Abstract

Abstract
Objective: Nowadays, the new enterprises are recognized as the main sources of job creation, innovation and development in today’s business world. Therefore, identifying influencing factors that play key roles in the start-up of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) is critical.
Methodology: Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze factors influencing Small and Medium sized sport Enterprises (SEMs) start-ups and develop a proper model. The methodology followed in this study was descriptive-correlative. The population consisted of owners of small and medium sized sport enterprises (N=1500) from which 258 persons were randomly selected. For data collection, the individual factors questionnaire including entrepreneurial character (α=.77), entrepreneurial skills (α= .75); environmental factors (α=.77); capital factors (α=.77); and the business establishment competence questionnaire (α=.81) were used. To analyze the data, the appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics as well as the structural equation modeling with Amos16 software were used.
Results: The results showed that all the three individual, environmental and capital factors had a positive and significant relationship with business establishment. However, the fitted research model showed that only individual factors could play a significant role in establishing an effective sport business; while, the environmental factor also influenced its establishment indirectly through the individual factor.
Conclusion: The findings of this research put emphasis on the importance of individual factors in the success of establishing small and medium-sized sports businesses.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Influential factors, Sport businesses, Start-up.