During the past few decades, there has been growing interest in water resources management. Presently, there are many areas in middle east facing with shortage of water for agricultural activities. Therefore, there is a growing concern to have efficient usage of water through optimization techniques. This paper presents a study to maximize famers’ revenue by developing a mathematical model subject to some land and water constraints. The proposed study has been applied for a case study of agricultural program in city of Abhar, Iran and the preliminary results indicate that it could increase the efficiency of agricultural program, significantly. In our survey, the optimal cultivation yields for four five-year programs have increased the income by 20.81, 44.698, 87.18 and 250.34 percent, respectively. In addition, 7.27% development land is added to agricultural lands, there is a 17% increase in water utilization and the productivity is increased from 50% to well above 77% after four 5-year programs have been implemented.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine the efficient locations of bank branch as well as automated banking machine. The study develops a mathematical model to minimize the cost of facility establishment subject to some constraints, which are associated with the population, accessibility of facilities, etc. All input parameters are considered in terms of triangular fuzzy numbers and using some methods, they numbers are converted into crisp values. The method has been applied for four cities in province of Seman, Iran and using WinQSB, the efficient locations of the facilities for a private bank named Samen have been determined.

This paper investigates different components on intellectual capital including human capital, structural capital and customer capital in banking industry in city of Salmas, Iran. The study uses the questionnaire developed by Bontis (1998) [Bontis, N. (1998). Intellectual capital: an exploratory study that develops measures and models. Management Decision, 36(2), 63-76.] to measure the effects of human capital. The questionnaire consists of 42 questions and all of them are designed in Likert scale. Cronbach alphas for human capital, structural capital and relationship capital were calculated as 0.79, 0.76 and 0.72, respectively. The implementation of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test has indicated that the data were normally distributed. Using t-student test, the study determined that while management team did not pay enough attention on human capital, there were some statistically significant evidence that social and relationship capitals gained good attention.

This paper presents an empirical investigation on the effects of occupational stress, psychological stress as well as job burnout on women’s employee performance in city of Karaj, Iran. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among all female employees who worked for Bank Maskan in this city. In our survey, employee performance consists of three parts of interpersonal performance, job performance as well as organizational performance. Cronbach alpha has been used to verify the overall questionnaire, all components were within acceptable levels, and the implementation of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test has indicated that the data were not normally distributed. Using Spearman correlation ratio as well as regression techniques, the study has determined that while psychological stress influenced significantly on all three components of employee performance including interpersonal performance, job performance as well as organizational performance, the effect on job performance was greater than the other components. In addition, occupational stress only influences on organizational as well as interpersonal performance. Finally, employee burnout has no impact on any components of employee performance.

In the recent years, retail industry in Iran has faced an increasing competition and this has encouraged the managers of chain stores to find ways to differentiate their own companies. One of the influential factors in this field is brand equity. Concerning this issue, the aim of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of sale promotions on the brand equity of ETKA chain stores. Therefore, a sample of 500 people among the customers of these stores in Tehran was examined. The achieved information obtained from the questionnaire was analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results showed that monetary and non-monetary promotions could influence on brand association, brand awareness and the perceived quality. On the other hand, it came out that brand association and the perceived quality are influential on brand loyalty. At last, a few suggestions were presented based on the results of this research.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between social capital components, social trust, social cohesion, social participation and social security, and sustainable development in city of Salmas, Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale, distributes it among 384 randomly selected people who live in this city. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.92, which is well above the minimum acceptable level. Using regression technique, the study has determined a positive and meaningful relationship between three components of social capital and sustainable development including social cohesion, social participation and social security. However, the study does not confirm the relationship between social trust and sustainable development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the components of transformational leadership style on organizational agility and mediating role of organizational creativity in Ilam Gas Refinery located in province of Ilam, Iran. The method of the present study was descriptive and correlational-structural equation modeling. The population of this research included all 400 workers of Ilam gas refinery and the study chose a sample of196 employees. The questionnaire was standardized using Cronbach & apos; s alpha; the obtained reliability was 0.90, which indicated the reliability of the questionnaire. At the end, the data was analyzed by LISREL software and structural equation modeling analysis was conducted. The findings showed that transformational leadership style had an effect on organizational agility. In addition, organizational creativity maintained a mediator role on influencing the transformational leadership on organizational agility. The four dimensions of transformational leadership, hopeful influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual encouragement as well as personal considerations also influenced on the agility of organizations.

During the past few years, there have been tremendous studies on measuring the effects of various factors on stock prices. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of book value, net earnings and cash flow on stock prices of 129 selected firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2007-2012. Using some regression techniques, the study has determined that the effects of book value, net earnings as well as cash flow decreases over the time although the effects of book value is bigger than net earnings and cash flow. However, as time passes on, there is no change on trend of the effects of these components on stock price.

One of the features of democratic political systems is the accountability against their own performances. Media, one of the powerful elements of civil society and effectual on public thought, plays an important role in making the government responsive. To achieve this goal, the present study tries to investigate the effect of media on the improvement of the accountability level of the government agencies. The statistical society of this research includes all male students of Azad Ghaemshahr University where 320 students were selected through purposive sampling method based on Kerjesy and Morgan table. Applied research method is used in this survey. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect the required data. In order to validate the instrument, appropriate questions related to each variable were extracted from valid sources and finally approved by authorities. In order to calculate the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to be 89. Since the distribution of the data was normal, parametric statistical tests were used to testify the hypotheses. The findings of the study show that the media could be effective in terms of making public organizations responsive, through leading and training the public, unifying demands, and monitoring and broadcasting. However, the findings reveal that if the media were free and independent, they would better perform their responsibilities. Finally, the study at hand concludes that in comparison to other media, television is much more powerful in terms of pushing the public sector to be responsive.

Performance measurement has been considered as one of the most important subjects in accounting through separating management from ownership as well as emergence of the agency theory. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of new liquidity indices in evaluating of the financial performance. In the direction of realizing the research’s purposes, 4 hypotheses examine the relationships between new liquidity indices and firm’s financial performance. Using some linear regression techniques with some panel data, the study examines various hypotheses of this survey. The research’s statistical sample includes 67 firms over the period 2006-2011. Analysis of the hypotheses shows that hypotheses associated with comprehensive liquidity index have been supported. In addition, there are significant differences in financial performance in different industries.