Analysis of Factors Affecting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Development in Entrepreneurial Business (Case Study: Agricultural Small and Medium Enterprises in Zanjan Province)

One of the main strategies to develop entrepreneurial small and medium businesses in the agricultural sector is the use of information and communication technology. For this reason, identifying factors influencing the development of ICT in entrepreneurial businesses is more important. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of small and medium businesses by the mediation process of knowledge creation. The statistical population of the study consisted of managers of agricultural small and medium enterprises in Zanjan province out of which 96 managers determined as sample using Cochran Formula and proportionate stratified sampling technique. The data were collected by a questionnaire developed for the study and were analyzed by SPSS and LISREL software. The validity of the questionnaire was approved by a panel of experts. In order to measure the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach Alpha coefficients were calculated (0.93). To identify the components of factors affecting information and communication technology development in entrepreneurial businesses, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied. Additionally, in order to investigate the fitting indexes surpasses model, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equations modeling were used. The results showed that factors affecting information and communication technology development are formed in five factors including: infrastructure, support, psychological, educational skill and technical consulting that explained about 68.39 percent of variations. The one important conclusion of this study was that information and communication technology has fundamental role in entrepreneurial business development in the agricultural sector.