The Components of Empowering Middle Managers of Education in Iran: A Qualitative Study

The present research was conducted in order to develop a model for empowering middle managers of education in Iran. In the first stage, concepts related to human resource empowerment were extracted by studying related literature. Then, a qualitative study (semi-structured interviews) was used in order to identify the effective factors related to empowering managers. 21 well-informed experts and managers in the field of human resources (management specialists, managers of education departments, researchers) were selected purposefully in order to identify indicators and factors affecting the ability of middle managers in the education system. They participated individually in face-to-face interviews. Thematic analysis method was used to analyze the content of the interviews. In this way, after implementing the content of the interviews, open coding was carried out using MAXQDA 2022 software. The content of each interview was read line by line and coded. In the second stage, after categorizing the open codes, finally, 22 categories and 7 themes were extracted and the model of empowerment of middle managers of education was developed. The extracted themes are as follows: The priority of education in macro policies, appointment based on merit, delegation of authority, organizational attachment and belonging, agency and sense of influence, metacognition and self-regulation, competence and appropriateness. In this article, along with explaining the themes and categories, the relative advantages of the mentioned model have been discussed.