Commercial Plant Nurseries in Kerala, India: A Critical Analysis of Key Success Drivers

This study investigates the factors that are pivotal to the success of commercial plant nurseries in Kerala, with a focus on keydimensions impacting agribusiness performance. The study had been conducted among the plant nursery entrepreneurs in three districts of Kerala i.e. Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, and Wayanad. Among the five primary dimensions analyzed for the study, social responsibility emerged as the most significant contributor to success, followed by employment and customer-related dimensions. The findings indicated that most respondents demonstrated moderate to high levels of success, i.e.,61.1%, with fewer falling into the low-performance category. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) identified eight core factors shaping nursery success, which include influence and competence, social capital, financial acumen, achievement motivation, community and asset, self-driven leadership, self independence, and creativity and the total variance explained by PCA is 68%. It was observed that older entrepreneurstended to have limited use of mass media tools, such as the internet and mobile technology, and exhibited lower managerial capacity which undermined their ability to handle operational and employee-related challenges. In summary, social responsibility dimension played a critical role in the success of agribusiness ventures, complemented by strategies focused on employment and customer engagement. The study highlights the importance of entrepreneurial traits and factors such as influence and competence factor, social capital factor, financial acumen factor in the success of commercial plant nurseries, which calls for framing more policies oriented towards formulating& imparting softskill development training programs to nursery entrepreneursinimproving the leadership skills and managerial ability.