نشریه مطالعات مدیریت دولتی ایران
سال دوم شماره 3 (پیاپی 5، پاییز 1398)

This study examines the phenomenon of resistance to change from the perspective of personality theory and leadership style and its purpose is to investigate the impact of transformational and servant leadership styles on employees' resistance to change. It, as well, examines the moderating role of managers' Machiavellian personality in this relationship. The data related to these variables were collected through standard questionnaires from the sample of the statistical population of employees and managers of public organizations in Ahvaz by voluntary non-probability sampling method. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the evaluation and comments of experts and professors, and its reliability was confirmed by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Correlation analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data and test the research hypotheses. The results of data analysis show that transformational leadership style has a significant negative effect on employees' resistance to change, whereas this effect is negative but non-significant in servant leadership style. Moreover, the results show that the machiavellian personality of managers strengthens the negative impact of transformational and servant style on resistance to change. So, the effect of servant leadership style on resistance to change has been negatively influenced by manager Machiavelli's personality.

The purpose of this study is to present a model for formulating organizational systems. For this research, a value-based, military organization was selected and studied using qualitative Content Analysis Method. At the first step, the characteristics of desirable systems were determined from the perspective of the senior executives of the organization. Next, 12 professional and academic experts were selected and interviewed using judgmental and snowball sampling. They were asked to describe the basics of system design based on their characteristics. Interviews were analyzed based on qualitative Content Analysis Method. Finally, 173 codes, 12 categories, and 3 themes were extracted which altogether form the ecosystem of systems. Based on the research findings, the interaction and synergy between the three environmental, formalistic, and thematic dimensions of the systems, which extracted as three main themes, improve the systems’ functionality and add value to them.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of place attachment on environmental behavior of employees with the mediating role of alternative and cycle behaviors and green nudge. This research is descriptive, using a survey method. The sample consists of 189 employees in Department of Environment of Semnan Province selected randomly. Partial Least Squares method was used to analyze the data. Findings verify the validity and reliability of research instrument. The reliability coefficient is higher than 0.7 for all research constructs. Results show that place attachment has a positive and significant effect on employees' environmental behaviors. There is also a positive and significant effect of place attachment on variables of alternative and cycle behaviors of employee and green nudge. As well, alternative and cycle behaviors of employee and green nudge have a positive and significant effect on employees' environmental behaviors. Finally, green nudge and alternative and cycle behaviors do not mediate the relationship between place attachment and environmental behaviors of employees.

Without measuring governance, it is extremely difficult to talk about improvement. Public policy-making is the tool of governments in governing various areas of society. Policies that are formulated and implemented to solve problems and meet public needs can only achieve their ultimate goal of public interest if they are of good quality in the process of agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Knowing the quality of policies in each of these stages requires accurate and valid measuring tools and metrics. This will be doubly important when it comes to the cultural sphere of the society. In this study, based on the evaluation model of the cultural policymaking process and using the ten-step methodology of designing the measures of Ruther and Jones, and a survey of 10 active experts in the field of culture, a questionnaire for measuring the quality of cultural policies has been designed. The scale, containing 55 questions, has made it possible to measure the quality of cultural policies in five dimensions: problem-identification, solution-taking, legitimization, implementation and evaluation. The problem-identification dimension has a component called cultural excellence with four indicators: deepening of religious and value beliefs, social development, identity-creating and insight-giving. The legitimization dimension has a component of cultural support with two indicators: persuasiveness and legal protection. The implementation dimension has the component of cultural policy-making which includes soft contextualization with indicators like commitment and the potency of the administrators. Finally, the evaluation dimension has the component of cultural monitoring with indicators like, purposeful, continuous, and realistic monitoring.

Creating a competitive atmosphere to attract capable and creative human resources enriches the pool of soft and executive skills of organizations, and enhances organizational competencies. Every new employee who enters the organization brings new thoughts and special abilities to the organization. The pool of thoughts and skills is formed by a good combination of abilities and skills of human resources. Due to the importance of creating a competitive environment for attracting skillful human resources and the importance of holding public sector’s positions as well, this study, using a qualitative research strategy and qualitative grounded-theory methodology, aims at designing a comprehensive model for improving competition in employment at public sector, inspired from the sports clubs. For this purpose, 15 experts were interviewed. This research is fundamental in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of methodology. The study conducted in two stages of real coding and theoretical coding using Glaser approach and data coding. In the process of real and theoretical coding, 245 codes, 7 components and 3 categories were identified which led to the emergence of the final model. The findings of this research introduces a model for creating competition in employing managers and employees in public sector containing three categories of creating a competitive atmosphere, employing competitive factors, and the standards of holding positions, and seven components of contractual employment, creating a surplus list, termination of contracts, comprehensive information and valuation system, determining time interval of replacement, determining performance standards, and the importance of having a coach.

Despite the emphasis on the use of elite human resources in decision taking and implementation of decisions public organizations, in practice, a significant number of managers, at different levels for different reasons and with different strategies, evade employing and effectively interacting with elites. This exploratory-applied research has been conducted with a mixed approach aimed at exploring the elite-evasion strategies of managers in Iranian public organizations. In the qualitative phase, the required data were collected through a literature review, and semi-structured interviews as well with 15 experts public organizations of Hamadan. The interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. In quantitative phase, according to Fuzzy Delphi Methodology and using random sampling, 108 experts out of 153 were selected. Expert opinions were summarized and articulated in order to rank the overall strategies, as well as the strategies associated with each person of elites in Hamadan public organizations. The questionnaires were analyzed using SWARA methodology. Findings show that managers use 39 strategies which can be categorized as 4 general strategies in order of priority: individual, managerial, organizational, and occupational.