Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Associate Prof., Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Management and Economics, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2
استاد، گروه مدیریت دولتی، دانشگاه شهید بهشتی، تهران، ایران.
3
Associate Professor, Leadership and Human Capital Department , Public Management and Organizational Sciences Faculty , Collage of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran
4
PhD Candidate, Department of Public Administration (HRM), Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
10.22098/cpa.2025.18134.1096
Abstract
Context and Purpose: One of the fundamental challenges of policymaking in the field of National Human Resource Development (NHRD) in Iran is the absence of a coherent approach to fairness, a concern also reflected in the Sixth National Development Plan. The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which the three dimensions of fairness—procedural, contextual, and consequential—were incorporated, and to evaluate the quality of policy arguments in seven key domains of the Plan.
Methodology: This qualitative study examined legal provisions related to human resource development in the Sixth Plan. The sample was selected purposefully, and data were extracted through textual coding. Analysis was carried out in three stages: systematic meta-study, concept analysis, and argumentation analysis based on Walton’s framework. To ensure validity, triangulation and peer debriefing were employed.
Findings: The analysis revealed that policy arguments across the seven domains suffered from diverse shortcomings, including oversimplification of causal relations, excessive reliance on desirable outcomes, limited use of empirical evidence, reliance on descriptive approaches without executable mechanisms, and neglect of institutional requirements and participatory obligations. Overall, attention to the three dimensions of fairness was unbalanced, with the contextual dimension receiving the least consideration.
Conclusion: The findings highlight that the attention paid to fairness in the legal provisions of the Sixth Plan has been uneven, which has weakened the coherence of policy arguments. This underscores that the existing capacities for achieving fair NHRD require strengthening and gradual reconsideration at the macro-policy level to ensure more effective utilization of the available legal potential.
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