Indexing Entrepreneurial Success of Floricultural Small Enterprises: Evidence From Sri Lanka

Abstract

Commercialized agriculture shows better avenues in diversifying the rural livelihoods. Floriculture industry is an avenue to initiate successful small scale enterprises in a conducive environment. This paper explores the aspects in small scale floriculture industry to adapt strategies in rural development through indexing the success of floriculture small enterprises under eight dimensions. Both interviewer administrated questionnaire and in-depth interviews with key respondents were adapted in data collection. Findings indicate that the average entrepreneurial success index of the sample is 0.57, meaning the average success level and 38% were very successful. Diversification (0.78), profitability (0.68), social recognition (0.61) are the dimensions that have the highest mean values and quality of supply or service (0.56), customer satisfaction (0.45) and employee satisfaction (0.27) had lower mean values. Middle age (34%) and women (64%) entrepreneurs' engagement in the industry was high. Time spent on the enterprise and labour usage depends on whether the business is their primary or secondary income activity. Floriculture small scale enterprises have been identified as a good income avenue for middle aged women in rural areas. However, rural development strategies need to address the requirement of how to develop the management skills of rural entrepreneurs as well for the sustainability of their enterprises.

Job satisfaction and agripreneurial success of microfinance beneficiary small-scale rice processors in Nigeria’s Jigawa state

“…However, the slight variation is that the presented study established a few cases of unsuccessful enterprise in the study area. In the same vein, Naranya and Geethakutty (2003), in their research on the level of entrepreneurial success of women entrepreneurs in agribusiness established a similar trend pattern of results to that of Kiriveldeniya et al(2020), though much earlier than the research of the later.…”

“…In a related study, Kiriveldeniya et al (2020) in their research on indexing entrepreneurial success of floriculture small enterprises in Sri Lanka reported evidence of all the floricultural enterprises to be successful. However, the slight variation is that the presented study established a few cases of unsuccessful enterprise in the study area.…”

“…Entrepreneurial venture creation is a widely recognized and widely promoted strategy for developing countries to achieve economic growth (Kiriveldeniya et al, 2020). Entrepreneurs who start new businesses face numerous challenges.…”

“…With its change from subsistence agriculture to a profit-driven economy, commercial agriculture has the potential to help rural development. Profit-driven production has been viewed as a means of increasing wellbeing through specialization, comparative advantage, economies of scale, and regular contact and exchange of ideas (Kiriveldeniya et al, 2020). One ideal means of rural agriculture growth is agripreneurship, which is usually, sustainable, community-oriented, directly-marketed agriculture and agripreneurs who have built profit-driven agripreneurial ventures within an agricultural context (Le & Raven, 2015;Nagalakshmi & Sudhakar, 2013).…”

“…Though it is critical to assess the level of agripreneurship's performance, there is no straightforward means to do so. Success could be multifaceted, depending on the inputs available to translate these inputs into many metrics of agripreneur success, all of which are subject to the effect of elements beyond the agripreneur's control (Kiriveldeniya et al, 2020). Agripreneurial success refers to how satisfied agripreneurs are with their financial benefits, such as revenue and profits, or with the overall aspects of the agripreneur's firm.…”