Exploring the Barriers to the Development of Agricultural Businesses in Technology Incubators: A Case Study of Razi University Incubator, Iran

The main objective of the present study was to explore the barriers to the development of agricultural businesses in the incubator of Razi University, Iran. The research was an applied study in terms of objective and an exploratory mixed method in terms of data collection methodology. The statistical population was composed of agricultural businesses and their personnel in the incubator of Razi University in the qualitative phase and of the agricultural experts in the quantitative phase, as well. The samples for both qualitative and quantitative phases were taken by purposive sampling method. Ten people were sampled for the qualitative phase, and three were sampled for the quantitative phase. In qualitative phase, data were collected by semi-structured interviews that were kept on until theoretical saturation. Then, the content of the interviews was analyzed to classify the data. In quantitative phase, a questionnaire was developed according to the results of the first phase and was administered to the experts. Data were analyzed by the Analytical Hierarchy process method using Expert Choice Software Package. The results revealed that in-incubator agricultural businesses are challenged with a lot of barriers to their development. They were classified in five main categories including knowledge-skill, structural-legal, business-production environment, support-facility limitations, and administrative-financial. Among these factors, support-facility limitations were ranked the first with relative importance (weight of 0.237).