Competition

Earnings management has a negative effect on earnings quality and it may weaken validity of financial reports. The main focus of researches about earnings management is why companies manipulate earnings. Pricing power of companies can potentially affect earnings management. Since the relation between product pricing power and earnings management has not been studied in Tehran Stock Exchange, this research tries to find a relation between product pricing power and earnings management and a relation between existing competition in industries and earnings management in Tehran Stock Exchange. The results show that there is not a significant relation between pricing power and earnings management. This is due to the mandatory nature of rules and regulations of product pricing in many internal industries. Also, those companies in more competitive industries may manage earnings in order to limit their competitors in obtaining precise information. The results of the present research show that there is a significant relation between existing competition of industries and earnings management in industries such as vehicle & parts, cement, gypsum & lime, chemicals, main metals, tile & ceramic, machinery & equipment, and pharmaceuticals. On the other hand, the results from the research model indicate no direct relation between the competitive pressure and earnings management.

Globalization is one of the important elements of external environment of the enterprises, that is why it is defined to be the main object of this study. The main signs of globalization in international trade and the qualitative / quantitative changes caused are studied, in particular, attention is paid to the mutual exchange of resources to solve international problems, including environmental ones. The transformation of competitive / monopoly relations under the influence of globalization in the areas of levels of cooperation, the ratio of competition / rivalry, the dependence of competition on innovation, models of competitive behavior are analyzed. The impact of globalization on economic processes of influences redistribution in the markets between residents and nonresidents is investigated, the factors that cause changes in investment activity of nonresidents are identified, namely the direct relationship between changes in the index of economic globalization and the number of foreign enterprises in Ukraine. Based on the research, the identified exogenous factors are complemented by such factors as protection of intellectual property rights and prevention of abuse of intellectual property rights, and endogenous - as a relationship of decisive influence on businesses in specific markets, management awareness of the impact of their transactions on the market and others. It is concluded that globalization does not take into account the national characteristics of individual economies, the resource potential of development, but involves the use of existing benefits, respectively, those who want to become part of it must acquire certain exclusivity, disseminate relevant information, introduce innovation in enterprise management systems, show interest in cooperation with the relevant participant for the development of digitalization, social and economic transformations.

The significance of neighborhood relations in geopolitics cannot be over-emphasized. As a space for neighborhood relations, sport is one of the most effective issues in power, competition, and convergence on national and transnational scales. International competitive sports are useful for remembering people to compare themselves with the other nation’s achievements and capabilities. Meanwhile, the Persian Gulf is the most significant region in the world due to its energy resources and strategic position. Tensions between the regional states have increased, especially between Iran and some Arab states. Most of these tensions have appeared in sport and athletic competitions. Therefore, the emergence of political-geographical rivalry in sports contests can be studied as the geopolitics of sport. This descriptive-analytic paper explained the power aspects in sport and politics from the point of the geopolitics of sport in the Persian Gulf region and studied geopolitical competitions in the region and its interaction in the sporting arena. The results of the research indicate that sports contests can bring sphere of convergence and cooperation and in some cases can provide the increasing and strengthen of tension and competition.

One of the challenging issues for investors and professionals is appropriate models to evaluate financial situation of the firms. In this regard, many models have been extracted by researchers using different financial ratios to resolve these issues. However, choosing a model based on the conditions and users’ needs is complex. The main objective of this study is to identify the effect of contingency variables on the firms’ financial performance forecasting models. The statistical population of the research includes all firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2011-2018, among which 154 firms were selected. The research data were collected from firm's financial statements and other source. Multiple Discriminant Analysis and Logit Regression model were used to test the research hypotheses. According to the results of discriminant analysis, environmental uncertainty and firm size positively improve the predictive power of the firm's financial performance, and business strategy and business competition don’t improve the predictive power of the firm's financial performance. Also, the results of logit regression indicated that environmental uncertainty, business strategy, and firm size improve predictive power of the firm's financial performance; but, business competition don’t improve predictive power of the model. The results of comparing the two methods showed that the Discriminant analysis method outperformed the logistic regression method.

Many scholars believe that the city is a social innovation whose size, location, and internal organization are in terms of "power"; And many changes in the structure and role-playing of the city are due to the mobility of "citizens". The shape and appearance of the city, like the country, represents the pressure from the bottom up. Therefore, urban space processes have very low effects on the whole of politics, especially political development Competitiveness is one of the important issues that has been emphasized in urban literature in recent years and in this regard, different perspectives on the determinants of competitiveness have been presented. As a geographical phenomenon, the city has an effective role in power games and constitutes the most important spatial level of stress, action and competition in the present age. The present fundamental research with descriptive-analytical method express the fact that the necessary fields for their geopolitical study have been provided by creating a competitive environment and promoting the domestic and international competitiveness level of metropolises. Hence, an urban-scale geopolitics has made cities important actors in different geographical areas. The results of this study show that there is a relationship between the effectiveness of the roles of a place and the geographical area with its "power". That is, as the roles have more extensive and in other words the broader function, the power of geographic location increases, like global cities. Indeed, the phenomenon of the city is studied and investigated in various dimensions, with emphasis on the central elements of politics, power and competition.

Background & Purpose: By the advent of video games as an inseparable part of technology and education, the impact of such games on enhancing the level of teamwork has reached an unprecedented attention. The uppermost objective of this study was to investigate the miscellany of aspects influential on the improvement of teamwork among Iranian Air Force freshmen cadets.Methodology: To this end, 50 freshmen cadets participated in this research by playing Counter Terrorist Game in groups of five (10 groups). They were randomly assigned to each of the groups, however, they all were chosen from among volunteers to play the game with no specific randomization (convenience sampling). Each group played four rounds of the game in two consecutive days (each day two rounds) competitively against the computer. After the second day, participants were in depth interviewed about their lived experiences of playing video games with their coursemates utilizing semi-structured questions concerning various aspects of teamwork.Findings: The researchers also observed the participants playing games and employed field notes in order to record the phenomenon under study. The data collected were meticulously transcribed and analyzed and data-driven themes were obtained using NVivo qualitative data analysis software version 12. Conclusion: By conducting this study, it was revealed that there are ten main themes or categories in the context of game playing that can potentially lead towards learning teamwork features. The themes are goal-setting, identity-formation, premeditation, interaction, implementation, leadership, esprit de corps, companionship, trait and tact.

Despite EU’s engagement with the Mediterranean region and its active support for intra-regional integration initiatives, the data shows an impressive underperformance of Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries (SEMCs) in regional trade. Ideally, an energy rich North Africa and energy deficient neighbors in the South would unlock considerable opportunities for regional trade. Therefore, the following question looms large: How has EU’s trade policy contributed to the low market integration among the SEMCs? To answer this question, under the Market Power Europe and qualitative methodology, it is hypothesized that EU’s externalization of policies through different embedded tools such as rules of origin and outward processing schemes (OPS) has contributed to the divergence, instead of convergence, of trade among SEMCs. Research findings point to a distortion of competition between EU enterprises and African and third party enterprises in the benefit of European interests. Further, the results reveal that despite the higher complementarity between some of the SEMCs, still the predominant direction of trade is north-south, thanks to EU’s trade policy in the Mediterranean region.

Sino-US Relations in the Persian Gulf during Obama’s AdministrationAbstract:The Persian Gulf is one of the most important regions of the world that has been vital for the great powers since long time ago, not only for its energy resources but also its strategic location. After the British withdrawal from the region in 1971, the United States filled the vacuum and tried to preserve the status quo during the cold war. Since 1980s China was also attracted by the huge energy resources and the vast market of the region. But in the 21st century and the rise of China as the second largest economy of the world, the importance of the Persian Gulf enhanced in China’s view to manage its energy needs and benefit from its lucrative market and possible bilateral capital investment. This article intends to examine the relationships between China and the United States of America during the Obama’s administration. By using the “Power Cycle Theory” it is concluded that the United States has accepted the Chinese position as the rising power in the Persian Gulf region; and that their relationships were based on collaboration and competition, not confrontation or hostility; which seems to continue in the foreseeable future as well. Key Words: The Persian Gulf, China, The United States, Collaboration, Competition, Confrontation, Hostility.