Search results

This paper reviews and synthesizes the extensive literature that investigates turnover in public accounting firms.

This paper initially identifies turnover studies by searching two commonly used business databases, ABI and Business Source. Subsequently, references in these studies are examined. Over 100 published studies of accounting firms are identified.

Prior turnover studies can be classified by the underlying theory: psychological attachment; role theory; mentoring; and organizational justice. Using these theories, prior research has examined a wide variety of issues such as the role of gender in turnover.

Turnover is a significant and long-term problem in accounting firms. Practitioners and researchers have long noted that firms lose the costs of training employees who leave the firm. Recently, many in the auditing field have recognized that employee turnover may reduce audit quality. This paper summarizes prior turnover research, which may provide guidance to future researchers and managers of accounting firms.

This study fills a void in the accounting literature, which is missing a comprehensive and up to date review of prior studies of turnover in accounting firms. Opportunities for future research are also explored. While much has been learned, some theoretical and methodological issues remain unresolved.

The right to health for all people means that everyone should have access to the needed healthcare services without suffering from severe financial hardship. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence as well as the effective factors on facing catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) among gastrointestinal cancer patients and families in Kurdistan province in west of Iran after the implementation of Health Transformation Plan (HTP).

A cross-sectional study was carried out on 189 households with gastrointestinal cancer patients in Kurdistan province in 2018. Data were collected using World Health Survey questionnaire. A method developed by World Health Organization with the threshold of 40 percent household’s capacity to pay was used in order to measure the proportion of households facing CHE. Also, logistic regression was applied for identifying the effective factors on household’s exposure to CHE. Data were analyzed using STATA version 13.

Almost 73 percent (72.7 percent) of the households (n=117) faced the CHE. Not having supplementary health insurance (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 3.8; 95% confidence interval: 1.3–10.8 (and having low socio-economic status (AOR: 7.1; 95% CI: 1.8–28.1) were the significant factors affecting the households’ exposure to CHE. In total, 57 and 1 percent of the studied households reported that having a gastrointestinal cancer patient at home had a significant effect on refraining from using health services by other family members.

The proportion of the studied households facing CHE was very high. This may indicate the weakness of health system as well as health insurance or the weakness of HTP in financial protection of fragile population.

Health is one of the most basic human rights. This study aims to examine the pattern of unmet health services needs and barriers to use health services among people with disabilities.

This cross-sectional study was conducted among people with disabilities in Sanandaj, the capital of a less economically developed province in western Iran in 2020. In total, 548 samples were selected using random sampling, and data were collected using a questionnaire. Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test were used to examine the relationship between independent variables including demographic variables and dependent variables. Statistical tests were performed using STATA software package.

About 64% and 23% of participants needed outpatient and inpatient services, respectively. The gap between the perceived need and using health services for outpatient and inpatient services was reported to be 55% and 30%, respectively. The main reasons for not seeking the required health care were “insufficient coverage of costs by insurance” and “lack of physical access.” Having supplementary insurance and better economic status were significantly correlated with using outpatient care and having supplementary insurance and type of disability had a significant relationship with using inpatient care.

There was a big gap between the perceived need, seeking for and receiving health services in people with disabilities. Designing and implementing appropriate interventions to reduce barriers on the way of transforming, the need for health services into demand in the population of people with disabilities should be on the agenda of policymakers and relevant managers in the country.

The purpose of this study was to assess the self-perceived need, seeking and use of dental care and its main determinants in Kurdistan province, Iran.

A total of 1,056 adults in Kurdistan province were included in this cross-sectional study. Multistage sampling approach was used to select the samples. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, economic status, self-perceived need, seeking and use of dental care were collected using a self-administrated questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression model was used to assess factors affecting the use of dental care. In addition, socioeconomic inequality relating to dental care needs and use of dental care were examined using concentration curve and concentration index.

In this study, unmet dental care need was 62.7%. There was a perceived need for dental care among 13.7% (n = 145) of the participants in the past month, with only 39.3% (n = 57) seeking the care. The most important reasons for unmet dental care need were “Could not afford the cost” and “Insurance did not cover the costs.” Multivariate logistic regression showed that supplementary insurance status and household economic status were identified as main determinants affecting dental care-seeking behavior. The result of concentration index revealed that seeking dental care was more concentrated among the rich, whereas the perceived dental care need is more prevalent among the poor.

This study demonstrated that the prevalence of unmet dental care needs is high in the study setting. Also, financial barrier was identified as the main determinant of unmet dental care needs.

Increased dietary salt content is one of the effective factors of hypertension and a major public health challenge globally. Although the positive effects of dietary salt reduction on health are universally accepted, people can hardly reduce their salt intake. The purpose of this study is to identify the inhibitory factors of dietary salt reduction among 20–65-year-old women in Yazd City, Iran.

This study was conducted using a deductive content analysis approach based on the communication for the behavioral impact (COMBI) framework. The purposeful sampling method was applied with maximum variation in terms of different educational levels, age groups, occupational status and residential areas to select the participants. Snowball sampling was used to select health-care professionals. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews and focus-group discussions were conducted with 31 local women and 11 health-care professionals working in the City until data saturation was achieved. Data were analyzed using Graneheim and Landsman’s method.

After data analysis, 617 initial codes were extracted over the perceived barriers. After merging similar codes, 223 codes were extracted. The barriers were classified into five main categories of family, personal, organizational, educational and socio-cultural barriers.

Based on the COMBI framework, the results demonstrated that the most important barriers for reducing salt intake were negative attitude toward restrictions on dietary salt intake, insufficient and incorrect beliefs about the health risk of salt, lack of family support, inadequate health literacy and low self-efficacy in Yazd City. Among these barriers, lack of family support was considered as the most effective factor in reducing salt consumption. So, by focusing on this area and providing the community with the required education, the amount of salt consumed by families can be reduced.

To the best of our knowledge, the studies on determining adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern (MDP) in Iran as a non-Mediterranean country are scarce. Thus, the aim of the study is to determine the adherence to the MDP in a sample of female adolescents who are residents of Tehran, Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, 263 female adolescents aged 15-18 years were studied. Information on socio-demographic, lifestyle and anthropometric variables were obtained using a structured questionnaire. Also, dietary intakes were determined using a validated 168-item food frequency questionnaire. Adherence to MDP was characterized using Mediterranean-style dietary pattern score (MSDPS).

Typically, the mean ± SD MSDPS was low in the present study (15.9 ± 5.6). The mean ± SD age and body mass index of the study population was 16.2 ± 0.9 years and 22.2 ± 4.1 kg/m², respectively. In this study, the maximum MSDPS was 34.3, which was only one-third of maximum possible score (100). Multiple linear regression analyses showed that higher MSDPS scores were positively associated with age (standardized β = 0.1; p = 0.006), higher energy intake (standardized β = 0.2; p < 0.001) and marginally higher physical activity (standardized β = 0.1; p = 0.079).

Understanding low adherence to MDP in Tehranian female adolescents can provide basic knowledge to launch systematic programmes for gravitation toward MDP.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new mixed-integer formulation for the time-dependent multi-skilled resource-constrained project scheduling problem (MSRCPSP/t) considering learning effect. The proposed model extends the basic form of the MSRCPSP by three concepts: workforces have different efficiencies, it is possible for workforces to improve their efficiencies by learning from more efficient workers and the availability of workforces and resource requests of activities are time-dependent. To spread dexterity from more efficient workforces to others, this study has integrated the concept of diffusion maximization in social networks into the proposed model. In this respect, the diffusion of dexterity is formulated based on the linear threshold model for a network of workforces who share common skills. The proposed model is bi-objective, aiming to minimize make-span and total costs of project, simultaneously.

The MSRCPSP is an non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard) problem in the strong sense. Therefore, an improved version of the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (IM-NSGA-II) is developed to optimize the make-span and total costs of project, concurrently. For the proposed algorithm, this paper has designed new genetic operators that help to spread dexterity among workforces. To validate the solutions obtained by the IM-NSGA-II, four other evolutionary algorithms – the classical NSGA-II, non-dominated ranked genetic algorithm, Pareto envelope-based selection algorithm II and strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm II – are used. All algorithms are calibrated via the Taguchi method.

Comprehensive numerical tests are conducted to evaluate the performance of the IM-NSGA-II in comparison with the other four methods in terms of convergence, diversity and computational time. The computational results reveal that the IM-NSGA-II outperforms the other methods in terms of most of the metrics. Besides, a sensitivity analysis is implemented to investigate the impact of learning on objective function values. The outputs show the significant impact of learning on objective function values.

The proposed model and algorithm can be used for scheduling activities of small- and large-size real-world projects.

Based on the previous studies reviewed in this paper, one of the research gaps is the MSRCPSP with time-dependent resource capacities and requests. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi-objective model for the MSRCPSP with time-dependent resource profiles. Besides, the evaluation of learning effect on efficiency of workforces has not been studied sufficiently in the literature. In this study, the effect of learning on efficiency of workforces has been considered. In the scarce number of proposed models with learning effect, the researchers have assumed that the efficiency of workforces increases as they spend more time on performing a skill. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the effect of learning from more efficient co-workers has not been studied in the literature of the RCPSP. Therefore, in this research, the effect of learning from more efficient co-workers has been investigated. In addition, a modified version of the NSGA-II algorithm is developed to solve the model.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of psychological entitlement and perceived organizational justice on cyberloafing.

In this study, a cross-sectional research design based on a questionnaire method was used to collect the required data from a sample of 226 employees working at selected universities in the city of Isfahan, Iran. To test the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling was used.

According to the findings, psychological entitlement could have a significant impact on perceived organizational justice and consequently perceived organizational justice could significantly influence cyberloafing. Moreover, psychological entitlement could significantly influence cyberloafing and finally, psychological entitlement could have a significant effect on cyberloafing through perceived organizational justice.

This research provides valuable insight for studying the relationship among psychological entitlement, perceived organizational justice and cyberloafing.