This paper presents a study to measure the effects of return on investment, sales growth rate, volatility investment, cash flow and structure of institutional shareholders on the ratio of debt to equities. The study selects 102 firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange and, using regression technique with Panel data, examines five different hypotheses over the period 2008-2012. The results indicate that there was a negative and meaningful relationship between return of investment and the ratio of debt to equities and a positive and meaningful relationship between sales growth and the ratio of debt to equities. Moreover, there were positive and meaningful relationships between volatility of investment as well as cash flow and the ratio of debt to equities. Finally, the survey has indicated that there was a negative and meaningful relationship between the structure of institutional shareholders and the ratio of debt to equities.

This paper presents a study to measure the effects of culture and strategic orientation on service innovation capabilities on selected banks in province of Alborz, Iran. The survey uses a questionnaire consists of 40 questions where 5 questions are associated with service innovation, 11 questions are related to strategic orientation and 24 questions measures organizational culture. Cronbach alpha for service innovation capabilities, strategic orientation and organizational culture were 0.73, 0.84 and 0.91, respectively. Using structural equation modeling as well as regression technique, the study has determined that organizational culture influences positively on structural orientation (B = 0.6, t-value = 13.56), organizational culture influences positively on service innovation capability (B = 0.43, t-value = 8.73) and finally structural orientation influences positively on service innovation capability (B = 0.35, t-value = 7.22).

The psychometric properties of the Absorptive capacity construct have been assessed in this study in the context of Pakistan. A total of 201 bank managers were included in the survey. Data analysis using the Smart PLC 3.0 revealed that the scale has satisfactory level of internal consistency reliability, conversion validity and discriminant validity. The findings refer to the fact that the ACAP construct could be responsively used in measuring the absorptive capacity in the banking sector of Pakistan.

Liquidity of the stock exchanges plays essential role on investment decisions and it is one of the factors that may influence on stock price. The easier one can buy/sell shares of a firm, the higher liquidity the firm has. In fact, lack of liquidity may lead investors to sell their assets at cheaper prices and it could influence negatively on overall market. The primary objective of this paper is to study the effect of stock liquidity on the risk of falling stock prices. The study chooses historical information of 70 selected firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2006-2012. The results of this survey have indicated that there was a negative and meaningful relationship between stock liquidity and stock price decline.

The aim of this study is to learn the effects of the value at risk (VaR) and the index of 30 largest companies (TEFIX 30) on the index of 30 large firms’ prices listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). This research study is based on analysis of libraries and analytical panel data and proposes a regression function where the index of 30 large companies’ prices is a linear function of VaR and TEFIX 30. The study collects the information of 90 publicly traded TSE firms over the period 2011-2013. The results have indicated that while the index of 30 large companies’ prices had a meaningful relationship with VaR but it had no meaningful relationship with TEFIX 30.

It is well-known that subjects can exhibit a preference for increasing payments. Smith (2009a) [Smith, J. (2009a). Imperfect Memory and the Preference for Increasing Payments. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 165(4), 684-700.] makes a related prediction that the difference between the preference for increasing wage payments and the preference for increasing non-wage payments will be largest for intermediate payments. We find evidence consistent with this prediction. Consistent with previous experiments, we find that the preference for increasing payments is increasing in the size of the payments. Also consistent with the literature, we find that the preference for increasing wage payments is stronger than the preference for non-wage payments. Our results contribute to the understanding of the optimal sequencing of wage payments over time.

The controlling of bug fixing process during the system testing phase of software development life cycle is very important for fixing all the detected bugs within the scheduled time. The presence of open bugs often delays the release of the software or result in releasing the software with compromised functionalities. These can lead to customer dissatisfaction, cost overrun and eventually the loss of market share. In this paper, the authors propose a methodology to quantitatively manage the bug fixing process during system testing. The proposed methodology identifies the critical milestones in the system testing phase which differentiates the successful projects from the unsuccessful ones using Mahalanobis Taguchi system. Then a model is developed to predict whether a project is successful or not with the bug fix progress at critical milestones as control factors. Finally the model is used to control the bug fixing process. It is found that the performance of the proposed methodology using Mahalanobis Taguchi system is superior to the models developed using other multi-dimensional pattern recognition techniques. The proposed methodology also reduces the number of control points providing the managers with more options and flexibility to utilize the bug fixing resources across system testing phase. Moreover the methodology allows the mangers to carry out mid- course corrections to bring the bug fixing process back on track so that all the detected bugs can be fixed on time. The methodology is validated with eight new projects and the results are very encouraging.

This study presents an empirical investigation to study the post-war tourism in sought west region of Iran. This region is the host of many Iranian who wish remember the events of War between Iran and Iraq. Many high school or university students travel to the region through cultural as well as religious communities. This paper tries to analyze the challenges facing these people when they travel to province of Khozestan, Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among some randomly selected people who visited the region. The implementation of Pearson correlation test has determined that “Weakness of tourism infrastructure facilities and services” is to be blamed the most followed by “Underdevelopment of decision making centers”. Moreover, path analysis has been implemented to detect direct and indirect effects of different factors on development of tourism in the region. In our survey, marketing, culture and weakness in infrastructures have been determined the most important factors influencing on development of the region.

This study examines the emotional intelligence (EI) of nurses by differentiating inter-personal and intra-personal dimensions, and explores the measures taken by them to maintain emotional stability. Further, it investigates the relationship of demographic factors (age, gender and year of experience) of nurses with their emotional stability. The case organization is a well performing private hospital located closer to the metropolitan city. Study collects data through both quantitative (survey) and qualitative means (discussion, observation, and interviews) using a sample of 40 nurses selected conveniently from different ranks. The study finds that the level of EI of nurses in case hospital is slightly high, and their inter-personal skills are higher than intra-personal skills. They maintain emotional stability by means of emotion gaps, emotional shifts and sharing. Findings suggest that both inter-personal and intra-personal dimensions of EI will not be equally important for nurses in dealing with patients, and the level of EI required in the job is not equal among different ranks of nurses.

Banking industry has significant contribution in development of economies of developing countries. Most banks execute their operations through different branches. Therefore it is important to measure the relative efficiencies of these branches. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is one of the most useful tools in measuring banks’ performance. The present paper aims to extract ranking pattern of banks based on performance evaluation using DEA analysis. In the present research, 120 bank branches of Bank Shahr in city of Tehran were selected and their efficiencies were evaluated using DEA technique. The results are discussed and compared with similar studies.