Investigation of Nepotism in Public Sector Organizations in Iran and its Impact on Employee's Performance

Due to dominant culture in the countries in transition, one of the issues to be investigated in these countries is the phenomenon of nepotism in the organizations which, as an environmental factor, could affect the employees’ performance. This study attempts to examine the functions of nepotism in Iranian public sector organizations and evaluate its impact on employees'' performance. Research methodology of this study is descriptive- survey. Thus, after an overview on theoretical bases and for the aim of collecting the required data, 150 questionnaires were distributed among administrative employees of Zahedan Municipality. Our findings showed that nepotism is a challenging issue that affects the performance of employees in the administrative systems of Iranian public sector. It was also found that nepotism, as an environmental factor, has made the performance of organization to be consistent with it, through overcoming intra-organizational factors.