The Study of Development Barriers in West Azerbaijan province Based on Private and Public Sector Executive’s Viewpoint: Grounded Theory Approach

The purpose of this study is to provide a semantic interpretation of the reasons for the underdevelopment of West Azarbaijan province based on the individual narratives and personal experiences of 32 senior organizational executives in the province as well as in-depth interviews with business executives and industry practitioners through a GroundedTheory method. According to the results, the management failures in public and private sector are the main reason of under-development in West Azerbaijan province. Therefore, the backwardness of the West Azerbaijan province is mainly rooted in the political and social contexts in the governing of the province rather than the party, individual, or group reasons. These results point to the inevitable need to pay close attention to solve the governing problems of the province and to create synergistic interaction between different public and private sectors, managers, academia and research and development units. In addition, the results addresses 5 main reasons for underdevelopment in West Azerbaijan province: 1) The weakness of the internal management in the province 2) management weakness among the industrial owners 3) The weakness of macro management in the country 4) Cultural issues in the province and 5) Geographic characteristics of the province. Some of the practical solutions for promoting the development in this province are proposed in this study.