The effect of entrepreneurship ecosystem on the entrepreneurial skills of agriculture students: The mediating role of social intelligence and emotional intelligence (The case of Zabol University, Iran)

The present research aimed to analyze the effects of different dimensions of the entrepreneurship ecosystem on the agricultural students’ entrepreneurial skills mediated by social and emotional intelligence. The research was conducted among the agricultural students at Zabol University (N = 893) of whom 269 students were sampled by the stratified randomization technique with proportional allocation. The measurement instrument was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of entrepreneurship experts and its reliability was determined by calculating the ordinal coefficient theta (0.81–0.92) in a pilot study. The results showed that the indicators used to measure the research variables were consistent with the factor structure and theoretical framework of the research. The entrepreneurship ecosystem was found to have a positive and significant effect on the students’ social intelligence and emotional intelligence. Also, the students’ entrepreneurial skills were found to be influenced by the entrepreneurship ecosystem, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence positively and significantly. It can be concluded that higher social and emotional intelligence in students and the improvement of the entrepreneurship ecosystem can provide the conditions for the students to acquire and reinforce entrepreneurial skills.