Human Resource Management in the Public Sector: An Investigation into the Iranian Ministries

The majority of human resource management (HRM) studies, to date, are devoted to the developed countries and there is still scarcity of research on the nuances of HRM in the developing countries. This paper looks deeper into and reviews the empirical nuances of HRM functions in the Iranian public sector. Using interviews in five Iranian ministries, key HRM features are extracted and explained in a thematic manner. To authenticate the findings, the complimentary secondary data and documents were also studied. Results indicated eleven common features for the HRM practices including: unstable and personalized structure, obsolete job descriptions, double-standard in employee recruitment, lack of systematic career management, general instead of specialized training programs, imbalance between pay and performance, misalignment between organizational strategy and HRM practices, pseudo-knowledge management, silo mentality in HR departments, nonconformity in HR systems and the challenge of non-competent employees. This study also demonstrates how HRM functions stem from and are influenced more generally by environmental characteristics and cultural values.