Determining the Obstacles and Inhibitors of Agricultural Business Development of the Omid Entrepreneurship Fund

Population changes, technology, inflation, unemployment, lack of development and other environmental factors have made human society face many challenges. In response to these problems, governments, organizations and public opinion have emphasized entrepreneurship and it is considered as the engine of economic development. Providing any solutions to solve the mentioned challenges requires identification of these problems. Th main purpose of current study was to recognize and categorize the inhibitors and obstacles of entrepreneurial activities development of agricultural business owners who are members of Omid Entrepreneurship Fund of Fars Province.

This descriptive study was conducted usind survey and the questionnaire to collect data. The face validity and reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of the professors at Shira University as well as computing alpha Cronbach`s coefficient. The studied population was the members of Omid Entrepreneurship Fund of Fars province, from which a random sample of 70 individuals was selected.

The findings showed that individual-personality barriers, educational barriers, economic barriers, barriers related to structure and policy, and environmental-cultural barriers were the five main inhibitors in starting and developing entrepreneurial activities of members. According to the results, the entrepreneurial alertness of the respondents was at average level as an important part of the individual-personality factor. Based on findings, the business owners of Shiraz had higher entrepreneurial alertness than The Marvdasht entrepreneurs, significamtly. The entrepreneurial alertness of the respondents did not have any significant difference in terms of gender and the areas of work activity.

Based on the findings individual-personality barriers were considered as the most important obstacles in the entrepreneurial businesses` development. Among these, entrepreneurial alertness included a set of psychological characteristics that would be helpful for an entrepreneur to expand his business. On the other side, an entrepreneur who is weak in the entrepreneurial alertness `s dimensions, would be unable to develop his business and will face more problems and challenges than others. It was suggested to hold purposeful educational workshops regarding the strengthening of entrepreneurial psychological characteristics as well as marketing principles and methods, business rules, technical and managerial skills in order to improve the entrepreneurial activities of the members. In addition to that, improving the social networking and interpersonal and group communication among the members of Omid Entrepreneurship Funds as a union, introducing and encouraging the top entrepreneurs of each region and holding periodical meetings in the province and the country were also recommended to improve the access of entrepreneurs to the daily news of the world and updated and new information. Thus, under this circumastances, profitable opportunities will be identified by trained and active entrepreneurs, which will ultimately increase the level of entrepreneurial alertness of business owners.