that the effects of cheating and deception on unethical behaviors were not confirmed but the effects of other factors, bribery, interact with colleagues, act as social behavior, uncommitted to firm and irresponsibility on unethical behavior were confirmed. In addition, three components of Awareness, Perceived quality and Loyalty had positive relationship with brand equity. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.005 Keywords: Equity, Brand, Unethical Behavior, Factor Analysis |
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11. |
The relationship between principals’ reward power and their conflict management styles based on Thomas–Kilmann conflict mode instrument
, Pages: 611-618 Arash Riasi and Nasrin Asadzadeh PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between principals’ reward power and their conflict management styles. The five conflict management styles that we use in this study are based on Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and include accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, competing, and compromising styles. This study can be classified as a regression analysis and is a descriptive study. Our statistical society for this research included all principals of high schools located in the city of Birjand. The results indicated that there was a significant relationship between principal’s reward power and accommodating conflict management style. The results also revealed that there was no significant relationship between principals’ reward power and the other four conflict management styles. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.004 Keywords: Reward Power, Conflict Management Organizational Power, Managerial Power, School Principals, Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument |
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12. |
Ranking periodic ordering models on the basis of minimizing total inventory cost
, Pages: 619-628 Mohammadali Keramati and Vahid Bahmani PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: This paper aims to provide proper policies for inventory under uncertain conditions by comparing different inventory policies. To review the efficiency of these algorithms it is necessary to specify the area in which each of them is applied. Therefore, each of the models has been reviewed under different forms of retailing and they are ranked in terms of their expenses. According to the high values of inventories and their impacts on the costs of the companies, the ranking of various models using the simulation annealing algorithm are presented, which indicates that the proposed model of this paper could perform better than other alternative ones. The results also indicate that the suggested algorithm could save from 4 to 29 percent on costs of inventories. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.003 Keywords: Ranking periodic order models, Inventory costs, Simulating annealing, LTC |
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13. |
Optimization of rewards in single machine scheduling in the rewards-driven systems
, Pages: 629-638 Abolfazl Gharaei, Bahman Naderi and Mohammad Mohammadi PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: The single machine scheduling problem aims at obtaining the best sequence for a set of jobs in a manufacturing system with a single machine. In this paper, we optimize rewards in single machine scheduling in rewards-driven systems such that total reward is maximized while the constraints contains of limitation in total rewards for earliness and learning, independent of earliness and learning and etc. are satisfied. In mentioned systems as for earliness and learning the bonus is awarded to operators, we consider only rewards in mentioned systems and it will not be penalized under any circumstances. Our objective is to optimize total rewards in mentioned system by taking the rewards in the form of quadratic for both learning and earliness. The recently-developed sequential quadratic programming (SQP), is used by solve the problem. Results show that SQP had satisfactory performance in terms of optimum solutions, number of iterations, infeasibility and optimality error. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed on the change rate of the objective function obtained based on the change rate of the “amount of earliness for jobs (Ei parameter)”. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.002 Keywords: Optimization, Single machine scheduling, Rewards-driven systems, Delay, Earliness, Stochastic processing times |
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14. |
Responsive supply chain: modeling and simulation
, Pages: 639-650 Amit Kumar Sinha Prerna Swati and Ankush Anand PDF (288 K) |
Abstract: Unexpected occurrence like natural calamity, abruptly change in customer demands, upgradation of technologies, necessity of compatible suppliers etc. is the most challenging issues even for efficient global supply chain management. Therefore, modeling of responsive supply chain is an emerging technology for sustaining any firm/industry in future competitive environment. In this paper, an attempt has been made to not only analyze the performance of efficient supply chain management but also how to improve the performance of existing supply chain with the objective of developing a modeling of responsive supply chain management. The complexity of the model is also highlighted with the help of numerical example. This paper also explores the possibility to mathematical modeling of the responsive supply chain which will be an emerging topic for researchers and practitioners. The modeling of responsive supply chain can be employed as a competitive strategy for e-commerce, green supply chain, and compatible supplier selection problem. The another salient feature of this paper is that a distinct comparative literature review of the lean, agile, efficient, and responsive supply chain management has been presented. DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.4.001 Keywords: Efficient supply chain, Responsive supply chain, Lean supply chain, Agile supply chain |
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