Meritocracy Promotion Model in the ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran

Today, meritocracy, as well as employing efficient work forces, is one of the main principles and success factors of organizations for moving towards dynamism and evolution. It, on the one hand, is the requirement and success key of reformations and a condition of survival and durability of political systems and, on the other hand, is one of the basic elements of empowerment of governments, knowledge promotion and management proficiency of every country. The present study, which aims to present a meritocracy system promotion model for govermental organizations of Iran, has been conducted by a descriptive-survey method using questionnaires and semi-structured interview among managers and staff of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. After studying theoretical fundamentals and getting acquainted with meritocracy subject, we prepared an open questionnaire in order to recognize government organizations with regard to meritocracy system situation and to identify its effective factors. The results of the conducted theme analysis with the obtained answers led to the formation of the conceptual model. In the next step, the second questionnaire was designed in order to extract relations among the variables, determine weight coefficients of indexes, and present the research model. After confirming the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, it was distributed among 54 experts who were chosen under certain conditions and through a judgmental method. The results were analyzed based on decision making structure with multiple criteria and lexicographic model. The results indicated that in organizations with a competitive strategy, partnership leadership style, responsive organizational culture, organizational goal of human resource management system, and a semi-centralized decision making method, a more ideal background is provided for the promotion of meritocracy system. Also, organizations that involve participation in the formulation of values and norms, accept meritocracy in public opinion, consider competence as the main standard for the selection of people and dictate employment terms with an equal opportunity will provide a better background for the promotion of meritocracy system.