Social Development and Welfare Planning
Year:2013 | Volume:4 | Issue:13|Papers Count:8

The present study aimed at examining Iranians attitudes towards cooperation and cooperatives. It was a survey research and the sampling method was simple random sampling for the selection of provinces and cities and quota sampling for the selection of respondents based on their job categories. The sample volume size was determined using Cochran 1550 formula. The characteristics of the statistical population were analyzed based on questionnaires of a required validity. The results indicated that generally, the level of knowledge of respondents was lower than average. The majority of respondents had a positive attitude towards cooperation and cooperatives. The mean of respondents individualism was less than average; the mean of fatalism was more than average; the mean of foresight was less been less than average; and the mean of novelty was less than average among them. The respondents mean score in answering social capital questions was less than average.There is no significant difference between men and women attitudes towards cooperation and cooperatives. The older the respondents were, the more positive their attitudes towards cooperation and cooperatives became. Married people have a more positive attitude towards cooperation and cooperatives. Urban people had a more positive attitude towards cooperation and cooperatives as compared to rural people. The more individualistic people were, the less positive their attitude towards cooperation would be. There is no significant relationship between other personality traits, such as fatalism, foresight and novelty, and their attitude towards cooperation.There is a direct and significant relationship between the level of people s social capital and their positive attitude towards cooperation. This relationship is more noticeable in social participation as compared to trust. The multivariable regression showed that the two variables of individualism and social capital explained 27% of changes in respondents attitudes. The effect of individualism on the attitude towards cooperation was - 25% and that of social capital was 15%. Therefore, according to the regression model, the degree of individualism has a negative and indirect effect and the degree of social capital has a direct and significant effect on having positive attitude towards cooperation and cooperatives.

In designing developments plans, considering women and family issues is a required policy. Having a critical look at former development plans in Iran is one of the necessary pre-conditions for designing local models of developments. The present paper first reviews the literature of development and then, with an emphasis on the issue of family and women, analyzes the discourse of third, fourth and fifth developments plans. Hybrid discourse analyses are done with Laclau and Mouffe and Fairclough approaches. The third and fourth development plans are attributed to the reformist discourse and the fifth development plan is attributed to the conservative discourse.The emphasis of reformist discourse is on the signs of reforms, political development and civil society. In contrast, the emphasis of conservative discourse is on other signs, including: constitutional law, economic development, justice, moral and religious values, and independency. In the domain of gender development, the reformist discourse adopts a mixture of empowering, gender and development approaches. However, the conservative discourse has a critical look at the main approaches in development theories and tries to define local theories of women and family issues with an approach of familism.

The present paper aimed to anthropologically examine the culture if living I apartments in the city of Hamedan. The theoretical framework for this study is the anthropology of space and place by Amos Rapoport. The studied field included three residential complex of Saidiyyeh, Madani and Bu Ali in the city of Hamedan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the key informants, including the board of directors, watchmen, service men and 40 residents of the three complexes. The methodology applied in this study was ethnographic fieldwork. The data was collected through interviews and direct observation and was analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method. Findings show that due to excessive migration from villages and small cities to the center of province, living in apartments has become more common and at the same time, its related issues and problems have risen up. Un-balanced and un-planned development of living in apartments leads to behavioral, interactional and cultural problems which are the characteristics of living in apartments in Hamedan.

The present study aimed to identify factors affecting the social participation of shopkeepers in Tehran historical texture (Region 12) in urban projects (building pedestrian ways). It was a quantitative-survey research and the data was collected through questionnaires. Using stratified random sampling method, 155 subjects were selected from among shopkeepers in the region 12 of Tehran. The theoretical framework of this research was a mixture of viewpoints of Parsons, Homans, Lerner, Dahl, Emerson, Lipest, Giddens and Coleman in the field of social participation and the viewpoints of Luhman, Offe, Paxton and Giddens in the field of social trust. For collective memory, the viewpoints of Durkheim, Halbwachs and Ric ur.The present paper aimed at explaining the relationship between social participation (depending variable) and categories such as collective memory, economic incentive, social trust and relationship (main variables) and the type of job, ownership and location of shop, educational degree and income (subsidiary variables). The results of Pearson Correlation Test showed that there was a significant relationship between the mentioned variables (except the variable of ownership) and the degree of participation. The results of the multivariate test also indicated that independent variables explained 59% of depending variable variance and the variable of economic incentive is of a more contribution among them. Generally, the conclusion was that the social participation among shopkeepers in the historical texture of Tehran is identified as an effective element in the social environment and shopkeepers have an appropriate understanding of the importance of their social participation in the place of their business.

Internet, as a media, with an astounding growth in recent years has had significant impacts on human social life. The present paper aimed to investigate the role of internet on users social capital in cyberspaces and non cyberspaces. The bonding and bridging dimensions of social capital in cyberspaces and non cyberspaces were focused. It was a survey study and the research instrument was questionnaire. 313 subjects were selected by stratified random sampling method from among the students of Shahid Chamran University. The results showed that there was a significant and positive relation between duration of using Internet and societal using of Internet with social capital (bonding/bridging) in cyberspaces. There was also a significant and negative relation between duration of using Internet and social capital (bonding/bridging) in non cyberspaces. There was no significant relation between societal using of Internet and social capital (bonding/bridging) in non cyberspaces. Moreover, there was a negative and significant relation between social capital in cyberspaces and that of non cyberspaces. It indicates that increase in social capital in cyberspace leads to decrease in social capital in non cyberspace.

Development of entrepreneurship in society is possible only if supported by government and public organizations. The fact is that public organizations can help the effective promotion of entrepreneurship, if they, themselves, be entrepreneurs. Therefore, entrepreneurship is not only considered as a solution to business challenges, but also is regarded as one of the important modern parameters of administrating public sector. Based on this parameter, the theory of Entrepreneurial government is presented. Focusing on the entrepreneurship variable and entrepreneurs as development origins for societies and organizations, the present paper aimed to investigate the modeling of barriers to organizational entrepreneurship in Refah banks. First the literature of entrepreneurship was reviews and then three internal, environmental and consequential variables were determined at barriers to organizational entrepreneurship in Refah banks. A questionnaire including 44 questions were developed at 4 stages and its reliability coefficient was calculated 0.85. Using the stratified random sampling method, the questionnaires were given to 223 subjects selected from among 528 employees of Refah banks in Mazandaran province. The study was a library and fieldwork and the collected data was analyzed using SPSS and Liseral software. The results showed that all the three mentioned variables were proved as effective barriers and in each of them, there were some factors more threatening to the organization.

Basically, the process of theory building, whether qualitative or quantitative, requires several observations. In the cycle of science production, there is an obvious link between theory and method; i.e.theorization is a result of continuous interaction between observations, explaining them and new observations to explain the former ones. The theories based on fieldworks are to discover and argue the field data which is collected by the researcher who had been present in the field of research. In fieldworks, the researchers are in close contact with the studied phenomenon. If they add participation to their observations and identify themselves with the studied phenomenon, then they will be able to prepare the ground for a deep understanding of it.The methodology of the book Anthropology of Helping3 is indicative of a special scientific style in presentation of findings by the author. To present his findings, the author, as an anthropologist, frequently resorts to comparison and argumentation. He starts with argumentation and then continues with comparison. He uses his basic observations (resulted by living among rural people) for theory building and then, using his subsequent observations (resulted by fieldworks and library studies) he tests the theories. Meanwhile, to make his findings organized and easy to understand, he leaves abstractness and proves them using objective observations. Explanation of abstract concept using objective examples helps the readers to better understand the theoretical findings.