Presenting a Model for Identifying the Factors and Components of Sustainable Development in the Iron and Steel Industry by Fuzzy DEMATEL and Grounded Data Techniques

The purpose of this study is to provide a model to identify the factors and components of sustainable development of the iron and steel industry using grounded data and fuzzy DEMATEL techniques.

The present study is descriptive in terms of purpose (qualitative and quantitative), exploratory in terms of identifying components, and cross-sectional in terms of time. The study population in the qualitative section included senior managers and academics with a history of sustainable development and in the quantitative section, the statistical population included senior industry managers and university professors. To determine the priority of components, two groups were formed. Statistical sample, in the qualitative stage, was formed using purposive judgmental sampling of 15 university and industry experts to extract a conceptual model to localize the model and check the content validity of the model and factors by grounded data technique. In the quantitative stage, due to the use of research techniques in operations and the fuzzy DEMATEL method to prioritize and identify the most effective and influential model factors, seven experts were selected from seniors of the community. Industry and university professors were selected. These people had master's and Ph.D. degrees and more than 15 years of work experience. In order to collect information by reviewing the research literature and consulting experts, the factors were identified by the grounded data technique. It was also used to collect the necessary data during the research through interviews and a pairwise comparison questionnaire. The validity of the assessment tool in the qualitative part, which is the use of semi-structured interviews, was done through face validity and observing the interview protocols, and in the quantitative part, Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the validity of the questionnaire. According to this method, the reliability of all research variables was more than 0.7. The number of statistical samples of the research included 15 interviewees in the first qualitative part (using grounded data) and seven in the quantitative part (Fuzzy DEMATEL).

In the first stage of the qualitative section, the categories were summarized with Maxqda software and 6 main factors, 13 sub-factors, and 46 concepts were identified. Then, using the fuzzy DEMATEL technique, the 13 factors of importance, effectiveness, and susceptibility were extracted, respectively. The most influential included "macro-management of iron and steel industry, economic and political conditions, market management, financial management, integrated resource management, environment", respectively and the most influential of all was "society and production".

Based on the results obtained to achieve organizational productivity, the organization should pay attention to the factor of steel production in the sustainable development of the steel and iron industry. "Steel industry macro-management factor" is also the most influential factor in the sustainable development of the steel and iron industry.