Dominant concourse about important barriers to promoting coordination in Iranian government machinery

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is, at first, to reveal the present concourse about barriers to coordination in government web then collect the dominant concourse about barriers to alignment along the web of governmental machinery from the perspective of Iranian practitioners and scholars. Strengthening the coordination of government machinery is one of the purposes of the Iranian Government, but one of the important influences on coordination in government is the attitudes and perceptions of governing elites.

Design/methodology/approach

This study combines the strengths of both the qualitative and quantitative research traditions. It entails a set of sequential steps which involve the generation of ideas about the research topics; a sample of statements representative of different views (dominant concourse) was selected from the 107 statements (present concourse) mentioned above based on a two-round Delphi technique.

Findings

The statements of this concourse are organized in two main categories: policy and administrative barriers. Researchers utilized the Delphi technique to identify the 73 most important statements concerning the diversity of opinion within the present concourse.

Research limitations

Generalization of findings is not a major concern of this study, and selection of the sample in this study is not based on random sampling.

Practical implications

The paper includes implications for improving coordination in the Iranian Government. The results of this study have implications for policymakers to reform the government machinery and design mechanism for better performance.

Originality/value

This paper fulfills an identified need to study solutions for removing barriers to coordination in government. It proposed e-government as one mechanism for removing these barriers and strengthening consensus in Iranian Government machinery.

Citation

Nikraftar, T. and Shokri, R. (2014), "Dominant concourse about important barriers to promoting coordination in Iranian government machinery", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 357-373. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-05-2013-0010