غلامرضا ابراهیم آبادی

Given the environmental conditions governing it, its stakeholders' expectations and its organizational mission and in the context of supplying and distribution of water and safe disposal of wastewater, the water and wastewater sector needs to grow and develop in parallel to the changes in environmental conditions. For this reason identifying the development condition of the water and wastewater sector is a necessity in the context of targeting plans and strategies from the aspect of sectorial management and senior management. This research was undertaken to identify the level of development of the water and wastewater companies (35 companies) from the aspect of the different indicators specific to the water and wastewater industry in the context of clarifying the economic plans and to enhance and improve operational activities. In the course of the study, after identifying 18 indicators, the exploratory factor analysis was undertaken and the number of indicators was reduced to 5 significant factors. Then the combined indicator was calculated according to the weight of factors and the entire sector was classified. In continuation and by applying the hierarchal clustering method the development levels of water and wastewater companies were categorized on the basis of 5 factors in three homogenized groups of development. The study's results indicate an unbalanced and non-homogenous level of development in the sector, with some companies failing to achieve the desirable level of development and needing greater attention and planning to improve the developmental conditions.

Improving governance and its quality is main concern of reforms for achieve development in today's world. In the meantime decentralization is one of the main ways to improve the quality of governance. In the islamic republic of Iran, and in accordance with the articles of the Constitution, the Islamic city and village councils are the main trustees of decentralization. But investigating the genesis and transformation process of the councils and ultimately legacy left by these councils anticipats its defective institutional cycle towards more centralization, confiscation of powers and transformation of the character of local government, So with any reforms decreased part of the aura of authority that was given to this local governance until finally transform the council into a digestible and inefficient institution in the body of the existing administrative system. This inefficient institutional legacy has led to efforts for the next reforms were just reproduce and reconfigure the same path that the previous rules were determined. As a result, the inefficiency of the councils in decentralization becomes a chronic phenomenon and depending on the predetermined path . This paper with utilizing qualitative method and within the framework of historical institutionalism addresses this main question that why and how did the city and village Islamic councils fail to decentralization ?

Major investments and high operational expenditure are the special characteristics of the water and wastewater industry in the context of organizational mission. Planning the production and improving the efficiency of production factors by quantitative models are among the conventional methods in the management of investments, costs and financial resources. This research aimed to identify the share and elasticity of the urban water production factors and partial and total productivity in the context of production planning. The data used are panel data according to size of production and production factors (labor, capital stock and energy). The data on 34 urban waters and wastewater companies in the period of 2006-2016 (374 samples) were used and the fixed effect econometric method was applied to estimate the Cobb – Douglas production function. The results indicated that in the water and wastewater industry the elasticity of the labor, the capital and the energy was 0.32, 0.42, and 0.21, respectively. The research findings showed that the productivity of capital and energy as well as the total factor productivity declined in the years 2015 and 2016 while the efficiency of labor remained constant. The findings can be used by the top management of the industry as a strong tool for strategic planning of production of a high level of reliability.

In the context of evaluating performance organizations apply the conventional techniques of analyzing indicators and quantitative and biased parameters. Although these methods provide useful information, but due to exclusion of some indicators, no clear and thorough image of the performance is provided and the results often lack the definite validity. The economic indicators cover different sets of performance. Therefore, application of scientific models to evaluate performance will have a great impact on evaluations as well as on clarifying the targeted policies and decisions. This research was undertaken to identify the economic performance of Water and Wastewater Companies on the basis of economic indicators and scientific models and in the context of divisional and top management decision making in the sector. After selecting the efficient economic indicator and setting their weights by Shannon Entropy Model, the performance of urban Water and Wastewater Companies were classified in 4 independent groups from the point of view of economic indicators by applying the statistical clustering method (hierarchal approach). Then the economic performance of the Water and Wastewater Companies were graded in the clusters with the aim of modeling and specifying plans to improve and enhance them. The results underlined the efficiency of quantitative models in generating definite data with high degree of reliability for strategic management and in particular for making decisions on planning and management control.

Nowadays, cost and quality are considered two basic factors which contribute to a competitive advantage in the industry. Hence, in recent years, there has been much interest in examining the relationship between these two competitive advantages, especially in leading industries such as public utilities. Such that, the increase in the competitiveness of these companies has increased the importance of focusing on reducing production costs as well as increasing the quality of services. On the other hand, manufacturers always try to reduce production costs and also maintain the quality of products and services at the level of consumer expectations. Therefore, in this research in the water and wastewater industry, firstly, the most important factors for creating cost of quality are identified and ranked by using the Fuzzy AHP algorithm and the Fuzzy TOPSIS. Also, appropriate solutions have been proposed along with quality cost stimulus factors. The results show that the most costly variable in the quality of the water and wastewater industry is the evaluation cost (36.5%). Other quality costs are, External defeat (28.9%), internal defeat (22.3%), and prevention (12.2%).

The water and wastewater considered as one of capital intensive industrials in Iran because it has 436 thousand milliard rial in fixed asset, 32.8 million rial in monopolistic market and the share of 0.05 % in GDP. The statistics showed that there is approximately 22 % of facilities and equipment in industrial production process as uncompleted projects. The need for macro investment, the limited financial resources and pricing, the government credits problems, the crises of water shortage, environmental pollutions and …these are reasons for special attention to optimal use of investment resources in water and wastewater sector. Identification of the lost opportunities in uncompleted projects and planning for completion and proper use of these projects have significant effects on the optimal allocation of resources that it is essential for wealth creation and public capital formation in order to the facilities development and promotion of water and wastewater standards. On basis of the goal, this study is identified the lost opportunities and economic impacts in uncompleted projects by using of economic technical approach in period of 2000-2014. Results indicated that the economic factors have a significant share in opportunity cost of uncompleted projects (338581 milliard rial) that it can be the valuable guide for senior management and industry sector in order to the production promotion , the completion of uncompleted projects and efficiently and effective of activities.

The studies of ethnic boundaries, as one of the important areas of ethnic studies specifically after Friedrich Barth Studies on ethnographic case studies and his famous introduction to the study entitled "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" began in 1969; since then this issue has been studied in a variety of approaches and perspectives. In the contemporary world and in the context of developments such as the communication and information and dissemination of globalization that somehow lead to a change in the scope and functions of government power - nations and ethnic awareness, taking the concept of ethnic boundaries into considerations has been increased more than before. This article, utilizing qualitative and descriptive - analytical study, has attempted to investigate the concept of ethnic boundaries, relevant opinions and perspectives in the contemporary era.

Today, the rapid and accelerating developments in the regional and international levels have caused countries to move towards greater integration and cooperation. This, in turn, triggered a new coalitions or alliances and strengthens old alliances, or even weaken. The emerging economic powers (Brics) is one of these alliances and institutions that began its activities in 2009. The aim of the new global architecture, quickly became an institution of international. This article within the qualitative approach sought to answer this question: What is the current position of the emerging economic powers (Brics) in the international system, and What perspective can be expected for it? Research findings indicate that Brics has gained a few in the West and would create new economic powers and also slowly stepped into the security issues and international politics. Fixes some vulnerabilities and challenges ahead, the entity will be able to have an important role in modifying the structure of the international system.

The augmentation of the Parliamentary District Elections with the provincial electoral check has been one of the most controversial issues of the past recent years. First proposed in 1989, this issue has received mixed reactions from critics and representatives of various factions inside the legislative body of the country. However, despite nearly long history of its continued discussions, this scheme has been unable to gain momentum in being changed into law due to its overall Inconsistency with the general principals of democracy and decentralization. Critics believe that such a scheme may open the way to the possible electoral dictatorship or end up with low turn out in parliamentary elections. This article is an attempt in examining in a descriptive-analytic way one of the most important aspects of this scheme, namely its relationship with ‘the representation's responsibility' of the MPs.

National unity is one of the components of national power and security which has been always a subject for study by thinkers in the field of political sociology and also has been interested by statesmen in different countries. This issue has attracted more attention in recent decades due to the factors such as fall of colonial system and formation of new nationstates; collapse of the Easter bloc; intensification of ethnic disputes in somecountries; globalization; and finally increase in international migrations. One of the subjects which is closely related to national unity is "national identity". National identity is one of the most fundamental elements and a necessary precondition for achieving national unity and solidarity. Since Iran is among the countries that has always, during its long history, been faced with the preservation and strengthening of national unity and solidarity, this article tries to explain relationship between these two concepts in Iran drawing upon a historical sociology approach. To do this, two periods in ancient and modern history of Iran characterized by rise and fall of national unity in Iran were studied.

Finding the inevitable destructive effects of corruption to achieve in the stable development and good governance, it is considered to control it as the major government objectives. Therefore the first step should be taken to give an effective strategy to control is analysing the corruption in a society.The corruption which has the historical background in Iran, that led to Islamic revolution in Pahlavi dynasty, is expanding to the different financial, bureaucratic and political kinds which causes the serious damage to the achievement in developing, democracy and good governance in the country. Moreover; the intensive integrated corruption in Iran is so quickly expanding that will be known as a chronic disease in the near future. Consequently, analysing or representing the corruption status in Iran is the main concern of this paper.