Designing a Model for Improving Business Environment in the City of Tehran

Abstract: Improving the environment in which businesses operate is important to business success. In particular, improving the environment reduces transaction costs and improves the competitiveness of businesses. The business environment of the city has unique characteristics that need to be understood and analyzed in various aspects. This research aims to design a model for improving the business environment in the city of Tehran using exploratory approach to identify the components and dimensions of the model. For this purpose, firstly explicit knowledge exists in the literature is reviewed and then a qualitative research methodology is employed to explore the implicit knowledge of experts obtained through interviews with 22 experts. After documenting the data obtained from the interviews, a three stage coding method is used to analyze  the collected information and data using Atlas Ti. In the end, by combining the findings from the literature and the findings from the analysis of the interviews, a model is designed for improving the business environment in Tehran. It is worth noting that this model has identified and classified environment factors affecting the improvement of the business environment at the four levels of organizational, micro, macro, and international. Urban environment components include physical infrastructure, non-physical infrastructure, laws and regulations, institutions, local-participatory governance, policy for citizenship, institutional co-operation, urban-level competition development, private-public partnerships, organising businesses in the interior and exterior of the city, identification and development of opportunities, implication of new knowledge and technology, sustainable income for urban development, urban spatial development, transaction costs and tax support. The components of the micro-environment include suppliers, the labor market, credit market, the media and the customer. The components of the macroeconomic environment are demographic (immigration management), environmental, legal, political, technological, economic and social factors, and ultimately the components of the international environment include cultural, political, technological, and innovation components and law factors.