Designing a conceptual model of factors and components affecting the effective professional development policy of employees of the National Pension Organization, Wasit Branch, Kot City

Abstract

Today, the effective professional development of employees in retirement organizations is an important issue that requires special attention. The aim of the present study was to design a conceptual model of factors and components influencing the effective professional development policies of employees in the Country Retirement Organization, Wasit branch, in the city of Kot. The research was conducted in two phases: qualitative and quantitative. In the first phase (qualitative), a thematic analysis with an inductive approach was utilized. In this study, purposeful sampling and snowball sampling methods were employed, beginning with an introduction to the first interviewee from the Education Department in the city of al-Musayyib, Iraq. The sample consisted of 13 professors in the field of educational management. The thematic analysis was performed on articles and books, both domestic and foreign, leading to theoretical saturation with this sample size. After coding and categorizing the themes, content validity was assessed through the opinions of several experts in educational management and higher education, while reliability was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha. The extracted themes included 88 open codes identified (basic themes) categorized into 15 sub-themes (organizing themes) and 5 main themes (global themes).  The method used in the second phase of the research was quantitative and descriptive correlational in nature. In the second phase (quantitative), the statistical population included all employees of the Country Retirement Organization, Wasit branch, in the city of Kot, from which 380 individuals were randomly selected as the sample. The research instrument was a researcher-made 29-item questionnaire, whose content validity was confirmed by subject specialists, and the face validity was validated by several individuals from the statistical population. Construct validity was also examined using confirmatory factor analysis. To assess reliability, Cronbach’s alpha was employed, with values reported above 0.7, indicating internal consistency of the instrument. For the analysis of quantitative data, descriptive statistics were used, and for inferential analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and Friedman’s test were employed. Based on factor loadings, the conceptual framework of the research demonstrated adequate validity. The results indicated that the components of leadership and management, training and development, employee participation, resource management, and technology integration are aspects of effective professional development policies for employees of the Country Retirement Organization, Wasit branch, in the city of Kot.