Presenting an Imitation Model of Entrepreneurial Businesses Based on the Nudge theory with an Interpretive-Structural Modeling Approach (Case study:Internet Taxi Businesses in Iran)

One of the challenges for new and innovative businesses is imitation and copying by newcomers. Novice imitators often fail and incur costs for pioneering innovators. This research is aimed at analyzing the impact of pioneer entrepreneurs on those who copy and imitate their works and also the other influential factors in economy of the market. For the first time, the role of Nudge Theory has been modelled in copying the entrepreneurial businesses. This research is practical in terms of purpose, and from the methodological approach, it is included in the category of exploratory mixed research, which is carried out in two steps: thematic analysis and interpretive structural modeling (ISM). The statistical population of this case study consists of two groups; the first group includes national cases of online taxis like Snapp, Tapsi and Maxim. The second group, called ‘the experts’ comprises fifteen university professionals, principals and the founders of entrepreneurial businesses. Data collection has been done using semi-structured interviews and reviewing the interviews and speeches of the managers of the mentioned busainesses. The research findings illustrate a four-level model consisting of fourteen concepts including communication, mental readiness and motivation. The application of MICMAC analysis identified the concept of patriotism, modelling, and the spotlight effect as an independent, dependent and linkage variable, respectively