Normative Institutional Factors Affecting Entrepreneurial Intention in Iranian Information Technology Sector

Abstract

The entrepreneurial intention has been considered as the key element to understand the new-firm creation process. Environment is an important element in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention is affected by environmental events. In fact, environment could be either a facilitator or an impediment to entrepreneurial intention in a society. Institution is an important factor in entrepreneurship fostering and identifying the target group's needs is the first step in entrepreneurship development with institutional approach. This approach to entrepreneurship result in focusing on norms, believes and regulatory affecting individual and organizations which differ in different societies and cultures. The purpose of this study is to identify the effective normative Institutional factors on entrepreneurial intention in Iranian context based on institutional theory and theory of planned behavior. This is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews on a sample of 10 entrepreneurs in Information Technology (IT) sector. After content analysis, the results will reveal a list of the normative institutional factors which affect entrepreneurs' intention. These factors consist of family context, societies' norms and believe, the expectations from women and the technology growth in a country which play an important role on entrepreneur's intention to start a firm in Information Technology sector in Iran.