JOURNAL OF HEALTH ACCOUNTING
Year:2014 | Volume:2 | Issue:4 (6)|Papers Count:5

Introduction: Accounting is a part of the performance of economic units, which is influenced by various environmental factors. One of these factors is cultural values. The results of Hofstede studies may lead to some problems in the interpretation of cultural values in Iranian organizations, but according to most experts, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions include the main aspects of a culture. This research is carried out to study the effect of the Islamic cultural values depending upon Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on transparency and accountability level.Method: This study is a descriptive survey, and the required data were collected via distributing questionnaire among the accountants of the Medical Sciences University of Kermanshah province and the affiliated units. The population of the study contained 160 accountants of the Medical Sciences University of Kermanshah province and its affiliated units from which 101 accountants were selected by Cochran’s formula as the statistical sample. Also, the analysis of the research hypotheses were conducted by the simple regression method.Results: The findings of the research indicated that four cultural dimensions of power distance, masculinity, individualism and uncertainty avoidance have a significant and positive effect on transparency and accountability, and their effects on these two categories were confirmed.Conclusion: According to the Islamic culture, and regarding the fact that the dimensions of Hofstede's cultural values can include the main aspects of a culture, by the application of these dimensions, it would be possible to understand the cultural values which dominated the accountants through the Islamic approach, and to study its effect on the various aspects of accounting. Therefore, it is possible to step forward improving two main and principle aspects in financial reporting; i. e, transparency and accountability.

Introduction: In this study, the approach between the auditors of the Supreme Audit of Court (SAC) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance (MFAF) of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the impact of accrual accounting on promoting the qualitative features (relevance and reliability) of the financial performance report of government in Iran have been taken into consideration.Method: This study, from the research objective viewpoint is applied, regarding the study method is casual, and considering its nature, it is a descriptive survey. Simple random sampling method has been used in this research. The required number of samples is equal to 105 persons of the auditors of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance and auditors of Supreme Audit Court in ministries and government agencies, and questionnaire is used in order to collect data. The questionnaire of the research includes 18 questions in three dimensions (accrual accounting, relevance and reliability); moreover, its scale type is a five-rank Likert Spectrum; besides, for the analysis of data, the structural equation modeling with the help of Lisrel Software Version 8.8 has been applied.Results: According to the research's findings, it can be stated that in the viewpoint of both groups of auditors, accrual accounting has a major effect on promoting qualitative features of financial performance report of government in Iran. Furthermore, the auditors of SAC and MFAF have the same opinion in this respect.Conclusion: Achieving the goals for financial reporting in public sector is made possible by the qualitative features which include responsiveness and decision-making. Accountability requires applying the criteria of measuring the flow of economic resources, and it is the basis of accrual accounting.

Introduction: Since determining the revenues of services is based on tarrif, the factor of costs and their method of allocation are the only accessible variable to the hospital managers. In this study, with respect to the limitations of the Activity-Based Costing System, the method of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing has been used in the hospital.Methods: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing method was conducted in order to calculate the cost of inpatient bed at night in the ICU ward of Shariati Hospital in 2011 as a case study. The data were collected in order to investigate the accounting documents; interview and direct observation were used to determine the rational basis of sharing costs.Results: The results of the research stated that there is a significant difference between the cost of inpatient bed at night based on the government tariff rate and the cost of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; also, applying the government tariff rate causes the cost of inpatient bed at night to illustrate a lesser reality. Moreover, this indicates the presence of an unused capacity in this sector.Conclusion: Based on the findings of this research, hospitals and medical centers across the country can reach the correct and more real costs by using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing so that besides avoiding the resulted losses driven from incorrect costing led to an unused capacity.

Introduction: The most important financial report of the government is the total state budget annual performance bill which is prepared and presented by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance. The aim of this research is to identify the difficulties and obstacles in performing this legal duty and presenting strategies in order to remove them.Method: The statistical population of the research includes the accounting controllers and the deputy accounting controllers of Tehran Province, the heads and experts of the departments of coordination and integration accounts of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. The required data were collected for the research hypotheses testing through questionnaire in 2013. The face validity and Cronbach Alpha Coefficient, respectively, have been applied to confirm the questionnaire’s validity and reliability, and single-sample t-test student statistical test has been used to test the research hypotheses.Results: The results indicate that late exchange of the letter of agreement, the treasury liquidity problems and non-observance of the spending stages lead to delay in preparing the final financial statements, but the lack of transparency of rules and regulations does not have much effect on delay in the preparation of final financial statements.Conclusion: According to the findings of the research, it is suggested that by exchanging the reports regularly and defining the performance-based system, the letter of agreement should be exchanged in the first three months of the fiscal period, and an accurate program should be planned for treasury resources and consumption so that it is prevented from conservatism; moreover, it is necessary to consider the training periods and executive experience before assigning an authority to spend the expenditure.

Introduction: This study meets two objectives: first, investigating the presence of long-term memory of total price index in the pharmaceutical industry of the Tehran Stock Exchange; second, evaluating the accuracy of predicting models which include the long-term memory of the total price index of this industry.Method: In this research, the methods of Maximum Likelihood (MLE), Whittle, GPH, and Sperio have been used in order to evaluate the fractional integration parameter (market memory). In the beginning, among the four above-mentioned methods, two methods of MLE and Whittle could process the best pattern of ARFIMA to the data. Then, by using statistics and choosing criteria for the best one, this pattern was selected as the best for evaluating by MLE method.Results: The total price index in the pharmaceutical industry of the Tehran Stock Exchange has a long-term memory, and the best pattern for predicting the stock total price index of pharmaceutical industry is ARFIMA (1, 0.13, 1).Conclusion: It can be claimed with high certainty that the time-series of total price index in the pharmaceutical industry of the Tehran Stock Exchange has a long-term memory. The existence of this feature is a good reason for rejecting the weak shape of the market efficiency assumption. According to this assumption, the price of assets should not be predictable by historical data. The existence of long-term memory of total price index in the pharmaceutical industry indicates self-correlation among evidence with high intervals. Thus, it is possible to use historical data in order to predict the future indices which will be provided by applying a profitable strategy.