Corresponding author. Tel: +98-912-3443139 E-mail addresses: younos.vakil@gmail.com (Y. Vakil Alroaia) © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi: 10.5267/j.msl.2012.05.016 Management Science Letters 2 (2012) 1527–1534 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Management Science Letters homepage: www.GrowingScience.com/msl A comparative investigation of entrepreneurship in Iran and countries of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Zahra Arab a* and Younos Vakil Alroaia a Master Student of Industrial Management, Islamic Azad University, Semnan Branch, Semnan, Iran b Assistant Professor, Department of Management, Semnan Branch, Islamic Azad University , Semnan , Iran A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Received March 22, 2012 Received in Revised form May, 8, 2012 Accepted 11 May 2012 Available online May 14 2012 Entrepreneurship development is a complex process, which plays long-term and pervasive role in the economical development of the countries. In order to become aware of the level of entrepreneurship, many countries are interested in making comparison between their own experiences and policies and those of others which have been successful in developing entrepreneurship. This study aims at making a comparative investigation of entrepreneurship in Iran and countries of global entrepreneurship monitor. Structural equation modeling was used to study the effect of independent variables of entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneurial perceptions between 2008 until 2010. The results show that entrepreneurial perceptions have a significant effect on entrepreneurial activities and observed variables have a complete positive relationship with each other. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Entrepreneurship Global entrepreneurship monitor Entrepreneurial activities Entrepreneurial perceptions Structural equation modeling 1. Introduction For more than half a century, entrepreneurship as a scientific issue has received considerable attention from well-known universities like Harvard, policy makers of international organizations like International Labor Organization (ILO) and World Bank (Shane, 2000; Venkataraman, 2002; Timmons & Spinelli, 2004). In recent years, entrepreneurship development in countries like Iran requires systematic research studies. However, such an endeavor needs to be taken in the light of global indices and standards so that we are able to have a clear picture of entrepreneurial activities in Iran and make a comparison with the least and the most developed countries in the realm of entrepreneurship. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which is the pioneer of defining and designing global research indices and data in the area of entrepreneurship, presents entrepreneurial activities among its member countries through the publication of global reports (Bosma & Schutjens, 2007).