Interpretive Structural Modeling of Divisiveness Antecedents in Government Organizations

Abstract

Objective: Dynamics and complexity are important and prominent features of today's organizations and examining the factors affecting on divisiveness in them is of great importance. As a result, the present study was conducted an interpretive structural modeling of the divisiveness antecedents in government organizations. Methodology: This study in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was cross-sectional. The population of the present research was managers with high experience in government organizations and experts familiar with the research field, which according to the principle of theoretical saturation number of 12 people of them were selected as samples with using purposive and snowball sampling methods. The instrument of the present study was semi-structured interview with managers and experts and the completion of a questionnaire based on them by managers and experts, which whose psychometric indicators were reviewed and confirmed. The data were analyzed with using content analysis and interpretive structural modeling methods in PLS software. Findings: The findings of the present research showed that divisiveness antecedents in government organizations had 15 main concepts in 4 categories of centralized structure (with four concepts of profit-seeking personality, extreme complexity, power concentration and heterogeneous policies and strategies), secretive personality (with three concepts of deceptive personality, laxity towards beliefs and values and flattering personality), duplicitous managers and leaders (with four concepts of sessional managers, passive managers, unreasonable self-confidence and autocratic managers) and politicized culture (with four concepts of perceived injustice, non-responsive managers, evasion of responsibility and nepotism). Also, the concepts of profit-seeking personality, deceitful personality, flattering personality, unreasonable self-confidence, autocratic managers, perceived injustice, evasion of responsibility and nepotism were at the first level, the concepts of extreme complexity, sessional managers, passive managers and non-responsive managers were at the second level and the concepts of power concentration, heterogeneous policies and strategies and laxity towards beliefs and values ​​were at the third level. Finally, an interpretive structural model of the divisiveness antecedents in government organizations was drawn. Conclusion: According to the results of the present research, organizational experts and planners can exploit the results of this study and use the identified concepts and categories to reduce divisiveness.