A Strategic Model of the Role of Government in Promoting Social Capital in Government Organizations Using Institutional Theory

Today, the legitimacy of government organizations is declining, and organizations must adapt to normative, coercive, and imitative pressures to maintain legitimacy and credibility in the institutional environment. Promoting social capital in government organizations can facilitate adaptation to their development environment. The purpose of this study is to provide a strategic model of the role of government in promoting social capital using institutional theory. The present study was developmental-applied in terms of purpose and was conducted in two stages: qualitative and quantitative. At the qualitative stage, 29 experts were interviewed semi-structured and based on the results of content analysis, 11 main strategies and 77 sub-strategies were identified. Then, the strategies were divided into three groups based on institutional theory: imitation, forced and normative homology. Also, in a quantitative step to validate the research model, confirmatory factor analysis was used, for which 202 managers and human resources specialists of the Ministry of Energy were polled using a questionnaire. The results showed that the coefficient of determination of forced deformation is 0.685, normative deformation is 0.744 and imitation deformation is 0.725, which are appropriate values. The results showed that by using social capital promotion strategies to address the pressures of the institutional environment, the credibility and legitimacy of government organizations can be improved.