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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.