Factors Affecting Entrepreneurial Marketing Among Gardeners in Kermanshah: Application of the three-Pronged Model

In recent years, researchers have studied the factors affecting the performance of agricultural businesses and have identified entrepreneurial marketing as one of the new approaches and innovative solutions to maintain the survival and increase the income of this Businesses have introduced. In this regard, the current integrated research (qualitative-quantitative) was conducted with the aim of identifying and classifying the determinants of entrepreneurial marketing among gardeners in Kermanshah city based on the three-pronged model.

In terms of the general paradigm, the present research is of the type of integrated studies (qualitative-quantitative) and in terms of the purpose, it is considered to be of the type of applied studies. In the qualitative part, which was conducted with the aim of identifying and classifying the determinants of entrepreneurial marketing among gardeners in Kermanshah city based on the three-pronged model, the Delphi method was used. The community studied in this section included 16 experienced gardeners and 14 experts and horticultural specialists active in Kermanshah city. In this part of the study, in-depth individual interviews and focused group discussions were used to collect data. In the quantitative part, which was carried out with the aim of validating the entrepreneurial marketing model among gardeners in Kermanshah city, the descriptive-correlation method with the partial least squares approach (Smart PLS) was used. The statistical population in the quantitative part was all the users of the horticulture department of Kermanshah (N=3362) who were selected for the study by using the stratified sampling method and proportional assignment and using the Karjesi and Morgan table. SPSS and Smart PLS software used to analyze the data in two sections of descriptive and inferential statistics.

The results of the Delphi study led to the extraction of 28 items effective on entrepreneurial marketing among gardeners in Kermanshah city, and further, using the three-pronged model, these items were divided into three classes: behavioral factors (9 items), structural factors (7). item) and background factors (12 items) were classified. The results of the quantitative part of the study showed that the status of behavioral and contextual factors among the gardeners of Kermanshah city was lower than the average level, and the status of the structural factor was slightly higher than the average level. Also, the findings of the study indicated that gardeners in Kermanshah had average entrepreneurial marketing skills. Finally, the findings of the structural equation modeling section indicated that about 89% of entrepreneurial marketing changes are explained by the items identified in the research in the form of three-pronged factors (behavioral, structural and contextual).

Improving the state of entrepreneurial marketing among gardeners in Kermanshah requires planning and special attention of officials and planners to behavioral, contextual and structural factors, based on the findings of this study; suggestions have been made to achieve this goal.