Identification of External Critical Success Factors in Microbial Biotechnology Firms

Microbial biotechnology is expected to change production methods, the products themselves and the structure of the industries in the new economies. Hopefully, countries in the Middle-East, Latin America, Asia and Africa have already recognized the importance of microbial biotechnology's promise. In this sense, the importance of externalities which might affect the success or failure of these companies becomes an issue of paramount importance. In the present study, we will try to identify the main external factors which could lead in the success of microbial biotechnology firms in Iran. To do so, the research follows a qualitative research design to answer this main question. Based on our findings, critical success factors are categorized in the following categories: General Environment 1. Introduction Despite high interest in developing the microbial biotechnology industry as the growth engine of the future national economy in developed and developing countries, few empirical studies have been used to scrutinize critical success factors in the microbial biotechnology sector in countries with industry in early development stages. In this study, we review the relevant literature, and start our investigation from a developing country of interest, i.e. Iran. But, to investigate the topic in a better manner, we should firstly define biotechnology. Biotechnology was defined in 1919 by Karl Ereky (a Hungarian engineer), in order to describe methods and techniques which produce substances from row materials with the aid of living organisms (Fári and Kralovánszky, 2006). A standard definition of biotechnology was proposed and agreed upon in the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992, which argues: "any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives there of, to make or modify products and processes for specific use" (Young, 1986). This definition was agreed by 168 member nations, and accepted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as well (Mahboudi et al, 2012). Keeping pace with the growing importance of microbial biotechnology and its potential to address some of our urgent needs such as those in food and health care industries, a spurious and somewhat bogus debate on microbial biotechnology business has been started in Iran. The last decade has also seen a significant growth in importance of microbial biotechnology firms in numbers of establishments and also in employment. This research concentrates on identification of external success factors in microbial biotechnology business in Iran. Then, the main question is: "what …