JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Year:2020 | Volume:11 | Issue:4 |Papers Count:7

Objective: Public issues are a widespread phenomenon and the weakness in their presence has led to inefficiency in government policies. Utilizing a comprehensive and contingent model for identifying public issues enables the country to fully identify priorities and strategies by knowing all the tools for controlling barriers and problems. This study presents a contingency model for the identification public issues in Iran. Methods: In this study, content analysis has been employed, and 16 in-depth interviews with experts are used to answer the research questions. For data analysis, coding is done in three stages of basic, organizing, and pervasive theme network. Then, the designed model is tested by Delphi method Results: The data analysis resulted in 66 basic themes, 24 organizing themes, 6 pervasive themes, and the theoretical model formation has been validated with two rounds of Delphi method. Conclusion: State actors, non-state actors, subject sensitivity, subject area, time course of event occurrence, and event-related costs affect the process of identifying public issues in Iran. Government actors are comprised of the government (executive branch), the Islamic Consultative Assembly (legislature) and constitutional individuals and entities. Non-state actors include stakeholder groups. The sensitivity of the subject includes the negative impact of the subject on community sentiment, unforeseen and critical incident, previous negative public experience, subject strength and aging and environmental issues. Subject area includes geographical extent, number of people involved, public awareness, and issues and consequences of foreign and international activities. The time course of the event includes economic crises, military and terrorist threats, natural or abnormal accidents, long history of problems, social changes and technological breakthroughs. The event-related costs include creating a significant opportunity cost for political decisions, financial damages, life damages and threats to human health, and the negative impact of a situation or phenomenon on people.

Objective: This is an inquiry in agenda setting in Mashhad city council as an example of a local government in Iran. This research is undertaken in order to understand and improve agenda setting in local governments. Methods: Phenomenological hermeneutics and hermeneutic phenomenology (constructivist grounded theory) are used in this research. Results: A dual construct is made for agenda setting in local governments, based on soft periphery and a hard core. The hard inner core constitutes of personal features of policy maker while soft periphery is based on circumstances. There are pre-factors and post factors that embed pre and post effects of an issue when it is set as an agenda. Pre factors include ex-ante evaluation, temporal effects and the likelihood of a bills to pass. Post factors are feedbacks, target population and the issue itself. Conclusion: Agenda setting dynamic in Mashhad city council as a local government differs from existent patterns. Here, the agenda setting process has become individualized due to the lack of a decision support systems and proper feedback.

Objective: The aim of the present qualitative research is identifying the strategic objectives of HRM with the stakeholder approach based on the balanced scorecard and the drawn up strategy map. Methods: The present qualitative research has been conducted with a combined process consisting of seven stages by the thematic analysis of Kish Free Zone Organization. The data was collected through interviews with the stakeholders of the human resource (HR) unit. Results: 187 basic themes, 39 organizing themes, and 12 global themes were identified after transcribing the interviews, including: 1) developing family-centered policies; 2) promoting the well-being, health, and livelihoods of staff; 3) improving the productivity of the HR unit; 4) promoting human dignity of staff; 5) developing an organizational culture based on customer orientation and innovation; 6) empowering employees; 7) developing HR information system; 8) employee strategic recruitment and maintenance; 9) performance management and staff development; 10) strategic transformation of HRM based on the research and process reform; 11) alignment between the allocation and consumption of HR budget and the organizational strategy; and 12) improving the mechanism of the settlement of HR budget. Conclusion: The strategy map was presented using the resulting themes. The application of the HR scorecard in the public sector using the stakeholder approach based on the combined process of the thematic analysis and the construction of the related big narratives has been the main achievement of the research.

Objective: Sectarianism in a workplace is a dysfunctional phenomenon that is disruptive in the process of organizational democracy. The purpose of this study is to discover the essence of this phenomenon in public organizations in Herat province of Afghanistan. Methods: The research strategy was descriptive phenomenology and participants were 24 employees from 16 public organizations in Herat province of Afghanistan, selected through a typical sampling to theoretical saturation. Maxqda software was used to analyze the interviews. Results: The findings of the study showed that the essence of sectarianism in the studied organizations include four categories of sectarian behavioral artifacts as organizing building blocks of this phenomenon: sectarian political behaviors, precedence of sectarian relationships to regulations, discrimination sectarian and leader-member sectarian exchange. Conclusion: Organizational sectarian behaviors in the domain of research are sectarian political behaviors that are favorable for members of the sect, but to the detriment of public interests, which emerge as sectarian and gender-based discrimination. In this phenomenon, through the leader-member sectarian exchange, members of the sect are regarded by the management as ingroup and the others as out-group persons, and thus the in-groups enjoy special interests over other members. For this reason, sectarian relationships are preferred over the regulations.

Objective: This research is aimed at investigating the causes and origins of character assassination in organizations in the city of Khorramabad in Iran. Methods: The research is applied in terms of its purpose and in terms of the method it is both qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative section, the statistical population were senior managers, middle managers, experienced experts and three university professors. Snowball sampling method was used for sampling in qualitative section. The interview method was used to collect information and 25 interviews were conducted based on theoretical saturation rule. In the quantitative part, the aim was to test the quality model designed in a larger society. A researcher-made questionnaire was used for data collection. The statistical population in this section was staff and managers aware of the research topic. Results: According to the results of the qualitative part, the causal conditions of personality assassination were individual factors, organizational and group factors. The pivotal phenomenon of spite was small. The underlying factors of power networks were the perception of injustice and the fear of losing the position. Speech mismatch variables with behavior and reaching higher managers were identified as confounding factors. Behind each other are psychological warfare, destruction of facts, slander and defamation, and attempts to distrust private terror strategies. Consequences of such acts have been divided into three dimensions: individual, organizational and group. Conclusion: In the emergence of character assassination, a collection of personal and personality factors is involved. In order to eliminate this phenomenon, there should be a reformation in both individual and organization personality.

Objective: Although research has been conducted on the impact of voice of employees on job satisfaction consequences such as job performance, organizational commitment, burnout, and turnover, few studies have examined the impact of other variables on the relationship between these variables. Therefore, given the high impact of voice of employees on job satisfaction consequences, it is important to recognize such variables. Therefore, the present study investigates the moderating role of leader-member exchange in the relationship between voice of employees and job satisfaction. Methods: The statistical population includes all managers and non-managers of Central Bank of Saderat Bank with 2063 employees. The sample size at the level of 0. 05 errors was estimated to be 330 and the statistical sample members were selected by stratified random sampling. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire with 23 items that its content and structure validity was confirmed and its reliability was 0. 947. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling with the help of SmartLess software. Results: Findings showed that leader-member exchange increased the positive effect of employee voices on organizational commitment and job performance and its negative impact on organizational turnover and organizational burnout. Also, voice of employees has a positive effect on organizational commitment and job performance, and a negative impact on organizational turnover and analyzing the employees' psychological burnout. Conclusion: This research contributes the need for greater effect of employee voices on job satisfaction consequences through improving the relationships between leaders and employees reinforces.