This paper presents an empirical investigation to measure the performance of holding company compared with the performance of market using Sharp ratio over the period of 2008-2011. SHASTA is one of the biggest holding firms in Iran, owned by social security organization, and has some subsidiary firms. The study measures the risk of holding firm and market performance firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange using the Sharp ratio. To compare the performance of holding versus subsidiary firms as well as the market, the study first performs normality test on the data. Statistical data for the performance of holding company is not normally distributed but all subsidiary data are normally distributed. Therefore, the study uses non-parametric test to measure the performance for holding company and parametric test is employed to measure the performance of other firms. The result of our investigation indicates that there was no difference between the performance of holding firm and market performance.

This study presents an empirical investigation to measure the relationship between traditional accounting performance measurement as well as theory of constraint-based figures with operating cash flow. Traditional accounting measurement includes net profit and return of investment and theory of constraint method includes net profit and return of investment based on theory of constraints. The study selects 69 firms list on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2000-2010. Using panel data and fixed effect, the study performs regression analysis and the results confirm that there was a positive relationship between net profit measured by theory of constraints and cash flow and it can be effectively used for performance measurement.

DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2013.07.017
Keywords: Theory of constraints;; ;

Job satisfaction plays an essential role on having happy society since people may have better lives when they fully satisfied with their jobs. In this paper, we present an empirical study to investigate the effect of marital status as well as educational background on job satisfaction. The study performs the study among university employees of Khomeinishar branch located in province of Esfahan, Iran and all questions are designed in Likert scale of 1-5 based on Brayfield & Rothes Index of job satisfaction. Using a sample of 100 people, the study first uses Kolmogrov-Smirnov test and verifies that all data are normally distributed (?=5%). The survey also finds that there is no difference between female and male employees in terms of job satisfaction (?=5%). In addition, the study confirms that marital status has no significance on job satisfaction (?=5%).

This paper presents an empirical survey on understanding the content validity and reliability of technology acceptance measurement (TAM) among 278 university professors who worked for university of Shahid Beheshti located in city of Tehran Iran. We use a questionnaire consists of 37 different questions in five categories including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude towards the use of technology and operating plan in Likert scale. The proposed study uses first-order confirmatory factor analysis for validity of the questionnaire and Cronbach alpha is employed for measuring the reliability of the questionnaire. The results have confirmed that TAM questionnaire maintains sufficient content validity and reliability. In other words, The measures were refined and stream-lined, resulting in two six-item scales with reliabilities of 0.89 for usefulness and 0.87 for ease of use.

One of the primary concerns on stock market is the risk associated with securities. There are different attempts devoted to detect and reduce any existing risk and provide necessary action to reduce them as much as possible. In this paper, we study the relationship between quality of earnings and systematic risk as well as cost of capital. The proposed study of this paper uses the information of 150 firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange and using multiple regression technique examines two hypotheses based on yearly information over the period 2006-2010. The results of our survey indicate that as the quality of earnings increase, the risk as well as the cost of capital decrease.

This paper examines the relationship between monetary policy and activity of the Tehran Stock Exchange. The statistical population of the research consists of all companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange and central bank monetary policy variables including time series generated by the central bank seasonally. For the purpose of data analysis, econometric autoregressive system models, and two-stage ADF regression with unit roots test, co-integration and reliability were used to determine level of effect and type of effect of the four components of monetary policy on exchange activity. The results of this study show that there is a strong relation between share price index and monetary policy variables and between monetary policy variables and trading volume. However, the relation between monetary policy variables and cash yield index was not so strong, but monetary policy variables’ effect on stock exchange activity was acceptable considering strong relation between the two first variables. It is suggested that if this work is done using non-linear models, it will yield better results.

Work-life balance (WLB) plays an essential role on having peaceful life. There has been a substantial growth of families where both husband and wife work. Despite enjoying advantages of role mixture, life style in family has been faced by tremendous pressures due to ignoring conventional division of work in family as well as making new and more commitments. One of these pressures is the conflict between work and life, which could lead to unfavorable impacts on social integrity of family functions, mental and social health. This paper investigates WLB in terms of accountants’ perspective. The proposed study designs a questionnaire, which contains 12 questions where 6 questions are associated with the importance of WLB and the other 6 questions are associated with effective variables in creating WLB. The method of the research is descriptive-survey and the study uses ANOVA test to analyze the results. The researcher has employed Friedman test to score research variables. The results of the research indicate that WLB components had different rates of importance among accountants with various genders.

Customer relationship management (CRM) plays an important role on marketing planning. In this paper, we re-examine the effect of having efficient CRM on efficiency of a telecommunication company. The proposed study considers three hypotheses. The first hypothesis examines whether implementation of CRM could improve customer’s perception in terms of customer retention, satisfaction, loyalty and awareness. The second hypothesis examines whether implementation of CRM influences on market performance in terms of reduction on customer complaints, quality improvement, improving customer perception, access to services and increase in market share. Finally, the third hypothesis considers the effect of CRM on financial figures in terms of sales growth, profit growth, earnings per share and productivity. The results of our survey have confirmed the first hypothesis and rejected the third hypothesis. In other words, while CRM improves customer perception it does not influence financial figures in most cases (P & LT; 0.01).

This paper investigates whether a quality improvement program can reduce work-family and family-work conflicts or not. The proposed study of this paper selects 30 female employees of municipality of Tehran, Iran and divides them into two groups of test and control group. The first group is asked to participate in eight 90-minute sessions of quality improvement program and after the program ends, both groups are requested to fill in Netemeyer’s work-family questionnaire. We then analyze the results using different statistical tests. The results of our survey indicate that quality improvement program statistically improves quality of life among the first group in reducing the work-family as well as family-work conflicts (P & LT; 0.01).