Moving from Cacistocracy towards Meritocracy: A Cross-Sectional Study on Current Employment Status of Iranian University Women

From among various types of managerial and administrative structures, two types have been effective both in the success and failure of organizations and communities. These two types arecacistocracy and meritocracy. In a cross-sectional study, the researcher studied a number of Iranian universities in terms of selection of administrative managers as well as cultural atmospheres governing them. With this end in view, these university (Tehran University, ShahidBeheshti University, and AllamehTabatabai University) were studied in a twenty-year period. Considering cacistocracy and meritocracy, as two end points of a continuum, the proportion of election was significantly distant from meritocracy endpoint. It seems that if appointments had been done unbiasedly and impartially, the advancement of the universities would have accelerated and the balanced development of university system, and consequently the whole country, would have been realized more easily. At the end of the paper, a number of suggestions are offered hoping that through their enactment the existing distance from meritocracy endpoint in universities would be shortened, and the country can take full advantage of its expert human resources.