Designing and Explaining of Pattern for Antecedents of Virtuous Organization at Public Universities in Yazd Province

Organizational virtue is one of the new concepts of an organization that has received positive psychology. Researches in this area encompasses prominent behaviors in the organization, which themselves lead to positive outcomes. The purpose of this study was to design and explain pattern for antecedents of virtuous organization at public universities in Yazd province

The present research is an"exploratory mixed methods research".First, the qualitative research method of "focus group" has been semi-structured interviews with faculty members of eight Yazd province universities in three sessions, 1.5 hours each.The data obtained from the interviews and literature were analyzed by the method of thematic analysis. Then the model was tested with a questionnaire and a sample of 285 employees from the public universities of Yazd province using Lisrel 8.8 software.

Three key factors influencing the organization of virtue were identified by the focus group and literature research and exploratory factor analysis including organizational factors; a)structure and process; organizational culture; leadership; existential philosophy of the organization, b) individual factor including: individual characteristics of employees, individual characteristics managers and c)environmental factor including socio-economic factor and legal factor). After testing the conceptual model, all the antecedents had an appropriate factor load and the model was confirmed. Also, by examining the results of the structural equation test, the organizational factor had a greater coefficient (0.74), which had the highest impact on the organization of virtue. However, the leadership factor, under organizational factor and the individual factor i.e. individual characteristics of managers and staffs have a relatively low factor load.

Considering that the organizational factor is the most important factor in organizational virtue, organizations must pay more attention to hire of virtuous people. Theissue of educating and institutionalizing virtues in the university staffs is very important.