Examining Validity and Reliability of Entrepreneurial Alertness Scale among Agricultural Graduates in Agricultural Commercial Companies in Kerman Province

Although the notion of entrepreneurial alertness is considered as a basic concept in entrepreneurial opportunism theory, providing a scale for measuring it has been addressed less specifically in Iran. Thus, this casual- effect study conducted for validating this instrument. The statistical population of the study was consisted of agricultural graduates working in commercial agricultural companies in South of Kerman province (N= 346) among which 132 people were chosen according to Cochran formula and proportional sampling method. A Likert- type standard questionnaire was the study instrument. The examination of divergent validity of instrument revealed its reliability and validity. The main statistical method was second order confirmatory factor analysis that showed that entrepreneurial alertness is consisted of three dimensions i.e. scanning and search, association and connection and evaluation and judgment and the hypothesis of uni-dimensionality was not supported. Furthermore, results revealed that association and connection dimension has more contribution in comparison with two other dimensions. In total, the results showed that opportunism in entrepreneurship as outlined by Kirzner, existed among Iranian entrepreneurs and this notion is essentially both intrinsic and acquisitive.