This study has examined the relationship between profitability of Iran’s banking system and its main determinants including COMPETITIVENESS, FINANCIAL development indicators and other macroeconomic variables such as inflation and income per capita. To this end, the study has specified an econometric profitability model and estimated it by the panel data approach using data of the Iran’s banking system over the period 1996-2005. The investigation has focused particularly on two groups of Iranian banks: 1) private banks such as Eghtesad Novien Bank, Parsian Bank, Karafarin Bank, and Saman Bank, and 2) non-specialized public banks such as Iran Melli Bank, Saderat Bank, Sepah Bank, Tejarat Bank and Mellat Bank.The empirical results for both groups of banks have shown that FINANCIAL development indicators and other explanatory variables have had different effects on profitability. A various indicators of FINANCIAL development as well as bank COMPETITIVENESS have not had significant effect on the profitability of the non-specialized public banks, while income per capita has affected significantly. This result is similar to the private banks where FINANCIAL development does not play a significant role in their profitability enhancement. These findings point out the structural problems of the banking system performance in the country. The implication relies on reforming the banking system toward a more efficient performance of FINANCIAL institutions.

This study aims to develop a native scale of COMPETITIVENESS in Iran's commercial banks. Based on the review of theoretical and empirical literatures, a comprehensive COMPETITIVENESS scale is developed to show the various dimensions of international performance of commercial banks.The validity of the scale is confirmed by 50 experts. The information of the scale is collected using a sample of 300 questionnaires distributed among officers of commercial banks working at international departments of Iran's commercial banks.The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows. 1. The main determinants of native scale for measuring the performance of international departments of commercial banks are FINANCIAL and non-FINANCIAL performance, respectively. 2. the Non-FINANCIAL performance is confirmed in the international departments of all commercial banks. Moreover, the FINANCIAL performance of international departments in the Melli, Saderat, Mellat and Sepah Banks is approved while the FINANCIAL performance is not confirmed in the Tejarat Bank.

Nowadays, corporate strategies are one of the prominent competitive tools of managers to strengthen the competitive position of companies. Considering the influence of functional, governance, and working capital in reaching competitive strategies and the use of systematic and innovative methods in the design of these strategies is inevitable. The purpose of this study is to explain the factors of FINANCIAL and accounting COMPETITIVENESS strategies in Tehran Stock Exchange companies, using Total Interpretative Structural Interpretation (TISM). The methodology of this research is descriptive due to data obtaining and practical due to its aims, and is a combination of extended analysis and Total Interpretative Structural Interpretation (TISM). In this two-phase, qualitative and quantitative study, at first ten elites of the scientific community of accounting participated in determining the checklist of related companies' competitive strategies. Accordingly, three functional, governmental, and working capital strategies were approved in 19 indexes and entered the Delphi analysis phase. In Delphi analysis, six indicators were also eliminated based on average criteria and agreement coefficient and the total indices in Delphi's second round were reduced to 13 indicators. Then, in the second part of the research, 30 participants of the stock market brokers and analysts participated in seven stages of TISM. The results showed that the three indicators, including increasing the volume of transactions as a functional strategy, strengthening the independence of the board of directors as a strategy of governance, and the efficiency of current liabilities as the strategy of working capital are the most effective indicators of the competitive strategies of companies. It was also found that the reduction of operational costs as the indicator of corporate performance strategy was the least effective factor in the company's competitive strategy.

In this study a model based on Constant Market Share (CMS) is presented in order to be applied by bank top mangers due to obtaining a proper method to appraise region managers performance. The mentioned method make the macro elements of variation in deposits and facilities into their phenomenon which causes them. A holistic view is that considering three major factors vary the amount of deposits and facilities which are: 1. Effects caused by FINANCIAL and monetary policies that bank cannot have and sort of influence on them, 2: those provincial effects mainly are traits of an specific area, bank is not able to make intangible change on them, 3: making competitive advantages, it indicate the extant of region manager’s effort. This research is going to separate the three aforesaid effects then apply the method in an Iranian private bank. Results show that region managers have not has better performance comparing other competitors.

COMPETITIVENESS is considered as a key criterion for appraising the degree of success for countries, industries and enterprises in the political, economic and commercial competition areas. Research findings show that COMPETITIVENESS has been discussed in three levels of national, industry and enterprise (organization or company). Among all these levels, the enterprise level seems to be more considerable. In this study enterprise COMPETITIVENESS has been viewed from two main perspectives: construct and behavioral. According to construct perspective, COMPETITIVENESS includes two groups of factors which are composing and affecting factors. Based on behavioral perspective an enterprise faces two types of factors in its decisions and actions which are strategic and operational ones. As a result of literature review, summarization and complementary edition, totally 28 factors have been identified as COMPETITIVENESS factors ({16 composing f. and 12 affecting f.} and {15 strategic f. and 13 operational f.}). A questionnaire has also been developed based on these factors. The findings show that in Iranian business context, all COMPETITIVENESS factors of enterprises are highly important but very weak.