Sharma, J. K.Bora, Arup2020-05-292020-05-292019-07http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810146684The study entitled “A Study on the Entrepreneurial Behaviour of Nursery Owners in Kamrup (Metro) and Kamrup Districts of Assam” was undertaken in Kamrup (Metro) and Kamrup Districts in Assam, primarily to assess the entrepreneurial attributes of the nursery owners, measure their entrepreneurial behaviour, study the relationship between the entrepreneurial attributes and the entrepreneurial behaviour and to study the constraints experienced by the nursery owners in managing their nursery enterprises. A descriptive research design, following an ex post facto approach was utilized for the study. A multi-stage, purposive cum convenience sampling design was adopted for the study in order to select 50 (fifty) nurseries. Data has been collected during the month of March and April of 2019 with the help of a pretested, structured research schedule, using the personal interview method. With respect to the entrepreneurial attributes of the nursery owners, the study revealed that majority of the respondents (54.00%) belonged to the middle aged category, with high level of formal education (62.00%) and low level of social participation (54.00%). Majority of the respondents (74.00%) were in the medium category with respect to their cosmopoliteness and belonged to the booming class with experience in nursery business ranging between 2 to 19 years (68.00%). Vast majority of the respondents (88.00%) belonged to the marginal category of land holding size, belonging to the medium income category (72.00%). Majority (60.00%) of the respondents had medium level of achievement motivation and risk orientation (62.00%). The data for entrepreneurial behaviour revealed that majority (48.00%) of the respondents were prospective entrepreneurs, possessing a mix of both external and internal locus of control. While 32.00% of the respondents highlighting more of internal locus of control belonged to the category of entrepreneurial internals, the remainder (20.00%) were entrepreneurial externals, showing more external locus of control. The Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficients between entrepreneurial behaviour and the selected independent variables of the study shows that seven variables, viz, education, social participation, cosmopoliteness, size of land holding, annual income, achievement motivation and risk orientation were positively and significantly correlated with entrepreneurial behaviour. Linear multiple regression analysis highlighted that education, annual income, achievement motivation and risk orientation had a causal relationship with entrepreneurial behaviour as they were positively and significantly related with entrepreneurial behaviour. With regard to personal constraints, majority (46.00%) of the respondents perceived work stress to manageable; absence of required knowledge and skill to be negligible (60.00%) and problem of lack of time to be negligible to manageable (80.00%). In so far as social constraints were concerned, majority (82.00%) of the respondents perceived family problems to be negligible to manageable and absence of social support to be negligible to manageable (84.00%). As far as the financial constraint category was concerned, majority (48.00%) of the respondents perceived that the constraint of paucity of capital was manageable, closely followed by 42.00% of them who perceived it to be a severe constraint. In the marketing constraint category, most of the respondents (82.00%) stated that the constraint of inability to find market was negligible to manageable. Under the human resource constraint category, 84.00% of the respondents perceived that the constraint of insufficient labour was negligible to manageable. Lack of skilled labour was stated to be manageable by 52.000% of the respondents. More than half (54.00%) of the respondents perceived lack of technical support to be a severe problem under the technical constraint category along with absence of required nursery infrastructure & equipment (60.00%) . Facilitating the social participation of the nursery owners; organising stakeholder interfaces and buyer seller meets to promote cosmopoliteness; ensuring higher returns per unit area by adopting scientific nursery management practices; facilitating participation in state, national and international level expositions for strengthening forward linkages; organizing capacity building programmes on risk management, contingency planning, activity planning; facilitating credit linkages; availing advantages of government schemes and programmes and strengthening the internal locus of control of the nursery owners are the general recommendations of the study.enThesis