Decision Theory Application in Agricultural Entrepreneurship Promotion

This study investigates opportunities of decision theory application in agricultural entreprenership promotion, it considers behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs in the sphere of agriculture, identifies the common biases in potential entrepreneurs’ decision making process and suggests a number of decision theory approaches (including NUDGE instruments), applicable in debiasing entrepreneurial decisions as well as in motivating entrepreneurship in agriculture. The paper demonstrates the issue of limited attention to the differences between hereditary and non-hereditary entrepreneurs decision making process in agricultural policies. In order to investigate the effect of non-pecuniary instrument on potential entrepreneurs’ behaviour, a model of a policy effect on entrepreneurial decision was created and a new classification of entrepreneurial decision criteria was developed. The experiment was conducted in the University of Barcelona with 253 participants and has proven that the suggested non-pecuniary instrument of agricultural entrepreneurship promotion has significant positive effect on the attractiveness of the agricultural sphere of entrepreneurship. Experiment results has also demonstrated that non-pecuniary factors play greater role in decision making process of individuals, who are more attracted by the agricultural sphere of entrepreneurship.