Looking At the Decline of Social Capital in Iran

Many researches show that the decline of social capital is a phenomenon that is common and most of the world's countries have experienced it. This research aims to identify factors affecting the decline of social capital. To this Purpose, in a qualitative research, university professors and citizens have been selected as population. 12 professors and 8 of the citizens have been selected by Purposive method as sample. The data collection tools are interview and focus group. Collected data is analyzed using the theme analysis method. The results of the research show that in sum 94 factors contribute to the decline of social capital. The identified factors are categorized into four dimensions including social (44 factors), political (28 factors), economic (15 factors) and technological (10 factors). Among the identified factors, the increase of individualism with frequency of 7 and weaknesses in performance of managers with a frequency of 6 have been identified as the most important factors affecting the decline of social capital.