Identification and Ranking of Policy Making Dimensions for Improving Staff Training (Case Study of General Tax Office of Mazandaran Province)

The aim of the present research was to identify and rank policy making dimensions for improving staff training in case of Tax office of Mazandaran Province. In terms of purpose, the study was applied with a mixed-methods approach and exploratory design. In the quantitative phase descriptive survey method of inquiry was employed. The population, in the qualitative phase, consisted of managers and experts at the provincial Tax Office of Mazandaran totaling to 20 people. In the quantitative phase the population included 1075 individuals. In the qualitative phase purposive sampling was utilized considering the saturation law which yielded a sample of 10 individuals and in the quantitative phase, following Cochran’s formula, 283 individuals were recruited by using random stratified sampling. To collect the data, a researcher –made questionnaire with 40 items was used. Face and content validity of the instrument were confirmed by experts. Also, the reliability of it was calculated to be over 0.70 using Cronbach’s alpha. In order to analyze the data, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using SPSS 21 and PLS were run. The results indicated that policy making has five dimensions of forethought, strategic vision, knowledge management, planning, and organization structure. Dimension of strategic vision with 0.863 factor loading and organization structure with 0.435 factor loading obtained the highest and lowest ranks respectively.