dentifying and Prioritizing the Effective Components of Sister-City Participation (with Income Approach); the Case of: Provincial Centers Municipalities (Metropolis)

The purpose of the present study is to identify and prioritize the effective com-ponents of sister city participation (with income approach) in the municipality of provincial centers (Metropolis). This study is a qualitative-quantitative research and is an applied one in terms of the purpose. The statistical population of the qualita-tive section of the study consisted of key informants, 20 of who were conducted a semi-structured interview. A total of 80 items were extracted from the analysis of the qualitative data of the research as well as library studies and a researcher-made questionnaire was designed using the five-level Likert scale. In the quantitative section, 163 key informants in metropolitan provincial centers were selected using the judgmental sampling method. Based on the findings of exploratory factor analysis, 5 variables were omitted due to low factor loadings and the 75 remained variables were classified into two economic and socio-political categories and summarized in a few dimensions and components. As such, the 50 variables in the economic category were divided into 9 factors including “foreign investment attraction”, “private sector investment attraction”, “business opportunity em-bedding”, “international entrepreneurship development”, “changing managerial method”, “supportive”, “attention to market”, “responsiveness to shareholders” and “tourism growth”, respectively and in the political-social category 25 variables were summarized in 6 factors including “domestic and foreign political stability”, “ legal, “public participation”, “social exchanges”, “operational” and “staff train-ing”, respectively. In the economic category, “foreign investment attraction” with explaining 64.49% of the variance has been recognized as the most effective eco-nomic factor and in the political-social category the “domestic and foreign political stability” with explaining 11.693% of the variance has been known as the most effective factor in the success of the sister city participation