Futurology

Purpose: The present study was conducted aimed to presenting model of empowerment elementary period managers based on components of futurology. Methodology: This study was applied in terms of purpose and combined (qualitative and quantitative) in terms of implementation method. The research population in the qualitative section was the specialists and experts of Tehran city and in the quantitative section were the primary school managers of Tehran city in the academic years of 2019-20. The research sample in the qualitative section was 12 people who were selected according to the principle of theoretical saturation by purposive and snowball sampling methods and in the quantitative section was 270 people who were selected according to the Krejcie and Morgan table by multi-stage cluster sampling method. Data were collected by methods of take noting, semi-structured interviews and researcher-made questionnaire whose face and structure validity of questionnaire were confirmed and its reliability was obtained by Cronbach's alpha method 0.88. Qualitative data were analyzed by open, axial and selective coding methods and quantitative data were analyzed by structural equation modeling in SPSS-25 and LISREL-8.8 software. Findings: The findings of the qualitative section showed that the model of empowerment elementary period managers based on components of futurology had 6 main categories, 20 sub-categories and 85 indicators. The main categories and sub-categories were included transformation management (sufficient cognition of environment, responsibility and organizational health), empowerment (strengthening teachers' careers, applying participatory management and improving relationship between managers and teachers), sense of competence (having the enough motivation, support for managers, flexibility and creative thinking), organizational structure (organizational changes, lack of resources and inadequate distribution and lack of foresight), standardization (applying knowledge management, use of feedback system and modeling) and growth and improvement (foresight, self-efficacy, risk-taking and delegation of authority).The findings of the quantitative section showed that all six main categories had a significant effect on the model of empowerment elementary period managers based on components of futurology and the model had appropriate fitness indicators. Conclusion: Based on the results, the model of empowerment elementary period managers based on components of futurology can have practical implications for education specialists and planners and can be used to improve the structure of education.

The security-based futurology of political units is a type of futurology focusing on geographic areas to assess their security status in the future. The Caspian region as one of the regions facing various factors has gained geopolitical significance, has a wide range of probable futures. The operational objective of this study is to identify the criteria affecting the security of this region and its final objective is to delineate an optimal security-based future for the region through a future study approach. It is a qualitative case study being formulated based on some qualitative and quantitative models and the relevant literature is used as the basis for classifying security standards into six groups of military, economic, spatial, sociocultural, political and environmental. the results were used to present 18 criteria of this region security. Then, 26 questionnaires were distributed among a group of faculty members of geopolitics from the universities of Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. The collected data were analyzed using the combined mean TOPSIS method and key criteria of the Caspian region security were extracted. The findings indicated that the three key criteria of joint military and weapons investment, commercial relations and human development as the most critical geopolitical criteria of security in this region formed eight security scenarios and finally the scenario based on ‘regional joint military and weapons investment, free trade, and the homogeneous human development’ with higher scores were introduced as the criterion for the delineation of security perspective for the leaders of countries in this region.

The purpose of this study was to identify effective drivers in the future of sports businesses in Khorasan Razavi province. The participants included experts in management, marketing and sports businesses. The interviews were conducted by snowball method and continued until the theoretical consensus, and finally after 18 interviews we reached the theoretical consensus. For statistical analysis SPSS software and Mick Mac software were used. The results of cross-impact analysis based on MDI and MII matrices showed that supportive drivers, marketing drivers, as well as drivers of creativity and innovation play an important role in improving system relationships. In addition, the three groups of propellants having the highest and the least impact included economic divers, (educational divers) and customer-oriented divers respectively. On the other hand, propellants such as; Cultural drivers, communication drivers, and managerial drivers are more influenced than being influential. Finally, it was the propulsion of manpower that lacks a key and important role in the formation of sports businesses in Khorasan Razavi province, but they should not be forgotten completely. It is suggested that in order to develop more sports businesses in Khorasan Razavi province, these items should be on the agenda to achieve a bright future in sports in the province.