Study of effective factors on the rate of citizen's trust to the municipal performance of Sari city

Many social researchers and experts has emphasized on the importance of confidence in the society. Municipality as one of the biggest social organizations can enjoy more productivity and efficiency when attracts citizens' confidence as a social and spiritual capital, and uses it in the way of organizational objectives and town development. This research aims to examine the extent of citizens' confidence in municipality performance and its effective factors. Our methodology is a descriptive-explanative one. The research statistical universe is all citizens over 18 years in sari city (N= 233,153 persons). Regarding to the volume of statistical universe, the samples were selected by a multi-stages method (clustering sampling and simple sampling). Our data gathering instrument was a research-made questionnaire. The research independent variables are: conformity of municipality objectives with citizens' needs, being satisfied with city services, participation extent, organizational transparency, the safety of walking in the city, and the safety of building spaces in the city. The research results showed that the four variables of: 1- conformity of municipality objectives with citizens' needs, 2- being satisfied with city services, 3- participation extent, and 4- organizational transparency, explain 64 percent of the variance of research dependent variable. The results also showed that conformity of municipality objectives with citizens' needs, organizational transparency, being satisfied with city services, and participation extent are respectively the most important factors on improving the citizens' confidence in municipality performance.