Purpose: This research was organized and implemented with the aim of providing a general definition of the previous research - considering that so far, no research has been made available to achieve a general definition of governance in studies inside and outside the country.
Method: This research is developmental in terms of its purpose, and in terms of the nature of the data and the method of analysis, it is among qualitative researches. In this research, research data has been collected and analyzed using meta-synthesis technique. Sandolski and Barroso's seven-step method was used for meta-synthesis. In this research, the unit of registration is documentation (books and articles) and the unit of analysis is the section. From the valid databases, screening was done with the purposeful sampling method and 218 documents (research sample) were selected for analysis. Maxqda 2020 software was used to analyze the themes of the documents. Kappa internal agreement coefficient was used to validate the theme analysis. The calculation of this coefficient was done by Maxqda 2020, which is at the highest level of agreement (= 0.89) based on the analytical criteria used.
Findings: The organizing themes of the concept of governance (dimensions of governance), in order of the frequency of extracted codes from the reviewed sources, are: methods (29.03%), governance actors (26.23%), functions (25.17%), purpose (62 7/%), territory (4.73%), style (4.4%) and value (2.8%). According to these elements, the general definition of governance was done.
Conclusion: According to the exploratory investigations of meta-synthesis, the definition of governance based on its constituent elements is as follows: "Governance is the process of steering the systematic interaction of actors (governmental/non-governmental) in a territory (transnational, national and transnational) through policy making and Regulation (and redistribution) for facilitating and providing (public) services for the realization of collective goals (shared between governmental and non-governmental actors) by exercising legitimate authority within the framework of the ideals and values of that realm. It is hoped that this general definition will get rid of the ambiguities in the definition of governance and that this new research work will be completed with the action of other researchers to achieve a general definition of the constituent components of the definition of governance.
Ghazanfari, M., Poursadegh, N., & Pourezzat, A. (2024). Definition of governance (meta-synthesis of what governance is). Journal of Exalted Governance, 5(2), 63-89.
MLA
Mehdi Ghazanfari; Naser Poursadegh; Aliasghar Pourezzat. "Definition of governance (meta-synthesis of what governance is)", Journal of Exalted Governance, 5, 2, 2024, 63-89.
HARVARD
Ghazanfari, M., Poursadegh, N., Pourezzat, A. (2024). 'Definition of governance (meta-synthesis of what governance is)', Journal of Exalted Governance, 5(2), pp. 63-89.
VANCOUVER
Ghazanfari, M., Poursadegh, N., Pourezzat, A. Definition of governance (meta-synthesis of what governance is). Journal of Exalted Governance, 2024; 5(2): 63-89.
)