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International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development Available online on: www.ijamad.iaurasht.ac.irISSN: 2159-5852 (Print)ISSN:2159-5860 (Online)Research Paper

Keywords: Agricultur Jahad Organi-zation, entrepreneurshipof employees, managerialpower

Received: 08 April 2018,Accepted: 23 June 2018 The main objective of this research was to investigatethe effect of managerial power on entrepreneurshippsychological characteristics of employees in AgricultureJahad Organizations of Western Azarbaijan Province, Iran.The stratified random sampling method was applied fordata collection. In order to collect data, the power assessmentquestionnaire developed by Hinkin and Schriesheim (1989)and that of assessing entrepreneurship psychological char-acteristics developed by Durham Institute were used.Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based on partial leastsquares approach and SmartPLS v2 were used to analyzedata. Results showed a significant positive relationshipbetween managerial power (except for coercive power)and achievement orientation, intrinsic control, creativity,ambiguity tolerance, and independence characteristics;however, no significant relationship was observed betweenmanagerial power and the risk-taking characteristic. Ad-ditionally, results from the structural model showed man-agers' referent and expert powers have a significant positiveeffect on entrepreneurship psychological characteristicsof employees. Therefore, drawing on the results of this re-search and the proper use of their power, managers ofAgriculture Jahad Organizations can develop and strengthenentrepreneurial characteristics and entrepreneurship spiritamongst their employees, and consequently, guaranteethe organization success and prosperity.

Abstract

On the Effect of Managerial Power on Psychological Charac-teristics of Entrepreneurial Employees (Case Study: Agricul-ture Jahad Organizations of Western Azarbaijan Province)

Farhad Mahbobkhaha,* and Yusef Beigzadehb

a Ph.D. Department of Government Management, Bonab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bonab, Iran b Assistant Prof., Department of Government Management, Bonab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bonab, Iran

* Corresponding author’s email: mahbobkhah_farhad@yahoo.com

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IntrOduCtIOnIn this era, organizations can ensure theirsurvival, growth, and profitability throughtheir effective use of available resources(Analoui et al., 2009) and are innovative andcreative in presenting their products andservices (Goldsmith, 1995). Today, issues ofentrepreneurship have become so importantthat they are dealt with in most universitiesaround the world (Fallah Haghighi et al,2018). In a rapidly changing world, organiza-tions need to continually identify new oppor-tunities beyond existing ones if they are toSurvive (Korani, 2018) Entrepreneurship, in-novation, and new trends are the fuel for de-velopment engines (Waltonkirikley, 2016).Undoubtedly, it is necessary to adopt an en-trepreneurial attitude to ensure organizationsuccess (Daft, 2000). Entrepreneurship is anopportunity-based way of thinking and ac-tion (Jena & Sahoo, 2014). Despite the com-mon belief that entrepreneurship exists onlyin the private sector, studies have shown thatthis category is also seen in non-profit (pub-lic) organizations, too (Jalilvand & Vosta,2015). Management science experts have re-garded entrepreneurship psychological char-acteristics of human resource as a factoraffecting the success of any organization andhave considered it besides other factors (Mo-hammadi et al., 2014). In general, organiza-tions in which innovation and dynamism flowexists are more viable and advanced thanother organizations (Fatima et al., 2016).Reaching such a situation requires a managerand leader, who is capable of significantly af-fecting the organization’s performance(Rahimi et al., 2014). Successful leaders andmanagers can effectively use their power andthis helps organizations attain their goals(Jalilvand & Vosta, 2015). In fact, organiza-tions need managers who challenge the ex-isting norms and use their human resourcesin the best possible way (Milana & Maldon,2015). Since sociologists and psychologistsentered into the field of entrepreneurship re-search, the necessity of entrepreneurship,and especially, the strengthening of the entre-preneurship psychological characteristics of

employees in organizations have become ev-ident more than ever (Rezae & Gholipour,2016). The cure and way of rescue for today’s or-ganizations are turning to entrepreneurialapproaches. To be successful and survive,every organization should always stand onthe path of innovation and development.Agricultural departments are among theagencies which have a long history; therefore,they can be revived by innovating and devel-oping the entrepreneurial spirit in their em-ployees. The Iranian agricultural sector mustalways play a leading role in economic devel-opment and progress; however, the problemswith the administrative and economic struc-ture in Iran have led the sector to fail to playits main role, while empowering employeesto act like entrepreneurs and strengtheningentrepreneurial characteristics in them canlead to organizational productivity, and con-sequently, economic advancement in this sec-tor.This issue has been less addressed, whilethere are many opportunities and capabili-ties in this part for strengthening entrepre-neurial psychological characteristics ofhuman resource and hence for personal andorganizational empowering and efficiency. Bystrengthening the abovementioned charac-teristics in their employees and increasingtheir entrepreneurial spirit, AgricultureJahad Organizations can affect employees’ ef-fectiveness and efficiency and consequentlycan promote the quality of their activities. Itshould be investigated that which tools andpowers the managers of these organizationscan use to strengthen these characteristics intheir employees. Therefore, the current re-search seeks to investigate the effect of man-agerial power on the entrepreneurshippsychological characteristics of employees ofAgriculture Jahad Organizations in WestAzarbaijan Province. Power is defined as the capability of a per-son to affect another one to do something(Jalilvand & Vosta, 2015). Studying powerand its effects and how to use it are of para-mount importance in organizational success

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(Pinnow, 2011). Power is a function of influ-ence without using sanctions and threats(Robbins, 2007). In this regard, the influenceis related to respect. For instance, when werespect others, we meet their demands;therefore, it can be inferred that managerialpower is positive in this regard. French andRaven (1959) define power as the capabilityor potential ability of an agent (manager) tochange the behavior, tendencies, attitude, be-liefs and emotions or values of a target (em-ployee) (Cho, 2006). The most importantanalysis with regard to managerial power hasbeen presented by French and Raven (1959).They identified five powers in organizationalenvironments, including legitimate power, re-ward power, coercive power, referent power,and expert power (Morhed & Giriffin, 2007).Legitimate power is originated from organi-zational rank and position and relies on theofficial position of the person (Rezaeian,2007). Reward power is the ability to providethings that individuals like to have (Rezaeian,2006). Coercive power is based on the em-ployees fear and its basis is either fear orthreat (Rezaeian, 2007). A leader is said tohave referent power when employees attrib-ute good traits such as honesty, trusteeship,and secrecy to her (Morhed & Girifin, 2007).Expert power is the ability to control otherpeople’s behavior through knowledge, expe-rience, and judgment they lack but need(Rezaeian, 2006). Entrepreneurship is a key element in in-creasing a company’s innovation capacityand realizing its competitive advantage (Cas-trogivani et al., 2011). Organizations can beactive and risk taker through the activity oftheir innovative members (Shokrolahi &Karimi, 2016). In entrepreneurship studies,researchers have divided factors affecting en-trepreneurial behavior into three factors: so-cial, environmental and individual. Individualfactor model, which is widely known as thecharacteristics model, focuses on psycholog-ical characteristics of entrepreneurs (Gurol &Atsan, 2006). Characteristics/traits approachis more common compared to other entre-preneurship approaches (Kruzic & Pavic,

2010). The psychological characteristics ap-proach highlights this hypothesis that entre-preneurs have characteristics and valuesproviding them with a driving force and dif-ferentiating them from others (Gurol & Atsan,2006). Entrepreneurship literature also holdsthat entrepreneurs have different character-istics (Matviuk, 2010).During the last few decades, some psychol-ogists and researchers have sought to dis-cover entrepreneurs’ psychological(personality) traits. The main goal of theseresearch studies has been motivation for ad-vancement, creativity, self-confidence, risk-taking, a focus on control, and accountability(Mardanshahi et al., 2014). Following the re-view of the literature on entrepreneurshippsychological characteristics of employees,the following characteristics were investi-gated in the present study based on the scaledeveloped by the Durham Institute for Entre-preneurship in the United Kingdom to assessentrepreneurship psychological characteris-tics of employees.Achievement orientation: It is the tendencyto do works in the best possible way and tomake attempts to reach the peak of success(Olakitan & Ayobami, 2011).Intrinsic control: believing that events arethe result of human performance, not envi-ronmental factors (Arslan et al., 2009).Creativity: It means creating new ideas(Furnham & Backtiar, 2008)Risk-taking: It means the acceptance of cal-culated risks (Ahmadpour Daryani, 2004).Ambiguity tolerance: It means enduring am-biguous situations and right decision makingin these conditions (Gurol & Atsan, 2006).Independence: It means having control overone’s fate and be one’s own boss (Ahmad-pour Daryani, 2004). Pourvaghaz and Mohammadi (2011) con-clude that there is a significant direct rela-tionship between powers used by managersand entrepreneurship personality character-istics amongst employees. Research findingshave shown that the source of reward andreferent powers of managers plays the great-est role in predicting entrepreneurship per-

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sonality characteristics of employees. Hasan-zadeh (2014) shows that expert, referent andreward powers are significantly directly re-lated to entrepreneurship characteristics ofemployees. Additionally, he shows that thereis a significant inverse relationship betweencoercive power and entrepreneurship char-acteristics of employees. Sedaghatkish andNasrolahi (2016) conclude that there is a sig-nificant direct relationship between man-agers’ power and entrepreneurshippersonality characteristics of employees, andreward, referent and expert powers have agreater role in predicting the abovemen-tioned characteristics. Keyvani (2013)showed managers’ power affects employees’organizational commitment, and amongstmanagers’ power resources, referent and ex-pert powers have greater explanatory poten-tial than other resources. In another study,Jong and Hartog (2007) show the innovativeand entrepreneurial behavior of organizationmembers (employees) is affected by howmanagement deals with organization mem-bers, how managers communicate with em-

ployees, and their management style plays apivotal role. Jalilvand and Vosta (2015) con-clude that the five powers of managers (ex-cept for coercive power) have a significantpositive relationship with the emotional com-mitment of employees and are predictive ofthe dependent variable at a proper level.Smith et al. (2006) show the profound effectof environment on human attitude towardself and others; therefore, how organizationmanagement deals with its employees can actas the main facilitator in motivating entrepre-neurial behaviors and strengthening and de-veloping these behaviors in employees.The main aim of this research was to inves-tigate the effect of management power on en-trepreneurship psychological characteristicsamongst employees of Agriculture Jahad Or-ganizations of West Azarbaijan Province.Considering the theoretical principles of thepresent research and the literature inside andoutside of Iran, the conceptual model of theresearch was formulated as shown in Figure1.Considering the conceptual model, the cur-

On the Effect of Managerial Power on Psychological... / Mahbobkhah and Beigzadeh

Figure 1. The conceptual model of the research

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rent research attempts to answer the follow-ing questions:What is the status of managerial power andentrepreneurship psychological characteris-tics of employees in the studied population? Is there any relationship between manage-rial power and entrepreneurship psycholog-ical characteristics of employees?Does managerial power affect entrepre-neurship psychological characteristics of em-ployees?MEthOdOlOgyConsidering research objectives, the pres-ent study is an applied one and regardingdata collection and analysis method, it is a de-scriptive correlational study based on Struc-tural Equation Modeling (SEM) (partial leastsquares approach). The statistical populationof the research consisted of managers andemployees of Agriculture Jahad Organiza-tions and the general directorate of Agricul-ture Jahad of West Azarbaijan Province, Iran.Based on Morgan’s Table of sample size, thestatistical sample size was estimated to be328 individuals (80 managers and 248 em-ployees) as calculated by the stratified ran-dom sampling method. In fact, the samplewas taken from two spectra of communitymembers, including managers (heads of or-ganizations, deputies, and division man-agers) to number of 100 people andemployees (700 people) based on statisticalpopulation size. The power assessment ques-tionnaire developed by Hinkin andSchriesheim (1989) and the questionnaire ofassessing entrepreneurship psychologicalcharacteristics of employees (Durham) wereused for data collection. It should be notedthat both questionnaires were standard. Themanagers’ power assessment questionnairehas five components and each component ismeasured using four items. Overall, this ques-tionnaire has 20 items. The second question-naire has six components. Each component ismeasured by four items and in general, it has24 items. It should be noted that before dataanalysis, data packing method was used for

classification in a way that on average, eachsector employee’ questionnaires were putagainst the questionnaire of their sector man-ager.From the validity perspective, the question-naires were investigated in three aspects: Forface validly, the questionnaires were investi-gated and modified by two management pro-fessors and some members of the samplebased on their apparent form. For content va-lidity, Content Validity Index (CVI) and Con-tent Validity Ratio (CVR) forms wereprepared for both questionnaires and weredistributed amongst 12 experts. After modi-fication, CVI and CVR values were calculatedto be 0.79 and 056, respectively. Consideringthe table presented by Lawshe (1975), thesevalues confirm the content validity of thequestionnaires. Finally, for construct validity,after the completion of the questionnaires,the convergent validity and divergent validitywere investigated and confirmed as referredto in the Results section. As shown in Table 1,the reliability of questionnaires was obtainedto be above 0.7 for all variables using Cron-bach’s alpha and was confirmed because ifCronbach’s alpha is more than 0.7, the ques-tionnaire has acceptable reliability (Cron-bach, 1957). Additionally, CompositeReliability (CR) as one of the important in-dices in investigating the questionnaire reli-ability in the given model was investigated,and as the CR value for all variables wasabove 0.7, the questionnaire was confirmedto be reliable, indicating that the measure-ment instrument in the given model has theproper reliability (Hair et al., 2006).Data were analyzed using SPSS and Smart-PLS 2.0. To analyze the data with SmartPLSsoftware, after the measurement model is in-vestigated and before the structural model isimplemented, the researcher should perform17 tests to see if questionnaires are reflectiveand 21 tests to find out if questionnaires arecomposite to ensure results. Then, the re-search structural model can be presentedconfidently (Hair et al., 2006).

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rESultSThe results of the descriptive analysis indi-cated that 15 percent of respondents were fe-male and 85 percent were male, and thehighest age frequency was in the age groupof 40-50 years. The majority of respondents(85 percent) held a bachelor or higher de-gree. The field of study of 75 percent of re-spondents was related to their job and theservice life of 65 percent of respondents was15 years or greater. In addition, 20 percent ofrespondents to the entrepreneurship psycho-logical characteristics of employees’ ques-tionnaire were female and 80 percent weremale, and the highest frequency was in theage group of 30-40 years. Most of the respon-

dents (80 percent) had a bachelor or higherdegree. The field of study was related to theirjob in 80 percent of respondents and theservice life of more than 85 percent of re-spondents was 5 years or greater. In order to answer the first question as tothe investigation of the managerial powerstatus and entrepreneurship psychologicalcharacteristics of employees, Tables 2 and 3summarize the statistical distribution of themean, standard deviation, and the results ofone-sample t-test scores of managerialpower and entrepreneurship psychologicalcharacteristics amongst employees accordingto the average score 3.

On the Effect of Managerial Power on Psychological... / Mahbobkhah and BeigzadehTable 1Cronbach’s Alpha for Variables and Their Components

Variable Component number of items Cronbach’s alpha

Managerial powerLegitimate power 4 0.765Reward power 4 0.718Coercive power 4 0.798Referent power 4 0.829Expert power 4 0.811Entrepreneurship psycho-logical characteristics Achievement orientation 4 0.826Intrinsic control 4 0.865Creativity 4 0.789Ambiguity tolerance 4 0.899Risk taking 4 0.847Independence 4 0.849

Table 2Results of One-Sample t-Test of Power Used by Managers (n=80)

Variable Mean Sd t-value P-value

Legitimate power 4.071** 0.612 23.621** 0.000Reward power 3.850** 0.754 14.746** 0.000Coercive power 1.873** 0.602 -21.12** 0.000Referent power 4.010** 0.914 14.152** 0.000Expert power 3.712** 0.945 9.420** 0.000**P<0.01

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The results show that legitimate power(4.071) and coercive power (1.873) have hadthe highest and lowest means amongst man-ager powers, respectively. Considering thesemeans, the major sources of managerial pow-ers can be enumerated as legitimate, referent,reward, expert, and coercive from the highestto lowest, respectively. The results also indi-

cate that the means of legitimate, referent, re-ward and expert powers were higher thanthe average i.e., score 3. This shows themedium to high level of these variables in thestudied population, but the coercive powerwas lower than the average. Considering thesignificance level, the results are significantand acceptable at the 99% confidence level.

According to the results, from among entre-preneurship psychological characteristics ofemployees, achievement orientation (4.041)and risk-taking (3.705) exhibited the highestand lowest mean, and considering the means,entrepreneurship psychological characteris-tics among employees could be ranked in theorder of achievement orientation, ambiguitytolerance, creativity, independence, intrinsiccontrol, and risk-taking in terms of their im-portance. Additionally, the results showedthat the means of all components of entrepre-neurship psychological characteristics of em-ployees were significantly (P< 0.01) higherthan the average (i.e. score 3). Therefore, itcan be said that the employees of these or-ganizations have characteristics that are con-sistent with the psychological characteristicsof entrepreneurship. In order to answer the second researchquestion with regard to investigating the re-lationship between managerial power andentrepreneurship psychological characteris-tics of employees, the correlation matrix be-

tween managerial power and entrepreneur-ship psychological characteristics of employ-ees was examined. Considering the resultspresented in Table 4, there is a significantpositive relationship between managerialpowers (except for coercive power) and en-trepreneurship psychological characteristicsof employees. Considering the correlation co-efficients, the intensity of the relationship be-tween legitimate power andentrepreneurship psychological characteris-tics of employees was weak, but it was strongbetween other powers with the abovemen-tioned characteristics (referent, expert, re-ward). Therefore, entrepreneurshippsychological characteristics of employeescan be strengthened if managers make use ofthese powers to a greater extent. Moreover,the results of the relationship between man-agerial power and different components ofthe abovementioned characteristics showeda significant positive relationship betweenmanagerial powers (except for coercivepower) and components of achievement ori-

On the Effect of Managerial Power on Psychological... / Mahbobkhah and Beigzadeh

Table 3Results of One-Sample t-Test of Entrepreneurship Psychological Characteristics of Employees (n=248)

Variable Mean Sd t-value P-value

Achievement orientation 4.041** 0.63 22.341** 0.000Intrinsic control 3.715** 0.53 20.312** 0.000Creativity 3.915** 0.54 21.541** 0.000Ambiguity tolerance 4.121** 0.56 19.012** 0.000Risk taking 3.705** 0.55 18.510** 0.000Independence 3.812** 0.45 22.790** 0.000**P<0.01

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entation, intrinsic control, creativity, ambigu-ity tolerance, and independence, but no sig-nificant relationship was observed between managerial power and risk-taking compo-nent.On the Effect of Managerial Power on Psychological... / Mahbobkhah and Beigzadeh

Table 4Results of the Coefficient of Correlation between Managers’ Power Components and Characteristics of Entre-preneurship

Variablelegitimate power reward power Coercive power referent power Expert power

r r r r rAchievement orientation 0.316** 0.351** -0.141 0.412** 0.451**Intrinsic control 0.245** 0.212** -0.149 0.351** 0.245**Creativity 0.206** 0.301** 0.212 0.356** 0.234**Ambiguity tolerance 0.389** 0.467** -0.690 0.618** 0.457**Risk taking 0.145 0.035 0.065 0.089 0.066Independence 0.189* 0.345** -0.450 0.412** 0.340**Entrepreneurshippsychologicalcharacteristics 0.245** 0.361** -0.051 0.481** 0.395***P<0.05, **P<0.01

Finally, in order to answer the third researchquestion as to whether the managerial poweraffects entrepreneurship psychological char-acteristics of employees, the measurementmodel (external model) should be investi-gated first and modified if required (i.e. itemswith factor loadings of less than 0.7 should beexcluded from the model). Then, as question-naires are reflective, the required testsshould be examined and confirmed, and thenthe structural model should be proposed andtested to investigate the effect of independentvariables on the dependent one (Gefen &Straub, 2005). In the current research, all ofthe abovementioned tests were done andconfirmed based on Hair et al. (2006). Someof them are presented below.The first test addressed the uni-dimension-ality of the variable items (the homogeneityof variables). It was done by investigating thereflective measurement model, factor load-ings, and significance of the mentioned coef-ficients. The third question of coercive powerand reward power and the fourth question ofthe risk-taking component were excluded

from the model due to their factor loadingbeing less than 0.7. After investigating the re-search model in standard coefficients mode,the significance of these coefficients was alsoinvestigated. The results indicated the signif-icance of all obtained coefficients. The nexttest focused on construct validity (conver-gent validity and divergent validity). At first,convergent validity conditions (factor load-ings of higher than 0.7, average variance ex-tracted (AVE) for all variables of higher than0.5 and the last condition (CR>AVE)) were in-vestigated and confirmed for all variables(Muller, 2013), and then, divergent validitytests, including cross loading test and Fornelland Larcker test, were conducted and con-firmed before the implementation of thestructural model (internal model). Therefore,the researchers were allowed with completeconfidence to propose the structural modelwith Pls to investigate the research questions.The modified structural model of the re-search is displayed in Figure 2, showing theresearch structural model in the standardstate of coefficients. Additionally, after pre-

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senting the structural model, in order to in-vestigate the significance of the obtained co-efficients, the researchers investigated the structural model in the significance state ofcoefficients. Fortunately, all of the coefficientswere significant. On the Effect of Managerial Power on Psychological... / Mahbobkhah and Beigzadeh

Figure 2. The modified structural model in the standard state of coefficientsAs shown in Figure 2 and Table 5, after in-vestigating the effect of managers’ powercomponents on the entrepreneurship psy-chological characteristics of employees in themodel, the effect of referent power and ex-pert on the entrepreneurship psychologicalcharacteristics of employees is significantlypositive, and the referent power has thegreatest effect on the mentioned characteris-tics and in the next place, the expertise poweraffects entrepreneurship psychological char-acteristics of employees, and other powersdo not have a significant effect on entrepre-neurship psychological characteristics of em-ployees. In the current research, R2 was found

to be 0.345 i.e., in general, the managerialpower predicts 34.5 percent of psychologicalcharacteristics of employees entrepreneur-ship. In order to assess the structural models inthe partial least squares approach, the abilityof the model to predict the dependent vari-ables and the quality of the structural modelwere investigated. To this purpose, R2 coeffi-cients and Q2 criterion were used (Rahimi etal., 2017). In the current research, R2 and Q2(communality) were found to be 0.345 and0.452, respectively (Table 6). Three values of0.19, 0.33, and 0.67 have been regarded asthe criteria for weak, medium, and strong R2

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(Hair et al., 2006). From the value obtainedfor R2, it can be inferred that this value is fora medium and higher level of entrepreneur-ship psychological characteristics amongstemployees. The positive value of Q2 shows thedesirable quality of the structural model(Henseler et al., 2010). The next importantindex shows the overall model’s Goodness ofFit (GOF) which is shown in Table 6. Consid-ering the positive value of commonality indexand redundancy index and three values of

0.1, 0.15, and 0.36 (Kline, 2005) introducedas weak, medium and strong for GOF and thevalue of 0.394 derived for GOF, the model hasa proper and strong fitness and can be gen-eralized to the whole statistical population.GOF index was measured for both modelsand a structure was considered and used asa criterion to predict the overall performanceof the model. It is calculated using the follow-ing formula:gOF = √Communality ×R2

On the Effect of Managerial Power on Psychological... / Mahbobkhah and BeigzadehTable 5Summary of Results of Investigating the Effect of Managers’ Power Components on Entrepreneurship of Employees

Component regression coefficient t-value P-ValueLegitimate power -0.165 1.650 0.062Reward power 0.804 0.751 0.165Coercive power -0.035 0.445 0.251Referent power 0.423 4.541** 0.000Expert power 0.289 3.521** 0.001

Table 6The Goodness of Fit the Overall Model of the ResearchR2 Commonality GOFEntrepreneurship characteristic 0.345 0.452Managerial power ——— ——— 0.394

dISCuSSIOn In the present century, considering the in-creased new rivals and the high dominantcomplexity, any organization that fails to cre-ate the required space and structure to nur-ture spontaneous people and innovators willbe doomed to fail in a long time. Meanwhile,managers play an important role. They caninfluence their employees through effectiveuse of tools and power at their disposal (Mol-lahoseini & Kahnoji, 2007) and provide thesuitable space and conditions to develop andstrengthen entrepreneurship psychologicalcharacteristics amongst employees and cre-ate a competitive advantage for their organi-zation in today’s competitive world.

Nowadays, all societies and organizationsknow that human resource is the most im-portant factor in organization success andsustainability. The more efficient, more mo-tivated and more capable these resources are,the greater the adaptability and compatibilityof the organization will be with the unpre-dictable environment. Therefore, the organi-zation’s success and life will be guaranteed.Investigating variables status in this re-search shows that among managers’ powers,legitimate, referent, reward, and expert pow-ers are the dominant powers, respectively. Inother words, legitimate power induced by amanager’s rank and position causing man-agers to lead subordinates’ behavior and in-

**P<0.01

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fluence them using their rank and position isused by managers more than other powers.In the next place, the referent power frommanager’s charisma and personal attraction,reward power which is the ability to providethings people like to have, and the expertpower which is accompanied by the man-ager’s know-how and skill are three powerresources used and agreed upon by man-agers after legitimate power. Results of thisresearch are in agreement with those ob-tained by Torabian (2006), showing referentand expert powers are two importantsources for managers, but they are inconsis-tent with the results obtained by Pourvaghazand Mohammadi (2011) introducing refer-ent, reward and expert powers as dominantpowers. This inconsistency may emanatefrom the differences in research statisticalpopulation because the abovementioned re-search was carried out in a nongovernmentalorganization whose managers have limita-tions in presenting rewards.Research findings about entrepreneurshippsychological characteristics amongst em-ployees also showed that amongst entrepre-neurship psychological characteristics ofemployees, achievement orientation has thehighest mean and ambiguity tolerance, cre-ativity, independence, intrinsic control, andrisk-taking are in the next places, respec-tively. It was found that most employees ofthe investigated population had high achieve-ment orientation. It means that they are mo-tivated by challenging works and in order toreach success, they like to resolve problemsand determine goals individually and take theresponsibility to achieve them.In total, considering the results it can besaid that the studied employees are in agree-ment on entrepreneurship psychologicalcharacteristics of employees and these char-acteristics have a proper status amongst em-ployees. Moreover, Hasanzadeh (2014)obtained some results similar to those foundin this research, but there were some differ-ences with respect to risk-taking component.In addition, the results of this research wereto a large extent in agreement with those ob-

tained by Pourvaghaz and Mohammadi(2011) because they also concluded that en-trepreneurship characteristics of employeesin the given population were in a proper sta-tus. Considering the relationship betweenmanagers’ powers and entrepreneurship ofemployees and the effect of managers’ poweron entrepreneurship personality character-istics amongst employees, the researcherconcluded that there was a relationship be-tween managerial powers (except for coer-cive power) and entrepreneurshippsychological characteristics amongst em-ployees and according to the values pre-sented by Hair et al. (2011), the intensity ofthis relationship between referent, expertand reward powers, and these characteristicsis strong. Other results showed a significantpositive relationship between managerialpowers (except for coercive power) andachievement orientation, intrinsic control,creativity, ambiguity tolerance, and inde-pendence components, but no significant re-lationship was observed between managerialpowers and risk-taking component.Additionally, in order to investigate the ef-fect of managerial power on entrepreneur-ship psychological characteristics ofemployees, researcher proposed a structuralmodel and investigated the relationships andtheir effect on the mentioned characteristics.The results showed that referent and expertpowers had a significant positive effect on en-trepreneurship psychological characteristicsof employees and the referent power had thegreatest effect on these characteristics. In thisregard, our results are in agreement withthose obtained by Jalilvand and Vosta (2015),Rahimi et al. (2014) and Howard (2004) be-cause in most of these research studies therewas a relationship between five powers ex-cept for coercive power and the characteris-tics of entrepreneurship of employees, andreferent and expert powers were stronglypredictive of the dependent variable.Finally, in order to ensure the proposedmodel and its generalizability, the researcherinvestigated fitness indices in the proposedmodel. Fortunately, considering fitness in-

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dices, namely GOF index, the proposed modelcan be generalized to the research populationunder study. It means that the proposedstructural model can be generalized to the in-vestigated population and its results can beused with complete confidence. COnCluSIOn And rECOMMEndAtIOnResults showed a significant positive rela-tionship between managerial power (exceptfor coercive power) and achievement orien-tation, intrinsic control, creativity, ambiguitytolerance, and independence characteristics;however, no significant relationship was ob-served between managerial power and therisk-taking characteristic. Additionally, re-sults from the structural model showed man-agers’ referent and expert powers have asignificant positive effect on entrepreneur-ship psychological characteristics of employ-ees. Therefore, drawing on the results of thisresearch and the proper use of their power,managers of Agriculture Jahad Organizationscan develop and strengthen entrepreneurialcharacteristics and entrepreneurship spiritamongst their employees, and consequently,guarantee the organization success and pros-perity. Therefore, the following suggestionscan be drawn from the results:Given the results of the study and regardingthe status of managers’ five powers in this re-search and researcher’s findings, it is sug-gested that managers and heads of sectorsmake special attempts to use these powersand use legitimate, referent, reward and ex-pert powers more, so that they canstrengthen psychological characteristics ofentrepreneurship of their employees and re-duce their coercive power as much as possi-ble;.Given the status of entrepreneurship psy-chological characteristics among employees,it is suggested that employees have a broadback in ambiguous situations and increasetheir intrinsic control with forethought andconditions analysis and convert these situa-tions to opportunity by intelligent analysis. Itis suggested to managers and heads of sec-tors to help employees in these situations

using their referent and expert powers andcause these two characteristics to bestrengthened in employees.Given the results about variables and the ef-fect of managerial power on entrepreneur-ship psychological characteristics ofemployees, it is suggested to the investigatedorganizations’ managers to use referent, re-ward, and expert powers in proper situationsin the best possible way by considering thestrong relationship between referent, expertand reward powers as well as regarding thesignificant positive role of referent and expertpowers in predicting these characteristics,and it is suggested to reduce their coercivepower and use their legitimate power whenrequired as the last solution so that it canpave the way to develop and strengthen en-trepreneurship psychological characteristicsamongst employees and in this way the or-ganization can be led toward success becauseentrepreneur employees better use organiza-tional resources and bring about the dra-matic developments and successes in theorganization.Given the effect of referent power on theabovementioned characteristics, managersshould be aware that this type of power is ac-companied by employees trust in managerand this is met in the shadow of trustship, thesecrecy and honesty of a manager. Therefore,managers of these departments are recom-mended to build employees confidence by theirsecrecy, honesty, and trustship and pave theway to develop and strengthen these charac-teristics in employees, and thus their organi-zation will benefit from its results. Given the effect of managers’ expertisepower on these characteristics it is recom-mended that managers of these departmentshelp employees by their expertise and expe-rience when necessary and resolve theirproblems, and thereby improve the relation-ship with them, and provide the necessaryplatform for strengthening the characteristicsof entrepreneurship in employees. This willinsure their organization against the prob-lems and create a competitive advantage. It is suggested that the organization senior

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managers and heads of the society understudy pay attention to select organizationsand division officials using the proposedmodel and avoid any political work in choos-ing expert individuals with traits such as hon-esty, secrecy, and trusteeship so that they canplay a significant role in developing andstrengthening characteristics of entrepre-neurship of employees and play a potentialrole in strengthening the entrepreneurialspirit in their organization.It should be acknowledged that all researchworks face limitations, and the researchershows his scientific and moral honesty by ex-pressing them and exposes his work to re-test for higher efficacy. Amongst thelimitations of this work were unwillingnessand lack of cooperation from some depart-ment managers to complete questionnaireswhich is resolved by trying and effort and en-suring information confidentiality. In addi-tion, we can refer to various cultures withregard to the existence of different ethnicgroups and religions in the region whichcould somehow interfere with results. There-fore, considering the research results andlimitations, it is suggested that future re-searchers use culture and ethnicity or reli-gions as moderator variable in order topresent more applied suggestions. In addi-tion, it is suggested to pay attention to therole of managers’ power resources in em-ployees working actions, namely organiza-tional citizen, organizational commitment,and employees’ performance in further re-search.ACKnOWlEdgEMEntSIn this regard, we thank the staff of theResearch Department of Bonab Islamic AzadUniversity, as well as the staff of the JahadAgriculture Department of West AzarbayjanProvince who helped us in this research.

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how to cite this article:Mahbobkhah, F., & Beigzadeh, Y. (2019). On the effect of managerial power on psychologicalcharacteristics of entrepreneurial employees (Case study: Agriculture Jahad Organizationsof Western Azarbaijan Province). International Journal of Agricultural Management and Devel-opment, 9(2), 149-163.url: http://ijamad.iaurasht.ac.ir/article_664821_19fbf58ec653e1a4e4ecd488065a6c2c.pdf