The Strengthening Modeling of Agricultural Production Cooperatives Entrepreneurship Spirit in Amol Township

Transcription

1 International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences 2013 Available online at ISSN X / Vol, 4 (9): Science Explorer Publications The Strengthening Modeling of Agricultural Production Cooperatives Entrepreneurship Spirit in Amol Township Fatemeh Tavasoli 1, Mehdi Charmchian Langerodi 2 and Amir Ahmadpour 3 1, 2, 3. Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran Corresponding Author ABSTRACT: The overall aim of this study was the strengthening modeling of agricultural production entrepreneurship spirit in Amol Township. The statistical population included 2029 members of agriculture production. The sample size was determined using Cochran s formula. Members were selected through stratified random sampling technique. As sample of 219 members of agriculture production were taken randomly. Research methodology applied in this study was a combination of descriptive-analytical and quantitative methods. To run the appropriate analyses, SPSS 15 software was employed. In order to investigate the reliability of research questionnaire, 25 agricultural production members in Babol were randomly selected and they completed the questionnaire. Also cronbach s alpha and ordinal theta were 0.88 and 0.89 respectively. The mean of agricultural production members age 36 years, 84 percent of respondents were married and 67.7 percent have Diploma. Strengthening the entrepreneurship spirit of agricultural production in Amol is directly or indirectly affected by various elements of which the main factors were to the economic and educational factors with the standardized coefficient of Also, 30.4 percent of the variance for strengthening the entrepreneurship spirit was determined by economic, educational, psychological - personality and organizational factors. Key words: Modeling, Agricultural production, Entrepreneurship spirit, Amol INTRODUCTION Since the National Capital of a country (Human Resources) is the main factor in the development of each country and each community's population, Unemployment and continuing loss of labor in a society bring about social, economic, and social consequences. The economic consequences squander the production resources and its results will emerges in reducing the self-esteem, being used to be idle and social damage (Maghsoudi and Davodi, 2011). Entrepreneurship is an important source and integral part of all human societies. Entrepreneurship reduces unemployment and increases the productivity and thus increasing the income and resources of the society (Sandeep, 2007). Entrepreneurship is a process of innovation, hard work and perseverance in using the opportunities and accepting the associated with financial, psychological and social risks which would generate financial benefits personal satisfaction and independence. (Histrich and Peters, 2002). Therefore, it is imperative to emphasize the entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs and strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit and preparing the grounds for its development which would guarantee the economic boom of countries especially that of the developing countries. Because an entrepreneurial activity with high efficiency will result in economic development including job creation, innovation in activity, competitiveness and etc (Verheul, 2001). One of the most appropriate structures to attract entrepreneurs in Iran is through cooperative sectors and based on the act 44 of the Iran's constitution, the cooperative sectors functionality is to create jobs for those who are professional and skillful but they lack the necessary and proper budget to run a business. These people can be organized into cooperative centers and associations and start a business based on the local banking facilities and other financial resources (Rahimi, 2008). Azkia (2002) quoting from Daniel Lerner emphasizes the fact that by emergence of the technology and municipal services and facilities in the rural communities including services such as piped water, schools, factories, police stations, roads, buses and so many others, people's attitudes and beliefs also changed and the mental exercise and backgrounds will start to grow. Therefore, it is essential that the physical characteristics of

2 the rural areas, including psychological and mental features of the villagers would have an effect on strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit among the villagers. Jahanbani Beshara et al (2011) conducted a study on the analytical review of the strategies for the entrepreneurship development in agricultural and concluded that economic factors including low interest loans and credit facilities, along with factors such as members' characteristics, education status, selfesteem along with personal factors such as heartbreaking childhood experiences, have a highly significant role in the development of entrepreneurship in agricultural. Doniaie (2009) showed that managers viewed lack of funds and lack of government support for as barriers for success and experts believed that members' low literacy levels, inadequate infrastructure and lack of entrepreneurial culture are the most important barriers to entrepreneurship of agricultural. The analytical results showed that there was a significant relation between the success of, the total number of members and the cooperative administrators' entrepreneurial grade. Saida Ardekani et al., (2008) in a study on the "barriers to entrepreneurship in the cooperative" aimed at identifying the barriers for the entrepreneurship and providing solutions to remove these barriers and develop the entrepreneurial opportunities in found that the barriers for the entrepreneurship in Iran is completely different from that of the developed countries and the corrupted bureaucracy serves as the most important impediments for and the faults and defects in tax and tariffs rules are the second most important barriers and the lack of financial support for the newly established cooperative is the third most important hurdles on the success of the. Saadi (2008) in a study on the challenges facing agricultural in establishing entrepreneurship and employment stated that the most significant challenges of producing in entrepreneurship are the weak entrepreneurial culture, weak administrator and members' training, inadequate infrastructure, lack of budget and incentives for progress in rural areas, government's failure to permanently support the programs and in some cases the villagers' dependence and lack of trust to the managing board. Zamani and Jannesari (2009) in a study entitled as evaluating factors affecting the development of entrepreneurship in (a case study in eight countries) recapitulated the main successful factors of cooperative entrepreneurship and economic development into considering the human and social aspects, financial aspects, principles for management, policies and institutional environment. Mirakzadeh and Ghiasvand Ghiasy (2011) conducted a study to classify eight factors affecting the development of agricultural production employment including educational, psychologicalpersonal, economic, social, cultural, policy-making and organizational factors. Harandizadeh (2010) also researched the factors influencing the development of entrepreneurship in agricultural production and concluded that the psychological and personality factors, management behavior, marketing factors, economic factors, educational and social cultural factors are prioritized from the first to the last. The statistical results showed that there are significant differences between cooperative type and entrepreneurial development. Gardening and beekeeping were the most and least effective, respectively. Maghsoudi and Davodi (2011) in a study entitled as the strategies in entrepreneurship development in agricultural in Iran found that the factors that influence the development of entrepreneurship were included educational and motivational factors, innovative and investing factors and partnership and infrastructure factors. Ghiasvand Ghiasy et al (2009) argue that entrepreneurship development includes cognitive psychological, educational, financial, organizational, Regulative, economical, social factors and personal characteristics. Ghiasvand & Hosseini (2010) in a research on the challenges facing the development of entrepreneurship in agricultural in Iran came to the conclusion that financial, technical, informational and regulative challenges are more effective in the development of entrepreneurship in agricultural. Based on the information obtained from the Cooperatives Office of Sari (2011), Amol has 173 active agricultural productions cooperative among which gardening with 60, husbandry with 40, poultry with 30, and fishery with 16, beekeeping with12, farming with 10 and 5 other were the most active. The have a total of 2029 members which did not enjoy the quality growth despite their quantitative growth and had a lot of problems in dealing with their related activities. Therefore, a strategy which can facilitate the activities and also increase the efficiency of these rural is strengthening and developing the entrepreneurial spirit among the members which could guarantee the competition and as a result would be fruitful. As mentioned, it is crystal clear that the most important factor in the is the low entrepreneurial spirit which ultimately led to the failure of agricultural in today's competitive 2614

3 business world. The overall aim of this study was the strengthening modeling of agricultural production entrepreneurship spirit in Amol Township. So the main questions of this research are - What is the model for strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production? - How do factors affect strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production in Amol? MATRERIALS AND METHODS Research methodology applied in this study was a combination of descriptive-analytical and quantitative methods. To run the appropriate analyses, SPSS 15 software was employed. The statistical population included 2029 members of agriculture production in Amol. The sample size was determined using Cochran s formula. Members were selected through stratified random sampling technique. As sample of 219 members of agriculture production were taken randomly. A questionnaire was designed as the main data-gathering tool. To determine the content validity of the questionnaire, we asked for the experts' opinions of the Cooperatives Department. In order to investigate the reliability of research questionnaire, 25 agricultural production members in Babol were randomly selected and they completed the questionnaire. Cronbach s alpha and ordinal theta were 0.88 and 0.89 respectively. The dependent variable in this study was strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit among the members of the agricultural production of Amol. Independent variables in this study include the personal features, members' educational and vocational characteristics of the agricultural production of Amol, the psychological-personality factors, educational factors, organizational and economical factors. RESULTS Personal, educational and vocational features The findings reveal that 85 percent of respondents was male and 15 percent was women. 85 percent was married and 15 percent was single. Also, 67.7 percent have Diploma.. Of them, 91/3 percent of the respondents had a normal membership of agricultural production. The mean of agricultural production members age 36 years. The participants' membership record in the cooperative was less than 5 years (66/2 percent). In addition, 95/9 percent of the respondents was employed. Most respondents (80/5 percent) were employed in the private sector and 5/5 percent of respondents had previous experience in the field of entrepreneurship. Ranking of the psychological- personality factors of agricultural production members of Amole In order to classify the psychological- personality factors of agricultural production members, questions were asked of respondents regarding their psychological- personality factors. The mean and standard deviation for each factor was determined and from the ten variables of psychological- personality factors tolerating failures and having a willingness to start again, being enthusiastic to do great things, applying the personal creativity among members of agricultural were allocated the highest ranks. Also the high autonomy in decisions-making and motivation for the new sources among the members of agricultural production were given the lowest ranks (Table 1). Table 1. Ranking of the psychological- personality factors of agricultural production members of Amol (n=219) Tolerating failures and having a willingness to start again Being enthusiastic to do great things Applying the personal creativity High interest in self-employment Using too much personal experience Having confidence Anticipating the future Being motivated to change the quality of life Having high incentive to find new sources Having high autonomy in decision-making

4 Ranking the educational factors of agricultural production members of Amole Regarding the nine variables in Table 2, establishing the Science and Technology Park, combining the theoretical and practical applications for the members and enabling the cooperative members to use computers and the Internet were given the highest ranks. Besides, the access to Internet networks, creating and strengthening the consultancy in various fields were given the lowest ranks based on the perspective of the respondents. Table 2. Ranking the educational factors of agricultural production members of Amol (n=219) Establishing the science and technology park Combining the theoretical and practical applications for the members Enabling the cooperative members to use computers and the Internet Building relationships with successful Holding short term skills development classes Holding successful entrepreneurs' training Having in-service training course on entrepreneurship Establishing and strengthening the counseling centers in different areas of accounting, marketing, management,... Having access to the Internet and computer networks Ranking of the organizational factors of agricultural production members of Amole As it can be seen in Table 3, members' autonomy in the activities of the and their role in decision-making had the highest status. Also managers' support of entrepreneurial activity, creating a balance between the responsibilities and duties had the lowest ranks. Table 3. Ranking of the organizational factors of agricultural production members of Amole (n=219) Autonomy in the activities of the Participating in decision-making Creating a balance between the responsibilities and duties Managers' support of entrepreneurial activity Ranking the economic factors of agricultural production members of Amole Regarding the research findings given in Table 4 on the economic factors of, it is shown that having access to economical information, adequate and sufficient financial budgets in and avoiding disorder, corruption and bribery are the most important economic factors of agricultural production cooperative which have the highest ranking. Also, preparing the ground for exporting the agricultural product, allocating budget to entrepreneurial sectors among the agricultural production cooperative members have the lowest status. Table 4. Ranking the economic factors of agricultural production members of Amol (n=219) Having access to economical information Having adequate financial assets in Avoiding disorder, corruption and bribery Increasing price supports and allotting subsidies to producers Forming fund institute to support entrepreneurs Holding small business courses to encourage competition Evaluating the economic situation prior to entrepreneurial Stabilizing the agricultural product prices Granting loans to bankrupt for the revival and development The ability to access new markets Job income satisfaction Using the efficient and appropriate banking network Allocation tax exemption to entrepreneurial units and sectors Establish appropriate protective measures for agricultural exports Having access to financial information

5 Ranking the members' entrepreneurial spirit strengthening of the agricultural production cooperative As it is witnessed in Table 5, factors such as flexibility to the changes, dreaming and avoiding to attribute the failures and success to luck and controlling it are considered as the most important and going beyond the desired goals and compensating the lack of strategies and trying to achieve the success have the lowest ranks. Table 5. Ranking the members' entrepreneurial spirit strengthening of the agricultural production cooperative (n=219) Adaptability to changes Dreaming Avoiding to attribute the failures and success to luck Taking risks in business Predicting different conditions Trying new experiences Willingness to accept responsibility Recent work done previously by others Going beyond time Achievement Motivation Accepting the events as chances Providing innovative solutions Surrendering to the conditions Improve achievement in the face of competition Having confidence Striving for success Compensating the shortages in different ways Performance exceeding the given targets the entrepreneurship spirit strengthening model of agricultural production of Amole Strengthening the entrepreneurship spirit of agricultural production in Amol is directly or indirectly affected by various elements of which the main factors were to the economic and educational factors with the standardized coefficient of 0.33(Figure1 and Table6). Also, 30.4 percent of the variance for strengthening the entrepreneurship spirit was determined by economic, educational, psychological - personality and organizational factors (Table 7). Psychological- personality factor Organizational factor 0/32 0/23 0/24 0/16 0/12 Economic factor 0/33 0/18 Entrepreneurship spirit reinforcement of agricultural production Educational factor Figure 1. Path analysis model of strengthening the entrepreneurship spirit of agricultural production of Amol on beta values Table 6. Direct, indirect and total effects in path analysis Path Direct Indirect Total Psychological personal factors to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production Organizational factors to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production Economical factors to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production Educational factors to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production

6 Table 7. The role of independent variables in strengthening the entrepreneurship spirit of the in stepwise regression Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t sig Model B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) Economic factor Educational factor Psychological- personality factor Organizational factor R= R 2 = Adjusted R Square= F= Sig = Based on Table 7, the regression line equation of entrepreneurial spirit strengthening of the agricultural production cooperative in Amol Township was as follows: Y= (Economic factor) (Educational factor) (Psychological- personality factor) (Organizational factor) CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION The findings reveal that 85 percent of respondents was male and 15 percent was women. These results indicate that the employments of women in are less than that of men. The participants' membership record in the cooperative was less than 5 years (66/2 percent). These results indicate that cooperative members have a low membership record. Also, 95/9 percent of the respondents was employed which suggests that unemployment is low among members of. The findings of the study show that 30.4 percent of the variance for strengthening the entrepreneurship spirit was determined by economic, educational, psychological - personality and organizational factors. Akbar pour and Dabaghi (2009), Jahanbani Beshara et al (2011), Zamani and Jannesari (2009), Soleimanpour (2006), Maghsodi and Davodi (2011) and Tybjee and Vickery (1999) all argue that economic factors affect the incidence of Entrepreneurship. Azizi (2003), Akbar pour and Dabaghi (2009), Pilehvarnavidi (2009), Harandizadeh (2010), Ghiasvand Ghiasy et al (2009), Maghsodi and Davod (2011), Rynold (1994) and Verzat and Bachle (2006) believe that educational factors affect the development of entrepreneurship. Also, Khodashenas Golafshani (2010), Soleimanpour (2006), Harandizadeh (2010), Winn (2008) and Ghiasvand Ghisy et al (2009) argue that psychological - personality factors are effective in the development of the entrepreneurship. Zamani and Jannesari (2009), Mirakzadeh and Ghiasvand Ghiasy (2011) and Ghiasvand Ghiasy et al (2009) believe that Organizational factors affect the incidence of entrepreneurship. Suggestions Regarding the results of the study it becomes clear that economic factors have a role in strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production in Amol, therefore, it is suggested that among all factors related to the economical factors, we should pay attention to factors such as having access to financial information, having adequate financial assets in, avoiding disorder, corruption and bribery, Increasing price supports and allotting subsidies to producers and forming fund institute to support entrepreneurs. The results also made it clear that the educational factors influenced on strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production in Amol, consequently, it is suggested that among all factors related to the economical factors, it is imperative to focus on establishing the science and technology park, combining the theoretical and practical applications for the members and enabling the cooperative members to use computers and the Internet Organizational factors played a crucial role in strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural production Amol, as a result, it is recommended that members' participation in decision-making and also their autonomy in doing the task be considered. Finally, considering the psychological-personality factors, it is revealed that these factors affect the entrepreneurial spirit strengthening of agricultural production in Amol and it is recommended that factors including tolerating failures and having a willingness to start again, being enthusiastic to do great things and applying the personal creativity be supported. 2618

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