Iranian Entrepreneurship

In retrospect, the government intervention in business ecosystem of Iran has a long history. Oddly enough the dimensions of such intervention are more conspicuous after the approval of the first Constitution in 1906. Nonetheless, it is essential to point out that the strict regulations imposed by the government were partially eased and, at later stages, new concepts in the business world were shaped. This trend greatly contributed to the emergence of entrepreneurship in Iran which goes back to 15 years ago when an Entrepreneurship Development Program at Universities was approved for the first time in this country. Furthermore, the research tries to answer questions about the meanings of entrepreneurship from viewpoints of Iranian policymakers, the actions taken concerning entrepreneurship by government, the key effective factors influencing the policymaking process and finally finding the most prerequisites for effective entrepreneurship policy in Iran. These questions were answered in the wake of studying the relevant National Development Plans (NDPs), and reliable documents which have been recorded by accredited centers also the information gathered through interviews and questionnaires.

The main purpose of this research is to estimate the relationship between business environment indicators and economic growth in MENA countries, especially Iran. We propose the following model: (\( \dot{G} = \alpha + \beta B\dot{E} + \mathop \sum \nolimits \gamma X + \varepsilon \)), where \( \dot{G} \) represents economic growth; BE represents the individual business environment measures, X is a vector of control variables, and ε is the error term. To analyze, we utilize several sources of data including the World Bank’s Doing Business annual reports and World Development Indicators. Dependent variable is annual percentage growth rate of GDP per capita, available from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI). The main explanatory variables are deduced from World Bank’s Doing Business annual reports. Our estimated regressions results suggest that there is a positive and significant relation business environment (Doing Business) indicators and the economic growth of Iran. Some indicators such as “Enforcing Contracts” have the significant effect than others, but this conclusion is not general. The main contribution of this paper is to analyze business regulations in Iran and suggest specific policies to improve its economic performance.

Nowadays, numerous businesses are annually started up by the Iranian nascent entrepreneurs who have the required entrepreneurial skills, personality, and motivation. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2013 data, 75% of Iranian early stage entrepreneurs are nascent entrepreneurs whose average age is 32 and 73% of them are male. Most of nascent entrepreneurs (approximately 66%) are opportunity-based entrepreneurs versus 34% of them who are necessity-based entrepreneurs. Furthermore, 43% of Iranian nascent entrepreneurs believe that there will be good opportunities for starting a business in the next six months in the area where you live; meanwhile 83% of them have the knowledge, skill and experience that is necessary to start a new business. Accordingly, 67% of Iranian nascent entrepreneurs are risk takers (no fear of failure) and 48% of them know someone personally who started a business in the past two years. However, multi-regression results show that the entrepreneurial skills of Iranian nascent entrepreneurs, and not their personality, can affect the entrepreneurial motivation (19%). It means that nascent entrepreneurs who have more entrepreneurial skills start up their businesses based on entrepreneurial opportunities recognition rather than a necessity option. Therefore, entrepreneurship education programs should be formed to empower entrepreneurial skills such as capabilities of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and business startup on potential entrepreneurs.

The critical importance of entrepreneurial passion in the whole process of entrepreneurship has been emphasized by previous research. Specifically, prior research has provided empirical evidence for the influence of passion on personal capabilities of entrepreneurs such as creativity, opportunity identification and exploitation and persistence in dealing with problems as well as their task performance and behavior. The significant impact of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on entrepreneurial passion has also been explored. However, there is little knowledge on the impact of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on entrepreneurial passion and its dimensions particularly among novice entrepreneurs in Iran. Utilizing a quantitative research method, this chapter examines the effects of novice entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy on their entrepreneurial passion and its dimensions including passion for inventing, passion for founding and passion for development. This study involved 254 novice food industry entrepreneurs in Mashhad, one of the biggest provinces of Iran. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The results suggested a strong influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on entrepreneurial passion. Furthermore, entrepreneurial self-efficacy had the greatest effect on passion for inventing followed by passion for development and founding. Implications of the findings for theory development, research and practice are discussed in this chapter.

Externally oriented capabilities have gained increasing attention because of their significant potential to stimulate innovative activities in companies. Yet, there is little understanding of these capabilities in relation to corporate entrepreneurship, in particular in the context of developing countries. The findings from a sample of 126 small and medium supplier companies providing products and services to the mining industry in Iran indicate that a firm’s absorptive capacity enhances the level of corporate entrepreneurship. Moreover, firms with greater knowledge search can more effectively utilize their absorptive capacity for corporate entrepreneurship. The main contribution of this research is connecting externally oriented capabilities to corporate entrepreneurship and showing the way SMEs in developing countries can fill their knowledge gaps to proceed to corporate entrepreneurial purposes.

Women account for half of the population in Iran, but in the last five years, the number of employed women has dropped by 14.2%, resulting in total women’s unemployment rate of 19.8%. According to the 2015 World Economic Forum report, Iran is among the countries with a high gender gap in economy ranking 141 in terms of women’s economic participation among the 145 countries. In the other hand, women’s entrepreneurship does not seem to be enjoying an appropriate status in Iran and despite increased entrepreneurial activities by women, the ratio of businesses run by women to business run by their male counterparts are 2–10. Both contextual and structural factors influence entrepreneurial process; some are strengthening and some others are debilitating. So, if women and entrepreneurship are two important factors for growth especially in developing countries, it is particularly noticeable to understand what factors mobilize or prevent them from starting new businesses. The main contribution of this study are helping better recognition and understanding of ignored subject of women’s entrepreneurship in Iranian context with distinctive socio-cultural characteristics and its specific requirements.

This chapter aims to report a qualitative research on determinants and barriers in the process of university research commercialization with emphasis on inevitable choice of approaching to internationalization. Through an in-depth literature review a conceptual framework developed to give a description and an explanation of the academic entrepreneurship concept and its role in economic development. Based on an interview with 76 faculty members who involved in at least one innovation project or act as managers in supporting organizations, we identified the key factors which influence innovation commercialization. In order to prioritize the importance and intensity of barriers and obstacles, after analyzing qualitative data we asked respondents to weight factors. We can classify identified factors in four categories. Determinants of innovation commercialization include: Business environment factors, supporting organization factors, project management and team member’s factors, industry and innovation project characteristics.

Nowadays, identification of required infrastructures for effective knowledge management and making innovation is of high significance in organizations. Infrastructures have been studied separately in previous research but in this study it is tried to investigate the direct and indirect effects of organizational structure and climate on innovation performance by considering the mediatory role of knowledge management and social interaction by a comprehensive model. This study has been conducted in a sample including 140 staffs of sale and marketing department of Shuttle Company in Tehran by using simple random sampling. Research methodology was of correlative type and research instrument was questionnaire. Structural equation modeling by LISREL software was applied for data analysis. The finding showed that the effects of organizational structure on social interaction, organizational climate on knowledge management and social interaction on innovation performance were positive and significant. But organizational structure and social interaction variables on knowledge management, organizational climate on social interaction and knowledge management on innovation performance couldn’t have any direct and significant influence.

Transnational entrepreneurs are innovating global society by providing interesting new products, services and processes. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of transnational entrepreneurship by focusing on the diaspora. This means utilizing a theory of practice framework to understand the changing conceptualization of immigrant entrepreneurship. The role of transnational diaspora entrepreneurs is discussed, which emphasizes the role of transnational living in the global economy. The role of transnational networks are discussed that leads to an examination of hybrid forms of entrepreneurship that integrate immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship. Future research suggestions are also stated.

Immigrants perform better in import/export industries than generally in independent business. The usual explanation addresses their overseas social networks. Extensive network connections abroad enable immigrants to reduce the daunting transaction costs that otherwise bedevil SMEs in international trade. Accepting that prevailing view, this research obtains evidence regarding the actual social network ties that Iranian immigrant entrepreneurs in Los Angeles had with trading partners abroad. However, instead of looking at connections between the Iranians and their homeland, we examined instead their social connections with other locations in the Iranian international diaspora. Although preliminary and sketchy, this evidence tends to confirm the importance of personal social contacts abroad, but it also shows that Iranian traders still reported many collection problems overseas and, as a result, had undertaken legal strategies of self-protection.

Iran is the second largest economy and the second largest population in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with a stubbornly high unemployment rate of 11.7% in 2015 (The World Bank in The internet users 2015). Entrepreneurship could be a part of the solution to the high unemployment rate in Iran. As a matter of fact, the Iranian diaspora seizes influential positions in technology, business, and financial industries in Europe and North America. Our study is to answer whether the place of residence has an impact on entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial intention, and to examine the relation between entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial intention by providing a comparative study of two groups—Iranian adults in Iran and Iranian diaspora. Using a sample of 3169 native-born Iranian adults in Iran and a sample of 361 Iranian diasporas who are fairly representative of the Iranian diaspora, we find that entrepreneurial competencies in the form of self-efficacy, risk-opportunity and role modeling are more prevalent among Iranian adults at home, but opportunity-alertness is less prevalent among Iranian adults at home. We also found that Iranian adults at home are more likely to start a business compared to the Iranian diaspora. Astonishingly, our study shows that entrepreneurial competency in the form of risk-propensity does not benefit entrepreneurial intention. Only entrepreneurial competency in the form of self-efficacy benefits entrepreneurial intention (in the form of intending phase and starting phase) regardless of where Iranians reside.

How are women and men entrepreneurs networking in the private sphere and in the public sphere, in Iran, in the Iranian diaspora, and in their host-societies? Entrepreneurs in Iran and native entrepreneurs in other countries are embedded in their own society, but entrepreneurs in the Iranian diaspora are dually embedded, in Iran and in their host-society. Expectedly, entrepreneurs in the Iranian diaspora are networking in ways that blend ways of networking in Iran and ways of networking in the host-societies. A sample of 8263 entrepreneurs in Iran, in the Iranian diaspora, and in their host-societies, was surveyed in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Women and men entrepreneurs are networking similarly in the private sphere, but men are networking more in the public sphere. Entrepreneurs in traditional society, Iran, are networking more in the private sphere than entrepreneurs in the Iranian diaspora and host-societies. Conversely, entrepreneurs in the Iranian diaspora and host-societies are networking more in the public sphere. The gendering of networking, moreover, is moderated by culture, especially in that networking in the private sphere is especially extensive for women in Iran, whereas networking in the public sphere is especially extensive for men in the Iranian diaspora and in their host-societies.

Entrepreneurs use their competencies to discover and exploit opportunities for doing business. Both entrepreneurial competencies and performance expectedly depend on social circumstances, and specifically differ between natives and emigrants. Here the question is, how do entrepreneurs in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora differ in their competencies and performance? A representative survey of people in Iran and around the world identified entrepreneurs 1639 natives in Iran and Iranians in the diaspora, who were intending to start, starting or operating a business. Statistical analysis shows that entrepreneurial competencies tend to be higher in the diaspora than in Iran, especially alertness to new business opportunities. Partly because of this difference in competencies, performance is higher in the diaspora than in Iran, specifically in terms of innovation, exporting and expectations for growth of the business. Lifting sanctions against Iran, though, will expectedly enhance performance in Iran, and also enhance the Iranian diaspora’s exports to Iran.

Entrepreneurs rely on different types of networks like public and private. One reason for this difference between networks is a difference between cultures. Moreover, networking in public and private spheres has different consequences for entrepreneurial outcomes. The purpose of this study is to analyze effects of Iranian entrepreneurs’ network at home and in diaspora upon entrepreneurial outcomes. We used a sample of 1387 intending, starting and operating entrepreneurs, including 1330 native-born in Iran and 57 Iranians in the diaspora in age of 18–64, from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Based on the results, Iranian entrepreneurs in Iran receive advice mainly from their private sphere while Iranian entrepreneurs in diaspora use their public sphere. Being in diaspora affects entrepreneurs’ innovativeness (use of new technology, newness of product for customers and newness of products in market) and exporting positively. Overall, Iranian entrepreneurs in diaspora have larger and more diverse networks, which affect their innovativeness, exporting and growth-expectation positively. The study contributes to the study of Iranian entrepreneurs’ networking at home and in diaspora and the effects of public and private networking on their entrepreneurial outcomes.

More literature about entrepreneurship is focusing on cultural behavior but less is known about more hybrid forms of entrepreneurship that combine culture, ethnicity, immigration and internationalization such as transnational entrepreneurship. This is due to transnational entrepreneurship being an emerging research field that is growing in significance due to increased migration levels and a more global diaspora. This chapter examines transnational entrepreneurship by suggesting a number of research avenues including emphasizing individuals’ links to sports and other cultural significant events that encourage their transnational entrepreneurship.

The crucial challenges facing the economic, cultural and social situations of the 21st century are calling for new initiatives and thinking . International mindset and innovative structure of businesses are vital routes for economic growth and for competitiveness of businesses particularly in the foreign markets. A key component to succeed in international entrepreneurship is promoting a new archetype of innovation that is called open innovation which is capable to match knowledge and technology innovation with business challenges and societal development inside alliances, networks, and joint ventures. Open innovation offered a unique outside-in process from suppliers, supply chain, research centers and then transformed into an advanced new process. This setup concurrently entrepreneurs to create and sustain incremental and radical innovative efforts to develop international speed and intensity. Further, the incorporation of open innovation highlights that these not only take form in relation to external partners but also between units of the firm who fill network structural holes. The main contribution of this paper is adding to the body of international entrepreneurship literature by introducing a novel theoretical model for Iranian businesses who wishes to join international trade networks, given the scope of international competition.

This study aims to present a rational and process-oriented framework originated from the pluralistic standpoint. The primary objective of this framework is to conceptualize the entrepreneurial marketing and entrepreneurs’ marketing methods. For this purpose, a sequential exploratory mixed method was conducted that accomplished two different types of scientific collaborations. Statistical sampling was carried out amongst nineteen out of twenty-one active entrepreneurial firms of Iran’s food industries. Results showed that the pattern of IEM upon an evolutionary basis profited 5 different phases including ‘restricted sales and initial activities of marketing’, ‘suitable and opportunistic sales’, ‘diversified marketing’, ‘profitable and integrated marketing’ and also ‘proactive marketing’. The main components of the considered phases comprised of 6 themes, 23 dimensions and 164 entrepreneurial details supposed to have different specifications during the different periods of time. Meanwhile, a new definition of entrepreneurial marketing has been accordingly presented. The main contribution of this paper is exploring, distinguishing and conceptualizing the “International Entrepreneurial Marketing (IEM)” based on entrepreneurs/owners in this field by using life cycle approach.

Export marketing experts believe that “identifying the factors that affect export performance” is important for firms in today’s competitive markets in that it helps them improve export performance. This research was conducted with the goal of identifying and prioritizing the factors that affect the export performance of sports equipment and sportswear firms. Also, the research used the Lee and Griffith’s model (International Marketing Review 21(3):321–334, 2004). In terms of purpose and method, the research falls into the applied-quantitative category. As the number of exporting firms in the area of sports equipment was limited (32 firms), a minimum number of 23 firms were selected based on the Morgan table among which 60 copies of the research questionnaire were distributed in order to collect data. Then, using the PLS software, the collected data was analyzed so as to assess each of the 5 factors in the model for the intended industry. Finally, the research provides some recommendations and suggestions that could help improve export performance in the sportswear and sports equipment industry.

The Internet of Things inspires a wealth of innovative business models, which forces firms across industries to adjust their strategies in order to succeed in digital market environments. Many companies have difficulties to capture the unprecedented ecosystem complexity and to develop adequate business models. In the field of entrepreneurship, Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) are focusing mainly on platform solutions which companies can use to enhance the efficiency of their business process management systems, supply chain management, marketing strategies, and alliances. Many SMEs are working on future mobility solutions in the form of E-mobility. For Entrepreneurs in Iranian SMEs the artifact will serve as tool for depicting, analyzing and envisioning business models in Internet of Things. By making recent Internet of Things-driven market dynamics and specifics of digitized goods explicit, the artifact is able to decidedly support business model development in complex Internet of Things ecosystems.

Home-based businesses play a major role in economic development of countries, but because of their small sizes and limited budget encounters with threats such as dealing with great. The majority of these businesses were destroyed in the first 5 years and the most important factor is the competition and low sale. Brand is the only thing that will keep the business operation for long time and gives them a competitive advantage and this study which has been performed qualitatively, grounded theory, and by multiple cases, the model has been presented for branding model for home-based businesses by the study of reputable and brand items in the food industry. This model has 5 main components of brand value, emotional performance of brand, brand marketing plans, brand positioning and brand evaluation and 17 indicator and sub-components. After the performed surveys among 17 sub-components and indicator the factor of capabilities and competence of owner-manager, viral marketing, positioning based on product advantage has the greatest role in business reputation and its branding, respectively.

This chapter aims at pointing out that how mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as popular strategies which they are based on external growth approach have affected the performance of banks and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in the context of Iranian financial sector. In this regard, it has been tried to investigate in what way EO moderates the relationships between the performance of banks in one hand, and M&As on the other hand. For this goal, 114 participants including the top and middle managers of the Iranian banks were chosen to be closely considered. The research is an applied research and a cross-correlation methodology has been used to spotlight on the probable relationships between EO and M&As. Furthermore, partial least squares was used to analyse the data and test the model. Thus, the main contribution of the research can be claimed as; investigating whether EO performs as a variable moderator between the performance of banks and M&As. The results of the research reveal that, M&As have enhanced the performance of banks directly and indirectly, through promoting EOs.