نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
نویسندگان
گروه ترویج و آموزش کشاورزی، دانشگاه تهران، کرج، ایران
چکیده
کلیدواژهها
موضوعات
Extended Abstract
Objectives
Knowledge-based economy is considered as one of the newest topics in economic sciences. The role of knowledge in the economy has been noticed due to production factors’ productivity improvement, and its position as an endogenous factor in economic growth has been considered. In this regard, the strategy of developing the knowledge-based economy in each country will be a unique strategy that should be designed and followed according to the capabilities, shortcomings and background conditions of each country. Iran's economy analyzes indicate, the most important weakness of our countries’ economy is the lack of innovation processes and innovative entrepreneurship to exploit new knowledge and technology. Therefore, Iran has no other way to build a knowledge-based economy and reduce its development gap with advanced countries than "knowledge-based development". In spite of the scientific growth and progress in recent years and in line with the creation of science and technology parks, growth centers and entrepreneurship centers in universities, knowledge-based companies establishment, unfortunately, the movement towards a knowledge-based economy has not had a proper momentum. In addition, statistics show that most of the knowledge-based companies have either disappeared or remained small over time, and only a few of them have turned into larger companies.
In addition, agricultural development is one of the most important priorities in developing countries. In the new patterns of agricultural development, knowledge and technology have an important place in the growth and also sustainable agriculture development. These patterns are referred to as scientific agriculture and knowledge-based agriculture. In fact, knowledge-based agriculture increases agricultural production’ efficiency compared to traditional agriculture, and knowledge-based companies have been proposed as a key option of developing countries in the field of agriculture. despite of the agricultural industry’ urgent need for these services, argricultural knowledge-based companies exist at a very limited level, and existing knowledge-based companies in the agricultural sector are facing numerous bottlenecks.
Therefore, universities and agricultural higher education institutions should enter this field as innovation pioneers and provide basis for the creation and development of knowledge-based companies and finally new agricultural technologies development. In this regard, the present research has been especially devoted to the investigation of factors affecting the success and development of Iran's knowledge-based agricultural companies.
Materials and Methods
In order to identify factors affecting the performance of agricultural knowledge-based companies. The statistical population of the research included all knowledge-based companies active in the field of agriculture, 124 of them were selected as a sample using Daniell 's method and finite population correction (FPC) method, and information was collected in an accessible manner. The research data collection tool includes a researcher-made questionnaire that was designed and compiled after studying and reviewing the existing theoretical foundations and also interviewing members of knowledge-based companies in three sections of individual, environmental and organizational factors. Then, in order to examine each of these factors, the respondents were asked to determine the importance of each item in the success of knowledge-based companies based on their familiarity of knowledge-based companies, and then specify the current status and performance of their own company in relation to each item. Finally, in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the mentioned companies and examine the gap between their current and desired status, the performance-importance analysis (IPA) method has been used.
Results and Suggestion
Based on the IPA results, among the individual factors: the ability to set goals and having a vision, decisions making ability, analyzing ability and pragmatism spirit of knowledge-based companies’experts, despite their high importance, it does not have a good status and is located in the second quarter of the matrix (critical area). It seems that the instable economic conditions and the inability companies member to predict the future are not ineffective in creating inappropriate performance in this regard. Therefore, this issue should be given special attention. Since strategic decision-making plays a significant role in overcoming uncertainty and involves the company's long-term survival, dynamism, and promotion, training on strategic decision-making, market analysis, and problem-solving skills should be provided to students and company members so that they can overcome existing problems and publish and commercialize knowledge. This result is in line with the research findings of (Jahani Kia et al., 2020) and (Taghavi et al., 2019).
Among organizational factors: faculty members Cooperation and participation, knowledge-based companies’ initial capital and liquidity and the industry and university close relationship indicators, despite their high importance, are located in a critical area and therefore should be given special attention. Therefore, conditions should be created so that university faculty members, while establishing close relations with knowledge-based companies, make these companies benefit from their scientific and consulting support, and while establishing effective communication between the university and industry, provide the necessary motivations for students to start such companies and learn practical university learning.The (Safarian Navakhi et al., 2019), (Tuli et al., 2019) and (Johnston, 2019) researchs, also confirm this issue and confirm obtained result.
Author Contributions For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used “Conceptualization, A.A. and A.R.P.; methodology, A.A. and K.A.; software, A.A.; validation, S.A.P., S.Y.H.; formal analysis, A.A.; investigation, K.A.; resources, K.A. and S.A.P.; data curation, E.A.; writing—original draft preparation, K.A.; writing—review and editing, A.R.P.; visualization, K.A.; supervision, K.R. and S.Y.H.; project administration, S.A.P; S.Y.H. and A.A.; funding acquisition, S.Y.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.” Please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation. Authorship must be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work re-ported. All authors contributed equally to the conceptualization of the article and writing of the original and subsequent drafts.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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