Strategist Development

The aim of the current research is to explore a strategist developing model based on a mixed method for National Iranian Oil Company. This study is an exploratory and applied research, and it methodologically uses mixed methods. In the qualitative part, which is based on a data theory approach, the required data were gathered by means of semi-structured interviews. The participants involved in the study were 24 industrial and academic experts. After collecting the data, they were encoded, and necessary measurements were then taken to determine dimensions, main categories, subcategories, and relevant concepts related to our coding system. Having gained a coded table which was pivot and selective, finally, the goodness of the fit of the paradigmatic research model was developed (n=320). Quantitative analyses were performed by means of SPSS 24 and Lisrel 9.30 software. The qualitative findings of this study included 11 main categories, 24 subcategories, and 98 concepts. The concepts which were related to development strategists included causative factors (individual factors, organizational factors, and discourses); the category of central strategic thinking (conceptual and organizational thinking, foresight, and philosophical attitudes); obstructive factors (both inter organizational and intra organizational factors); contextual factors (cultural context, psychological factors, and organizational independence); strategies to identify the talents, to attract them, and to retain them; the outcomes of the establishment of monitoring system; strategic thinking; and the process of developing experts in our oil company. Our findings resulted in discovering a pattern to develop experts in oil industry.