farzad eivani

Cash management is critical for firm value as both cash surpluses and deficits can diminish value. Consequently, firms aim to maintain optimal cash levels by adjusting their actual cash ratios towards target ratios. Various factors influence cash holdings and the speed of these adjustments. This study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had heightened the precautionary motive for firms to hold cash. The analysis used observations from 159 firms from 2008 to 2022, applying Generalized Least Squares (GLS) regression and the system Generalized Method of Moments (system-GMM) while controlling for industry and year effects. The results indicated that during the COVID-19 period, firms' cash holdings ratios became increased than doubled and the speed of cash ratio adjustment increased by nearly 40% compared to previous years. These findings are consistent with the predictions of pecking order and trade-off theories, extending the existing literature by highlighting the pandemic's role in intensifying firms' financial pressures. The results suggested that the increased cash adjustment speed represented a strategic response to avoid the financial consequences of the COVID-19 crisis.

The purpose of the current research was to investigate the effect of business strategies on risk disclosure to know the drivers and factors affecting companies' risk to improve their competitive environment.

The current research is a descriptive-correlation type of research and is applied in terms of its purpose. The data of 345 companies admitted to the stock exchange has been used by systematic elimination method and multivariate regression.

The research findings have shown that business strategy is the determining factor for the amount of risk information disclosure in annual reports. Thus, there is a significant and positive relationship between offensive strategy and risk disclosure and a significant and negative relationship between defensive strategy and risk disclosure.

Companies with an offensive strategy disclose more risk-related information in their reports than companies with a defensive strategy. While defensive companies disclose less risk in their annual reports.

Contribution:

 In addition to enriching the research literature, the results of this research can be used to explain the effective factors in identifying risk disclosure in the financial reports of companies and improving the competitive environment in the capital market according to the effect of strategy.

 In the behavioral financial paradigm, the human hypothesis as a rational being that always succeeds in optimizing its interests is questioned. Proponents of behavioral finance know that the knowledge of "psychological inclinations" in the field of investment is absolutely necessary and requires serious development of the field of study. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between financial ratios as a measure of accounting information on the pattern of behavior and trading performance of investors and also to investigate the effect of managers' ability on this relationship. In order to achieve the research goal, 105 companies were selected from the companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange, by systematic elimination method and tested using EViews and Stata software. The results of testing the hypotheses have shown that among the components of financial ratios; There was a significant relationship between current ratio, current ratio, gross profit ratio, total debt to equity ratio, total debt to total assets ratio, return on assets ratio and earnings per share ratio with investors' trading behavior and performance. The present results showed that in the content of accounting information, especially using some financial ratios, investors' trading behavior and performance can be predicted. On the other hand, the findings indicate a significant effect of managers' ability on the relationship between financial ratios (current ratio, instantaneous ratio, gross profit ratio and earnings per share ratio) and the trading behavior and performance of investors.

This research investigates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on capital structure adjustment speed and compares its intensity in industries with low and high impact of the COVID-19. To test the research hypotheses, this paper has used the data for firms listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2002-2022 in an unbalanced panel format (3’342 observations) and has applied the partial adjustment approach with a system generalized method of moments estimator. The research results show that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the speed of adjustment at firms’ level. Furthermore, the research findings show that the speed of adjustment has increased more in industries that have been more affected by COVID-19, and COVID-19 exacerbated their financial deficits more than the others. In most countries (including Iran), COVID-19 has weakened the macroeconomic conditions, increased the business environment’s uncertainty, and increased the costs of adjustment. Therefore, it is expected that this issue has slowed down the speed of adjustment; however, empirical evidence contradicts this prediction. This research contributes to the emerging literature that explores the impact of COVID-19 on various aspects of business units.

Integrated financial reporting provides crucial information about an organization's strategy, direction, performance, and future outlook encompassing business, social, and environmental performance within its operational context. It also promotes a coherent and effective approach to corporate reporting. This research aims to compare the expectations of integrated financial reporting producers and users. Data analysis using SPSS software and statistical tests, including "Kolmogrove-smirnov", "Yoman-whitney" and "Friedman" has shown significant differences between the opinions of users and financial report preparers regarding report components, innovative practices, targeted investments, rewards and benefits, risk management, governance structure, and balanced scorecard. However, the comparison of expectations has shown no significant difference between the expectations of report providers and users regarding providing reports on mutual communication, compliance with legal and ethical standards, user’s engagement, and the reporting of financial status and sustainability of financial services.IntroductionAn integrated report should provide insight into the nature and quality of an organization's relationships with its key stakeholders. According to the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), one of the guiding principles which underpin the preparation of integrated reports is the formation of effective stakeholder relationships. However, several challenges are also identified. These challenges include difficulties in determining what information is material and should, therefore, be included in an integrated report. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the quality and utility of integrated reporting by exploring the possibility that a perception gap has emerged, which affects the perceived relevance of integrated reporting. this paper makes an important contribution to the prior literature on integrated reporting by introducing the idea of a perception gap and offering one of the initial accounts of stakeholders’ perspectives on companies’ integrated reports. This will shed light on where companies can improve their integrated reports and inform the development of additional guidance by standard-setters and regulators.MethodologyThe study's statistical population comprises two groups: report producers and users. This includes auditors from the audit organizations and audit institutions, members of the Society of Official Accountants of Iran, as well as board directors and managers of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the year 2022. The sampling method employed in this research is available sampling. This research is classified as a descriptive-survey study with an applied approach. The identified themes are incorporated into a Likert scale questionnaire. Lastly, the collected data were analyzed using SPSS software and relevant statistical tests.FindingsBased on the findings, there is a gap between auditors' and users' perspectives in terms of reporting and identifying innovative perspectives, targeted investments, rewards and benefits, risk management, governance structure, and balanced scorecard. Conversely, no significant gap is anticipated between the perspectives of producers and users in terms of mutual communication, compliance with legal and ethical standards, streamlining financial operations, user communication, as well as reporting financial status and corporate sustainability.Conclusion and discussionIn line with the examination of expectations between providers and stakeholders concerning the disclosure of integrated reporting components, the results of hypothesis testing indicate that, except for reporting and identifying innovative perspectives, targeted investments, rewards and benefits, risk management, governance structure, and balanced evaluation card, there is no significant expectation gap between beneficiaries and providers. In fact, the results indicate that users of integrated reports seek additional information on matters such as the competence and performance of those responsible for governance and how management has handled risk to ensure financial sustainability and prevent financial crises. They prioritize these aspects over the disclosure of information about social and environmental issues.Finally, the results of this study highlight several areas for future research. It would be valuable to investigate whether a perception gap exists in other industries and to identify the factors contributing to changes in the perception gap. More work also needs to be done to understand the determinants of the perception gap. This paper is based on the assumption that user sophistication affects the perceived importance of disclosures found in integrated reports. Cultural variables, the nature of the corporate governance system and the extent to which companies are able to manage perceptions are additional variables which need to be taken into account in order to define the dimensions of the perception gap in an integrated reporting context more accurately and inform policymakers and standard setters.

Overconfidence as one of the personality traits of managers affects each of the factors and stages of investment. In this regard, it is possible that financial constraints and ownership type affect the relationships. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of governmental ownership and managerial ownership in the relationship between managers' overconfidence and R&D expenses in the context of financial constraints. In this study, 30 companies were selected from among the companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) during the years of 2002-2018 to test the hypotheses by using the generalized least-squares method. The results indicated a significant and positive relationship between the managers' overconfidence and R&D expenses. This relationship was stronger in the companies with strong financing constraints. IntroductionDecisions of investing in R&D need more courage. Managers with extreme self-confidence are more entrepreneurial than rational managers, thus greatly promoting the company’s internal technological innovation activities. Some researchers believe that with the increase of uncertainty, the corporate investment environment will be more complicated and changeable, but overconfident managers are more interested in arduous tasks. Managers face more severe challenges in the R&D investment in the environment of strong compared to weak financing constraints. Therefore, using more confident managers to play an active role in innovation and compete with similar companies can be effective.On the other hand, the state- compared to non-state-owned companies can have access to internal and external financial resources more easily. This is because the state-owned companies have abundant assets and rich government-related resources. Thus, in the context of strong financial constraints, the former companies can use some special financing channels to obtain financial support. On the other hand, managerial ownership helps to align managers and shareholders’ interests since it has an effective role in controlling managers' behaviors, while causing managers to avoid decisions that lead to over-investment. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between managers' overconfidence and R&D expenses in companies with financial constraints influenced by the type of ownership.   Method and DataIn this study, 30 companies were selected from among the companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) during the years of 2002-2018 to test the research hypotheses by using the generalized least-squares method. FindingsThe results indicated a significant and positive relationship between the managers' overconfidence and R&D expenses. This relationship was stronger in the companies with strong financing constraints. Additionally, the positive relationship between the managers' overconfidence and R&D expenses was stronger in the non-state-owned companies, while managerial ownership had no significant effect on the relationship between them in the context of financial constraints. Conclusion and discussion Based on the findings, the positive relationship between the managers' overconfidence and R&D expenses was stronger in the companies with strong financing constraints. In addition, upon investigating the impact of ownership type on this relationship, the positive relationship between them was found to be stronger in the non-state-owned compared to the state-owned companies in the context of strong financing constraints. On the other hand, managerial ownership did not show a significant effect on the relationship between them in the companies with financial constraints. In fact, the moderating role of state ownership was more effective than managerial ownership because the relationship between the managers' overconfidence and R&D expenses was weaker in the state-owned companies under financial constraints.

Social responsibility is an obligation beyond legal and economic requirements in which banks pay attention to ethical issues and participation in economic development while improving the quality of labor, on a larger scale, ie society, and manage their business process in a way that has positive effects on society. To have along. Banks with social and environmental consequences of investing are one of the most sensitive economic enterprises in relation to social responsibility that seek the ethical banking movement for social and economic development in a society. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to Investigating the impact of social responsibility on financial performance, financial stability and financial inclusion of banks. The sample includes 18 banks listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2015 to 2020 and the statistical method used is the composite data regression model. The results of the study indicate that social responsibility has a positive and significant effect on the financial performance of banks. The results also indicate that social responsibility has no significant effect on financial stability and financial capacity of banks. The study of control variables also shows that Tangibility has a negative and significant effect on the financial stability and financial inclusion of banks and bank life has a positive and significant effect on the financial inclusion of banks.

It is necessary to pay attention to the tax system, both in terms of laws and in terms of organization, with the aim of influencing the long-term economic orientation, financing the government, and ultimately helping to realize the economic development strategy. Meanwhile, effective use of human resources is an indicator without which economic development is not possible and according to the organizational factors, the country can be properly managed by relying on tax revenues. In fact, the productivity of human resources in organizations is one of the characteristics of today’s advanced societies. In the meantime, competence and job satisfaction can be one of the most important and influential factors in organizational performance. Considering the importance of human resources in the success of today’s organizations, this study aims at investigating the effect of individual competence and job satisfaction of tax auditors on the taxable power of the tax administration and also to examine this effect in the presence of time pressure. The statistical population of this study includes all tax auditors in 2020 who were randomly selected and finally 348 samples were selected to test the hypotheses and they were analyzed using structural equation modeling in PLS software. The results of testing the hypotheses have shown that the individual competence of the tax auditor has a significant and positive effect on the taxable power. Similarly, the power of taxation increases with the job satisfaction of tax auditors. While individual competence and job satisfaction of tax auditors in the presence of time constraints (pressure) has no significant effect on the power of taxation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the audit expectation gap and investor confidence, also to investigate the role of the auditor’s improved level of communication on this relationship. To investigate this effect and a model with higher order constructs using a partial least-squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM), has been used. Based on a questionnaire survey with auditors and institutional investors, as one of the main users of audited financial statements, this study explored investors’ perceptions of both unreasonable and sensible audit expectation gaps (auditing performance and auditing standard gap) and the impact of auditor’s improved level of communication on this assessment. Based on the findings and values related to the path coefficients, audit quality and ensuring audit education have had a significant and positive effect on investor confidence. Also, a significant and negative relationship has been seen between the performance gap and the unreasonable audit gap with the level of investor confidence. Another finding of this study was the significant and positive effect of auditor’s improved level of communication on the relationship between the audit performance gap and the unreasonable audit gap with the level of investor confidence. Also, the calculation and analysis of fitness indicators using Smart-PLS software has confirmed the conformity of the conceptual framework and the experimental background with the results.

The purpose of this study is to develop a prediction-based stock returns and portfolio optimization model using a combined decision tree and regression model. The empirical evidence is based on the analysis on 112 unique firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2009 to 2019. Regression analyses, as well as six decision tree techniques including CHAID, ID3, CRIUSE, M5, CART, and M5 are used to determine the most effective variables for predicting stock returns. The results show that the six decision tree methods perform better than the regression model in selecting the optimal portfolio. Further analysis reveals that the CART model outperforms the other five decision tree models when compared using Akaike and Schwartz Bayesian. This finding is confirmed by comparing the actual returns of the selected portfolio across all six models in 2019. The findings indicate that the predicted returns on portfolio based on the CART model are not significantly different than the actual returns for 2019, suggesting that the selected model appropriately predicts the returns on the portfolio

The purpose of this study is to investigate the value relationship between good and bad news of management earnings forecasting with emphasis on impairment in management earnings forecasting. In this regard, to test the research hypotheses, data from 153 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2012-2018 were used. The Results according to Generalized Least Squares method show that bad news earnings management predictions are more predictive than first and last earnings management forecasts. The results also show that good news Earnings management forecast First and last Earnings management forecast have higher disclosure noises in earnings forecasts. Finally, the results showed that, There is a significant difference between the stock price response to the last earnings forecasted and the deviations from good news and bad news management earnings forecasting, But there is no statistically significant difference between the stock price response to the first earnings forecasted and the deviations from good news and bad news earnings management forecasting.

Corporate reputation is stakeholders overall assessment of company over time. The Corporate reputation could affect company's financial performance where company's financial performance could affect corporate reputation. Accordingly, it can explain relationship between these behaviors where relationship between the two can be considered. Therefore, in this study, the correlation between corporate reputation and financial performance is examined. For this purpose, 64 samples of listed companies on the Stock Exchange during the period of 2011-2015 were selected. Using simultaneous equations (3SLS) the interaction between them has studied. Results show that the corporate reputation and financial performance has positive interaction. The findings could be useful for investors, managers and other users to establish the relationship between corporate reputation and financial performance.

Issues and problems associated with financial statements have raised ambiguities about the role and responsibilities of the board of directors as well as the audit committee in financial reporting. Accounting restatements indicates that the financial statements of the past periods are unlikely to be presented in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principles. In addition, the Accounting Restatements may indicate weakness in the firm's internal control system. An efficient director labor market wills likely reward directors who have a reputation for effectiveness with additional board positions and associated benefits, and penalize the poor performers by loss of their positions and benefits. In the present study, the consequences of financial statements as a reporting failure for non-executive directors with an emphasis on the audit committee are examined. For this purpose, 43 listed firms were selected as the main sample and 43 listed firms as the control group during the years 2012 to 2016 from Tehran Stock Exchange. According to the results of the study, the financial restatements have not led to the imposition of labor market fines for outside director.

Decreasing interest conflicts between stockholders and executives is the corporate governance’s role and this is accentuated when managers perceive motivations to deviate from the advantage of stockholders. Corporate governance is likely to diminish profit management while improving the investors’ understanding of cash maintenance. This study aims at recognizing relevance among real profit management and corporate governance. To measure profit management, Recovery models (2006) and Jenni (2010) and for measuring the relevance between cash maintenance and profit management, modified models of Opler (1999) and Phama and Fringe (1998) have been deployed in this study. Percentage of non-obligated members of executive board (executive board independence) has been utilized as the substantial feature of corporate governance. As for testing thehypotheses, multi-variable linear regression model and integrated generalized least squares method were used. Considering the limitations imposed in selection, statistical sampling of the study includes 90 accepted companies in Tehran Stock Exchange that have undergone research between2008 and 2012. The findings indicate that there is a meaningful positive relevance between real profit management and cash maintenance. Investors decrease cash maintenance in companies with high real profit management and compared to businesses with strong corporate governance, weaker ones possess less evaluations of cash maintenance among those which perform profit management in its high levels.