Phenomenological Understanding of Organizational Ghosts and Their Impacts on Iranian Government Organizations

Purpose: Some leaders seek to keep their identity alive in the organization. They insist on leaving a lasting mark for the future.  This desire and motivation to create a legacy, which is considered a powerful driving force for them, is called organizational ghosts. The purpose of this research was to know and understand the phenomenon of organizational ghosts and to investigate the influencing factors and consequences of this phenomenon in government organizations. Methodology: Given that the present study was descriptive-exploratory in terms of its applied purpose and the method of collecting data conducted through the phenomenological method (i.e., the lived experience of people involved in the phenomenon) and the Dickelman approach, it was classified as qualitative research. As a result, data collection method was in-depth interviews with the participants. In the next step, we applied qualitative content analysis method based on inductive approach and Maxqda software to analyze the data obtained from the interviews. Findings: Results include three main themes as well as eleven influential items, six positive outcomes, and six negative outcomes. Originality: Foreign studies have already investigated and analyzed the phenomenon of organizational ghosts, but we may claim that the present study is a forerunner of its type in Iran.