Investigating Factors Affecting the Identification of Entrepreneurial Opportunities among the Herbal Plant Producers in North Khorasan Province

This research was done with the aim of investigating factors affecting the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities among the Herbal plant producers in North Khorasan province. The statistical population was all the herbal plant producers of North Khorasan province in 2019. Out of them, 209 farmers were selected by convenient sampling method. The main instrument for data collection was a questionnaire whose validity was evaluated by panel of experts, and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha. The results of reliability evaluations revealed that the alpha coefficients for all constructs are greater than 0.7. Data were analyzed using SPSS25.The results of Freidman test regarding factors affecting the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities indicated that three factors entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social networking, and social capital had the greatest importance in identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, respectively. According to the results of the Mann-whitney test, people with a previous cultivation experience ofherbal plants have a higher self-image mean tan the others. Also, people who participated in entrepreneurial courses had great self-image. It should be mentioned that academic graduates had higher self-monitoring, self-image, social capital, social network, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy than the farmers with no academic degrees. Plus, the results obtained from the sign test revealed that only in the two structures of self-monitoring and social capital individuals often have a lower average mean than the population average mean. Moreover, the results of Pearson correlation coefficient showed significant and positive correlations among age and three variables prior knowledge, identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, and entrepreneurial consciousness.