Modeling the Effects of Entrepreneurship Atmosphere on the Tendency of Agricultural Students for Beginning Creative Businesses

Entrepreneurship is the driving force behind the economy of any country. It is strongly believed that without entrepreneurial activities the process of agricultural development will not be achieved. This requires the proper transformation of capital and skill. The agricultural students should possess creativity in order for them to be able to start new businesses. However with the support of the university reaching this goal is impossible. Hence the objective of this descriptive-correlative paper is to evaluate the entrepreneurial atmosphere created by the university as well as its effects on the tendency of agricultural students to start creative businesses. The statistical population of this research includes the agricultural students studying in Islamic Azad University, Ilam Branch (320 people), among which 169 ones were selected by using Bartlett table and random sampling method as the sample for the study. The research tool was a questionnaire. Its validation was confirmed by structural equation modeling and its stability by using Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient (0.91). Based on the results the tendency of the students towards entrepreneurship is estimated as an average tendency. The results of modeling showed that the entrepreneurial supports of the university possess an indirect impact on the tendency of the students to start a new business via changing the attitude towards entrepreneurship and general skills. The results of the current study can have implications for the educational structure of agriculture. Hence we recommended some methods for creating a proper entrepreneurial atmosphere for paving the way of creating new businesses in this field. [Roya Eshraqi and Alireza Poursaeed. Modeling the Effects of Entrepreneurship Atmosphere on the Tendency of Agricultural Students for Beginning Creative Businesses. International Journal of Agricultural Science, Research and Technology in Extension and Education Systems, 2012; 2(4):157-163].