Abstract:
There are more than one million agricultural coope
ratives members in Iran. In the
meantime, the rapid development of the animal husba
ndry in Iran has forced
cooperatives to meet the members’ scientific and pr
actical needs for completing
production cycle of the dairy industry. Livestock p
roduction covers a wide spectrum of
livestock activities including bee keeping, silkwor
m raising, and aquaculture, indicating
widespread business systems in Iranian animal husba
ndry. Due to significant livestock
population, various animal products, such as raw mi
lk, red meat, white meat (chicken and
fish), eggs, and honey are produced. Thus, the ment
ioned cooperatives need to meet the
markets demands for keeping competitive advantage m
ore than any time before. Only
when innovation is fostered, market competitive adv
antage can be maintained. Today,
sustainability and innovation issues have a great i
mportance in some organizations such
as agriculture cooperatives. The term “entrepreneur
ship” is coined to describe this need
to keep organizations in competitive situation by i
nnovations tools. Presently, it is believed
that entrepreneurship can be developed. Organizatio
nal, personal, and environmental
aspects are important factors toward entrepreneursh
ip fostering. This study took into
consideration three factors in cooperatives, includ
ing structure, strategy, and
leadership.The results of research revealed that th
ese three variables play important role
in entrepreneurship development in cooperatives. Th
us, consideration of these aspects can
help in development and boost cooperatives profits.
The result of modeling by structural
equations methods showed that 38%
of the variance of entrepreneurship as a dependent
variable could be explained by these three factors
in cooperatives.
Keywords:
Agricultural cooperatives, Cooperative Entrepreneur
ship,
Organizational factors.
