Presentation of a model for effect of mental toughness on individual entrepreneurship with an emphasis on role of mediator of self-efficacy (Case study: Sport teachers in Golestan province)

This work aimed to present a model for the effect of mental toughness on individual entrepreneurship with an emphasis on the role of mediator of self-efficacy in sport teachers in Golestan Province. This work was survey-correlated, and was based upon the structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the study consisted of all the sport teachers in the Golestan Province with a population of 650 people. The accessible sampling method was used to select the sample. Based on the structural equation modeling, 480 individuals were considered as the sample. The instruments included three standard and adjusted questionnaires for measuring the mental toughness (Afsaneh pourak & Vaez mosavi, 2014), individual entrepreneurship (Kordnaeij, 2007), and self-efficacy (Asghari et al., 2006). The content validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by 9 academic members of sport management. Also the convergent validity (mean extraction variance) was used for measuring the questionnaire construct validity. The reliability of the questionnaires was also measured by the Cronbach's alpha and the combined reliability tests. Testing the research questions and measuring the model fitting were confirmed by a structural equation modeling based on partial least squares. The results obtained indicate that mental toughness significantly improve self-efficacy (β = 0.332) and individual entrepreneurship (β = 0.284). Also self-efficacy improves the individual entrepreneurship (β = 0.573). Exercise in the education system requires entrepreneurship human resources that, despite some organizational, financial, and material constraints, can attract sponsors’ financially and spiritual support sources of funding for the identification and development of school sport talent. In this research work, it was shown that entrepreneurial human resources required intrinsic psychological and selfefficacy factors in order to control the situations ahead in facing challenges, and turn them into opportunities.