Role of External Factors on Application of Strategic Management in Agricultural Knowledge and Information System in Iran

The purpose of this study was to identify external factors affecting strategic management in agricultural knowledge and information system and to examine their relative importance from experts’ point of view. Five factors were identified based on the interviews, examination of relevant literature and previous researches; in line with that, a questionnaire was developed to suit this purpose. Face and content validity of the research instrument verified by the research committee. To determine the reliability of the instrument, a pilot study was conducted with 30 Agriculture-Jihad Organization personnel from Qazvin Province. The reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) was computed 0.95, which indicated that the questionnaire had a high reliability index. External factors consisted of sociocultural, policy, economic, technological, and ecological factors. The statistical population was consisted of line and staff experts of Agriculture Organizations of Alborz and Tehran Provinces (N=161). Data were analyzed by SPSSwin20 software. The results showed that sociocultural, economic, ecological, policy and technological factors were the most important external factors affecting strategic management in agricultural knowledge and information respectively.