نشریه حسابداری سلامت
سال سوم شماره 4 (پیاپی 10، زمستان 1393)

A great amount of evaluating performance and offering suggestions and solution to solve the problem of the government agencies is possible through performance audit. Moreover, implementing this type of auditing has been obliged in the fifth five-year plan of development. Therefore, investigating the challenges beyond the obligation of performance audit in the government agencies of Iran has a great significance. The present research is an applied descriptive survey in which the viewpoints of four groups including university professors, the auditors of the Audit Organization, the auditors of the Supreme Court of Audit, and the managers and auditors of the government agencies in Tehran and Alborz provinces have been collected by questionnaire. Hence, the data of the research have been analyzed by SPSS Software Version 18, Chi-squared Test, One-Way Analysis of Variance, and Friedman Test. The Results of the research indicate that there is no agreement among the tested groups on the most important challenge, but regarding the sum of the scores based on their viewpoints, “not using accrual basis of accounting in the government agencies” has been considered as the most important challenge. In the case of the least important challenge, there is a relative agreement in such a way that most groups consider “the lack of mental and behavioral independency of the performance auditors” as the least important challenge in implementing the performance audit, and according to the sum of the scores, “the lack of mental and behavioral independency of the performance auditors” is the least important challenge from the viewpoint of the subjects. The most important challenges beyond the performance audit in the government agencies of Iran are not using the accrual basis, the inadequacy of rules and regulations in this field, the governmental manager's insistence on adhering to the traditional methods, inappropriate budgeting system, the conflicts of priorities and values between legislators and executives, the lack of public response-claiming culture, the shortage of expert force, the lack of appropriate criteria and standard for performance audit, and the non-existence of powerful and influential private and professional formations.

Implementing Activity-Based Costing method leads to identify the cost price of services and products more accurately; however, implementing this costing method encounters with some challenges in practice because of the complexities and impositions of high expense to the organization in the implementation stage. Therefore, conducting the feasibility researches in this regard is an inevitable necessity. In this research, the feasibility of implementing Activity-Based Costing method in the care department of Bushehr Social Security Organization has been studied. The current research is a descriptive survey. In order to collect the data of the research, a questionnaire has been used, and the responders included the accountants and the supervisors of the care department of Social Security Organization of Bushehr province. The questionnaire contained 42 questions to test the hypotheses of the research. The data of the research have been analyzed through SPSS Software Version 21 and by using T-test. Regarding the organizational and behavioral, technical, economic, and individual factors, there is a possibility of applying Activity-Based Costing method in the care department of Social Security Organization of Bushehr province, but the influence of the regulatory factors as a key factor in the implementation of this costing method was not approved. The attained results showed that there is a possibility of implementation and persistence of Activity-Based Costing method in the care department of Social Security Organization of Bushehr province.

In this study, the situation of the associated factors which includes three factors of ability, authority, and acceptance with the implementation of Activity-Based Costing method in Performance-Based Budgeting in the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences Based on SHAH model has been examined. This research is applied in terms of purpose, and regarding the nature of the data, it is descriptive analytic. The statistical sample of the research includes managers, financial and budget experts, and chief accountants of the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2014 (totally 110 people). For collecting the data of the research, a researcher-made questionnaire has been used. The validity of the questionnaire which includes content credit and factoring credit, respectively, was tested by the opinion of experts, and by using AMOS Software Version 20, and its reliability was approved through Cronbach's Alpha. The data were analyzed by using one-sample T-test and SPSS Software Version 20. The results of the research state that according to the subjects, in the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, except the legal authority, organizational authority, and managerial acceptance, all the other necessary conditions for implementing Activity-Based Costing method in the Performance-Based Budgeting such as ability (the ability of technical, humane, and performance evaluation), policy authority, and acceptance (political acceptance and association of incentives) are not available. Based on the findings of the research, it is necessary more than ever to consider the situation of three factors of ability, authority, and acceptance; moreover, it is increasingly essential to try to improve it in order to implementing Activity-Based Costing in the Performance-Based Budgeting much better in the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

In governmental organizations, budgeting has an important role in optimal use of financial resources. Performance-Based Budgeting is a proper means for evaluating the performance of each organization, and implementing accrual accounting system has an undeniable role in formulating the type of budgeting. This study is an applied research in terms of purpose, and it has a descriptive correlation method in collecting data. The population of the research include all financial managers and accounting experts of Iranian medical universities. A sample which contains of 225 people has been selected and analyzed through systematic stratified sampling. The means of collecting data includes two researcher-made questionnaires, one for accrual accounting and the other for Performance-Based Budgeting which its validity, from the viewpoint of experts, and its reliability, by Cronbach' Alpha, were examined and confirmed. In order to analyze the data, by applying SPSS Software Version 20, exploratory factor analysis, Pearson correlation test, and regression model were used. There is a significance and positive relationship between accrual accounting and different aspects of Performance-Based Budgeting (planning, costs analysis, performance management, change management, accountability, and motivation). Providing the necessary infrastructure to implement Performance-Based Budgeting properly and efficiently is considered as one of the main priorities of each organization. Accrual accounting is one of the constituent elements of this infrastructure. In case of implementing accrual accounting system, more accurate and complete information of revenues and expenses for each period will be achieved, and the possibility for formulating Performance-Based Budgeting in a systematic and correct way will be provided.

Due to the importance of pharmaceutical industry and its relationship with the public health, and in order to investigate the existing relations in this industry, the present study examines the reciprocal relationships between debt policy and institutional ownership in pharmaceutical companies, and compares it with non-pharmaceutical companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2002 to 2012. In this research, quasi-experimental design and panel data method have been used. Also, due to the existence of simultaneous skew in endogenous variables of the research and the recognition of equations as “just identified”, the research hypotheses have been tested by two-stage least squares method. The applied sample of the research consists of two groups of active pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange (each group 187 years-company) which have been selected through pair sampling. The results derived from testing the research hypotheses show a significant difference in the studied relations in pharmaceutical companies beside non-pharmaceutical companies. It means that there is not a reciprocal and significant relationship between institutional ownership concentration, the level of institutional ownership, and debt policy among the pharmaceutical companies; however, these relationships in non-pharmaceutical companies, except for the level of institutional ownership variable's impact on debt policy, were identified as significant and negative. The absence of a meaningful relationship between the investigated variables in the pharmaceutical companies may be caused by the limited use of debt in the pharmaceutical industry due to the conflict of interests between the owners and creditors, or it may be the result of the lack of informational asymmetry.