International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development
Volume:10 Issue: 2, Jun 2020

The agricultural sector is the centerpiece of Iran's economic development and is capable of turning the nation into an industrial country. But, this requires agriculture to become knowledge-intensive whose prerequisites are the commercialization of technological achievements. The present study was carried out by a survey design to identify the effective constructs underpinning the commercialization system of the agricultural research achievements in Iran. The statistical population was composed of faculty members and instructors of institutes for agricultural research and education (IAREs) in Iran. The sample size was determined as 190 people that were taken by the proportional random sampling technique. The face validity of the research instrument was confirmed by 10 experts of research commercialization, and its reliability was estimated by Cronbach’s alpha. The results showed the involvement of three constructs in the process of the establishment and development of commercialization: i.e. ‘motivational-behavioral’, ‘structural-organizational’, and ‘contextual-environmental’. Different groups of membership in knowledge-intensive firms, membership in scientific associations, and participation in startups were significantly distinctive based on the participants’ opinions about commercialization. The level of knowledge and skills of those involved in the process of commercializing research achievements was found to be lower than average. Also according to the results, the respondents needed to be more familiar with technology transfer topics, teamwork techniques, national and international networking technology,science and technology growth parks and centers, intellectual property issues, and methods of successful commercialization of research achievements.

The present study aimed to explain the barriers of conversion to organic farming in West Azarbaijan Province, Iran. To achieve the goals of the study, data were collected from both certified organic farmers and conventional farmers using a questionnaire and in-depth interviews. The sample population consisted of 400 people out of whom farmers were selected by the cluster sampling method by using Morgan’s table. The research instrument consisted of a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by an expert panel consisting of specialists in agriculture and development and rural development. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to measure the reliability of different sections of the questionnaire and its value was determined to be 0.87. The results of factor analysis showed that the barriers of conversion in organic farming can be classified into five main factors; i.e., economic, social, policy support, informational and educational, and natural barriers. They altogether captured 47.8 percent of the variance in barriers.

The purpose of this study was to analyze knowledge commercialization in agricultural higher education of Khuzestan province. To end it a survey research method was applied. Faculty members of agricultural colleges of Khuzestan province, Iran including Shahid Chamran University, Ramin Agricultural and Natural Resources University, Islamic Azad University are considered as statistical of population of study (N=417). The main instrument of research was questionnaire which validity was determined by a panel of experts and also Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was used for determining of reliability (α=0.86). Based on regression analysis, effective researchers, effective relationship of university with industry and society, material and spiritual support of knowledge commercialization, government services,  rules and regulation and parks and centers of science and technology development may well explain for 61.4 percent variations (R2=0.614) in level of knowledge commercialization in agricultural higher education. The SEM indicated that the predictive positive effect of external factors (EF) and internal factors (IF) to knowledge commercialization (KC). Also government services (GS), economic stimulus (ES), rules and regulation (RR) and Parks and Centers of science and technology development (PC) have a significant impact on EF. The findings indicated effective researchers (ER), effective relationship of university with industry and society (ERU), material and spiritual support of knowledge commercialization in universities (MS), use of specialized consultants in the field of knowledge commercialization (SC) and research quality (RQ) also have a significant impact on IF. The findings showed that these nine construct (GS, ES, RR, PC, ER, ERU, MS, SC and RQ) determinants accounts for 73 percent of the variance in the KC. The results showed that mistrust between industry and university has first priority of barriers to knowledge commercialization in agricultural higher education.

The main purpose of this quantitative research was to determine the effective factors on rural women's self-efficacy in Malard County. The statistical population consisted of all rural women in Malard County (N=23636). The sample size was determined using Cochran's formula (n=613) who were selected through stratified random sampling method .The data for the study were gathered through a structured questionnaire. Content validity of the questionnaire was determined based on inputs by experts in the field and a review of the relevant literature. Cronbach's alpha test was used to assess the reliability of the questionnaire. The data analysis was performed using SPSS v.18. The results of Pearson correlation coefficient showed that there were positive and significant correlation between educational and extension factors, participation in family decision-making , social factors, spatial dynamics, economic factors, self-esteem factors, capacity to deal with shocks and stresses with self-efficacy of rural women . There was also a negative and significant relationship between age and self-efficacy of rural women. Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that economic factor (R2= 0.437), educational and extension factor (R2= 0.507), self-esteem factor (R2= 0.539) and social factor (R2= 0.545) respectively were the most important contributing factors to the dependent variable (rural women self-efficacy).

The main purpose of this study was to analyze entrepreneurial competences of rural women’s cooperative managers in Hamedan province. The study used a surveying method with the questionnaire as a main tool. Data gathering was done by a sample of 105 managers. The validity of questionnaire was verified by a panel of expert and its reliability was measured using Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α=0.94). Entrepreneurial competencies of managers were classified in eight factors. These factors were “having strategic goals”, “ability to monitor and organize subordinates”, “risk taking”, “ability to motivate and trust people”, “having a positive attitude and criticism”, “ability to identify and understand the needs of customers”, “public relation ability” and “earn and apply skills and energy”. Structural equations modeling (SEM) by LISREL8.8 software was used for estimating a model for entrepreneurial competences of rural women’s cooperative managers. Results of SEM showed a good fit of model with eight factors described before. Fit indices are placed into three main groups including: Goodness of Fit index, Comparative Fit Index, and Parsimonious Goodness of Fit index. The results showed an excellent fit of selected indices to measure entrepreneurial competencies of rural women’s cooperative managers with observed variables in Hamedan province.

The study aims at providing a model for talent management in active knowledge-based companies in agricultural domain of Guilan Province. This applied and descriptive study with a mixed research method. In the qualitative part, an in-depth semi-structured interview with 30 experts was used and also the theoretical foundations and research background study were applied for qualitative data collection. For collecting data in the quantitative part, the survey study was used. The survey research data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire. The target population consisted of 150 intermediate managers, supervisors, and deputies of knowledge-based organizations in Rasht, of which 108 participants were selected via purposeful sampling as the sample size of this study. The sampling size was determined via the table of Krejcie and Morgan. SPSS19 software and Smart PLS3 software were used to analysis the data. The results showed that the dimensions identified in the field of talent management in the knowledge-based companies were include: internal talent identification, external talent identification, socialization (making socialized), development and talents retention. Two components identified for internal talent identification include identification of talented employees and the selection of talented employees. Three factors consist of transformational leadership, organizational culture and employer brand have been identified as the underlying and effective factors on talent management in the knowledge-based companies of agriculture section in Rasht city. The transformational leadership style has the greatest impact on the talent management and the employer brand is in next ranking in terms of the effectiveness level on the talent management.

Water scarcity, especially in Iran and during the recent droughts, emphasizes the importance of achieving an optimal operation policy for large dam reservoirs. In the last two decades, the annual optimization of dam reservoirs under the controlled conditions, as well as climatic and real conditions has attracted many researchers and engineers. In this paper, a new approach is proposed to predict the reservoir dam storage. The imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is a new approach in the field of evolutionary computation which calculates the optimal solution in different optimization problems. This algorithm, by mathematical modeling of the social-psychological evolution process, provides a new approach for solving mathematical optimization problems, and in comparison with other algorithms, has appropriate speed and high convergence rate in finding an optimal response. In this research, the imperialist competitive algorithm was used for annual optimization of the Kahir reservoir to derive the optimal policies. Objective function downstream water issue needs to establish relationships based on continuity were selected. Comparison of ICA model in population 100 showed that the ICA algorithm with average best objective function value of 125, 114.6 and 85.60 with a number of further evaluations of the objective function to achieve higher capacity is the optimum answer. The results showed a 6.1% error in the implementation of the ICA algorithm between the observed and predicted storages. The results of applying the imperialist competitive algorithm to the annual optimization problem indicate the capability of the proposed method.