Understanding the Effective Environmental Conditions on the Performance Evaluation of Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology

Performance evaluation -at any level of organization- is influenced by some environmental factors that are usually less considered. Therefore, recognizing these conditions, paying attention to them and trying to neutralize them will increase the accuracy and precision of the evaluation results. Therefore, considering the importance of performance evaluation in high levels of public administration, this study selected Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology as a case study to identify the effective environmental conditions in evaluating his performance.

Thematic analysis is a method for identifying and analyzing patterns in qualitative data, by which qualitative data is divided, classified, summarized and reconstructed. Thematic analysis is essentially a descriptive strategy that facilitates the search for patterns within qualitative data sets.

The global and organizing themes of the research are as follows: a. Political conditions including politicization, influence of officials and institutions, and stability of position, b. Structure including ministry structure, government structure and system structure, c. Appointments, d. Legal / administrative conditions including lack of authority, and lack of a system for training ministers, e. Public image including acceptance, and reputation, f. society including inappropriate demands, and cultural-social-economic conditions, and g. international conditions including sanctions and international policies.

Considering the importance of performance evaluation of Minister of Science, Research and Technology and the need to increase the validity and reliability of its results, it is suggested that during evaluation, efforts be made to neutralize the effects of environmental conditions obtained in the present study.