Privatization of industries in Iran: a case study of Tehran city

Abstract

Privatization is the most widely debated as well as practiced economic strategy since 1980s all over the world. In Iran privatization wave started from 1988, i.e. after the ceasing of long drawn Iran-Iraq war. The study intends to discuss the issue of privatization of industries in Iran from three view points, they are: economic effectiveness of privatization, governance and management issues of privatization and social reaction to privatization. The study is based on primary and secondary data and has focused on macro level as well as micro level aspects of privatization. At macro level, the study covers the trends, the practices and the progress of privatization at global level in brief and national level newlinein detail and some tools such as flowcharts, pie and bar diagrams, trend lines, tables and appendices are used to support the study. At micro level, the research covers privatization scenario with the case study of privatization of industries in Tehran city, Iran.The entire effort is systematically presented in seven chapters. Chapter one is introductory in nature: providing the foundation and framework as well as direction to the study and the subsequent chapter deals with theoretical foundation and empirical perspective of privatization. The third chapter exclusively deals with progress, trends and issues of privatization in Iran. The fourth, fifth and the sixth chapters respectively examine the crucial research issues, namely, economic effectiveness, governance and management issues and social reaction to privatization in Tehran city, Iran.The last chapter summarizes the entire research findings and its policy implications. Primary data have been collected through three self-administered questionnaires and the questions were designed in the form of closed-ended and each question is evaluated on the basis of Likert s Summated Scale.