Background and Aim: The public administrative system, as the executive arm of government in achieving overarching development goals, plays a pivotal role. However, persistent administrative corruption, inefficient bureaucracy, and the gap between the performance of executive agencies and the demands articulated in the Second-Step Statement of the Islamic Revolution have intensified the need to reconstruct this system. This study aims to design and validate an indigenous model for reconstructing the state administrative system based on the Second-Step approach among managers and employees of government offices in Isfahan Province, Iran.
Methodology: An exploratory mixed-methods (qualitative-quantitative) design was employed. In the qualitative phase, grounded theory and semi-structured interviews with 23 academic and executive experts (purposive criterion-based and snowball sampling) were used to develop a paradigmatic model, which was subsequently validated by 16 of the interviewees. In the quantitative phase, a researcher-made 78-item questionnaire was administered to a sample of 297 employees drawn from a population of 1,300 government employees in Isfahan Province (Cochran's formula and stratified random sampling), and the data were analyzed via first- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis in Smart-PLS, along with descriptive-inferential statistics (one-sample t-test, independent-samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Scheffé post-hoc test) in SPSS.
Findings: The resulting model comprises five dimensions and sixteen components: causal conditions (managerial factors, ethical factors, organizational learning), contextual conditions (governmental infrastructure, religion-oriented social factors, economic considerations, jihadi management, macro-societal level), intervening conditions (cultural factors, administrative factor, human-resource factor), strategies (financial-economic, legislative, legal), and consequences (administrative system reconstruction, realization of the Second-Step approach). Second-order CFA results indicated that all five dimensions loaded significantly (p < .01) on the overall model, with loadings ranging from 0.505 to 0.638, while composite reliability, Cronbach's alpha, and AVE for all constructs exceeded the acceptable thresholds (> 0.70 and > 0.50, respectively), confirming the model's satisfactory reliability and validity. One-sample t-tests further showed that the current status of all five dimensions, from employees' perspectives, was significantly above the hypothesized mean (3) and rated as favorable.
Conclusion: By integrating New Public Management components (good governance, transparency, accountability, e-government) with indigenous Islamic values—particularly jihadi management and administrative justice—the proposed model offers a practical and implementable framework for policymakers, decision-makers, and managers of government offices in designing and monitoring administrative-reconstruction programs aligned with the goals of the Second Step of the Revolution.