JOURNAL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Year:2017 | Volume:10 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:10

The main objective of this study was to identify the factors affecting human resources management in small and medium-sized enterprises. The statistical population of the study consisted of agricultural small and medium enterprise executives in Zanjan Province (N=560) out of whom 196 executives were taken as sample, using Cochran’ s Formula and Proportionate Stratified Sampling Technique. The validity of the questionnaire was approved by a panel of experts' judgment. In order to assess the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach’ s Alpha coefficients were calculated for the main scales of the questionnaire (0. 85). The collected data was analyzed by the SPSS (19) and LISREL software (8. 5). To identify the factors affecting human resources management, exploratory factor analysis was used, and in order to investigate the fitting indexes of research model, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling were used. The results showed that affecting factors are formed by six factors including infrastructure, support, management, information technology, incentive as well as policy factors educational factors. In total, these factors explain about 10/67% of the total variance of the affecting factors.

Cooperative system is a good tool to build businesses. The study is aimed at identifying and prioritizing policies of cooperative sector entrepreneurship development. The study statistical population included the managers of ministry of Cooperatives as well as the members of the Economics and Management faculty of Sistan and Baluchestan University. The research method is descriptive-survey and it is practical in terms of purpose. The research was conducted in two phasesusing two questionnaires. First, a 5-point Likert questionnaire was prepared and its validity and reliability were confirmed. 30 questionnaires were distributed and the data collected were analyzed using Smart PLS software. Then, the indices having greater factor loadings were selected and the questionnaire of prioritizing with selected criteria was prepared. The questionnaire had 3 criteria, 8 sub-criteria, and 42 choices. The questionnaire validity was also confirmed. Inconsistency of the whole indices was less than 0. 1. After that, the questionnaire was distributed among the sample and the data obtained were analyzed using AHP method and Super Decisions software. The study findings showed that polices of infrastructure with weight of 0. 705, guidance and operation with weight of 0. 205, and consolidation and institutionalization with weight of 0. 089 have the ranks of first, second, and third, respectively. The most important criteria of consolidation and institutionalization were polices of training and skills with weights of 0. 730 and 0. 695 while in the operational scope, the major criterion is the policies of motivation scope with weight of 0. 800. Therefore, it is recommended to policymakers to highly concentrate on consolidation.

Despite high creation of jobs by small firms, their instability and short life are among the most important problems in these businesses. Thus, this study examines the factors affecting the sustainability of small industrial enterprises in the city of Mashhad. This research is an applied research survey in terms of the purpose and the information is collected through a survey using a questionnaire. Due to the high proportion (70% of industrial employment) five industrial groups, "food", "non-metallic mineral, " "Rubber", "Metal Products Factory" and "machinery unclassified elsewhere" and instability of these industries in the city of Mashhad, the population in this study consists of five industrial groups. Stratified Random Sampling was used and required information was collected through completed researcher-made questionnaire by managers of small industries and the ordered logit was used to investigate the factors affecting the sustainability of the studied businesses. The "business sustainability" Index was the dependent variable and includes combination of changes in capital, sales and employment of firm. According to the results of this study, the major factors affecting sustainability of small enterprises were: administrator education, how to control and to monitor the firm by the manager, manager risk, awareness of market opportunities, the number of staff training, market access and reliance on suppliers financial borrowing. Also, the possibility of changes in the level of business sustainability; on the basis of change in these factors, was studied.

Employing the most effective method for financing has been critically challenging for those who start an entrepreneurial business. This study aimed to identify and prioritize the most common methods of bootstrap financing used by IT-based start-ups through a mixed method. The authors carried out semi-structured interviews with the experts highly experienced in the IT industry and involved in start-ups’ financing. Using the bootstrap financing method emerged from the interviews, in the quantitative phase, the authors administered the pair-wise comparison and Likert scale questionnaires among the participants and the AHP technique was used to prioritize each method. In the qualitative section, the authors determined the sample size using the adequacy of the data logic, and for the quantitative phase, the authors used Cochran’ s formula and a sample of 220 participants was chosen by the simple random sampling method. The results of this study showed that private owner financing cluster obtained the highest position in terms of priority. Deferred payments, stopping receivable accounts, minimizing capital expenditure and using shared resources were respectively the next bootstrap financing priorities of the entrepreneurs.

Economic advance occurs when novel ideas are commercialized. Thus, Recognition the factors affecting the commercialization of knowledge has become one of the concerns of the academic community. In this paper, the authors utilize Q Methodology so as to delineate the role of individuals’ mentality as well as prioritizing organizational factors affecting commercializing of knowledge. This research is applied in terms of goal, and is cross-sectional in terms of time horizon. Moreover, it is an exploratory mixed research by the method of data collection in which by the theoretical, 40 Q statements were identified and using exploratory factor analysis were prioritized by participants. The study population consisted of sixty employees of eight research organizations in which ten individuals (four of the top executives of five years of service and six university professors with research literature of knowledge commercialization) were chosen as sample by the Targeted judgment method. The findings show that organizational culture, organizational structure and strategy, human resources and management are the most significant factors in the success of knowledge commercialization. As far as the commercialization of knowledge is concerned, such findings can assist managers in employing practical strategies based on their employees’ mentality.

Ecosystems are the unions of localized cultural outlooks, social networks, investment capital, universities, and active economic policies that create environments supportive of ventures and the most recently they are considered in the field of entrepreneurship. This study was conducted to identify the factors of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Iran based on the Isenberg’ s model. It is an applied, descriptive-exploratory research. The study e population consisted of 130 individuals, including experts of policy making and entrepreneurship development, policy makers and entrepreneurs in industry, services and knowledge-based businesses owners. For this purpose, Interview is used based on close-ended questions and the validity and reliability of the interviews were approved. The findings demonstrated that dimensions of conceptual model were appropriate according to the experts’ views. The data analysis indicated that there was a set of factors that influence entrepreneurial ecosystem efficiency and also results showed that, respectively, support, human capital, markets, culture, politics and finance influence Iran’ s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Despite the importance of passion for starting and growing businesses and entrepreneurial behavior of individuals, few studies have investigated the role of entrepreneurial passion and passion for work of entrepreneurs’ internal characteristics. Therefore, this paper seeks to identify the concepts and issues of entrepreneurial passion and passion for work of entrepreneurial leaders. Using exploratory qualitative method with purposive sampling, this research continues to review the results of the sample 30 after reaching theoretical saturation in order to increase the reliability of interviews. Finally, by analyzing the content of concepts derived from the categorized narrations with the help of Atlas. ti software, a total of 2 issues, 9 components and 98 concepts were identified about entrepreneurial passion and passion for work of entrepreneurial leaders. Based on the findings, 5 concepts of passion for quality, law orientation, anthropocentrism, competitiveness and love to work in issue of passion for work and 4 concepts of passion for founding, passion for inventing, passion for developing and entrepreneurial competencies in issue of entrepreneurial passion were identified.

Managers try to make efficient use of their capital to create competitive advantage, innovation and maintain their position in the market. One of the most important tools for achieving this goal is to strengthen and enhance the social capital in order to achieve radical innovation and to create a competitive advantage. This study is "The Impact of internal and external social capital at the same time the fundamental innovation" on the innovative and technological organizations. Therefore, after studying the literature, various aspects of social capital and radical innovation were identified and after the survey of experts, questionnaire prepared and distributed and collected from the study population of 113 companies and 90 questionnaires were completely done. To analyze the data both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. To describe the variables, SPSS 16 & Smart Pls. 2. M3 software were used. The result indicates the positive impact of internal and external social capital on radical innovation. It was also found that the knowledge acquisition also has a positive effect on innovation. Also, the impact of the external relational social capital on the relationship between knowledge acquisition and radical innovation was negative. Absorptive capacity and cultural barriers do not affect the relationship between knowledge acquisition and radical innovation.

Feedback is a considerable part of the assessment process which provides an opportunity for the teachers to reform the teaching and learning methodology. In fact, feedback is a powerful tool in the learning process which leads to an improvement in the performance of the faculty members. On this account, this study aims to identify the feedback barriers of the board members of Entrepreneurship Faculty of Tehran University. The method of this paper based on practical purpose that method of data collection was qualitative research. Hence, after designing the questions and using the semi-structured interview with the entrepreneurship faculty professors, the required data were collected; afterwards by applying the steps offered in Strauss’ s Model, the data were analyzed and the results were presented. The findings revealed that there were feedback barriers in four levels including self-regulatory, process-based, functional and personal levels among the professors of Entrepreneurship Faculty of Tehran University.

Entrepreneurship development and continuing activity of rural enterprises in the unsteady and challenging business environment necessitates recognizing resilience and planning for its improvement in the businesses. Many rural small and medium-sized enterprises fail in early years, because of inappropriate resilience. Thus this study has investigated resilience of rural businesses’ owners and explored factor structure of resilience in their businesses, using quantitative method. This research is applied survey research. The sample was 120 non-farm rural business owners in the Malekan County, province of East Azerbaijan, Iran. Instrument of this research was a standard questionnaire designed on the basis of Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and Lifespan Resilience Scale-Business (LRS-B). Data were analyzed using SPSS23 software. Results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that the six factors have explained about 69 percent of construct entitled “ resilience of rural businesses” , including: capability for adaptation and foresight (23%), interaction with customers (14%); opportunity-seeking (11%); support from family (8%); strategic planning (7%) and governmental support (6%).