1. Introduction

The literature related to the institutional context has argued that legal conditions, government support provided to farmers (^{Leite Ferreira, dos Santos Wanzeler, Oliveira, and Oliveira, 2014}; ^{Queiroz, Vasconcelos, and Goldszmidt, 2007}; ^{Schermer et al., 2016}; ^{Slade Shantz, Kistruck, and Zietsma, 2018}), generate certainty for crop management (^{Mugwagwa, Bijman, and Trienekens, 2019}; ^{Vasconcelos Pereira Leite, Araújo de Morares, and Santos Salazar, 2016}). Under this situation, institutions are triggers for the field development and its markets (^{Barreto Bernal, 2011}). The presence of reliable and inconsistent institutions, where a social source of reference is generated for individuals causes both insecurity and precariousness for the field development (^{González, Hernández, and Velázquez, 2013}).

The context of agriculture in Mexico has become an increasingly important line of business, in six years the growth it has had was 17.6%, likewise, exports had a growth of 42.9%, with a large participation in the agrifood markets as the largest exporter -e.g., avocado, beer, tomato, tequila- (^{Servicio de Información Agroalimentaria y Pesquera, 2018}). However, these results have not been significant for national GDP - only 3.6% of GDP comes from agriculture (^{Central Intelligence Agency, 2018})-. Similarly, of the country’s economically active population, only 13.3% work in agricultural activities, mainly composed of producers with basic schooling (27%) or without schooling (27%), having incomes below the minimum wage (54%) (^{Servicio de Información Agroalimentaria y Pesquera, 2018}).

For this reason, the objective of this research is to analyze the influence of regulatory, normative and cognitive burdens on the entrepreneurial intention of chile producers in the state of Aguascalientes. Thus, examining the conditions in which the institutional framework that governs the Mexican agricultural environment is necessary to assess the quality of the institutional arrangements that rule agribusiness. Hence, allowing the creation, maintenance and change of the composition of institutions that facilitate the interaction of the actors to develop entrepreneurial skills and, so, taking advantage of business opportunities (^{Da Silva Leonel Junior and Cunha, 2013}). Institutional patterns do not converge on the real problems of farmers, consequently, reducing the economic and social bridges that govern farmers’ behaviors must be addressed. The intention that these have to develop individual competences to act appropriately in a situation of exploitation of business opportunities (^{Shapero and Sokol, 1982}), would have effects in the way of anticipating obstacles and commercial barriers, in order to allow them to consolidate the investments made (^{Rizki Novanda, Budi Priyatna, and Budi Priyatna, 2017}).

2. Theoretical framework

3. Methodology

The multiple linear regression statistical technique was used to measure the influence of independent variables on the dependent. The target population were the chile producers of the State of Aguascalientes, because there is no government information available with the location of the entity’s farmers, the State Committee for the Chile Product of Aguascalientes (Comité Estatal del Producto Chile de Aguascalientes, CEPROCH) was contacted to request support in the location of the farmers who cultivated different types of chile in the region during 2018. The information collection period was from October to December 2018, to update the list of farmers in the state and thus raise state census information of agricultural producers. Relevant information was obtained to identify those municipalities in the state that have the largest number of hectares of the product cultivated. Cosío and Rincón de Romos unlike Tepezalá and Asientos are the municipalities with the least amount of cultivated territory; while, the municipalities of San José de Gracia, Calvillo and El Llano had no productive activity in 2018 (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Cultivated territory in Aguascalientes 

(More than 150 hectares / Between 50 to 150 hectares / Between 25 to 50 hectares / Less tan 25 hectares).

As important data to indicate the distribution of the 819 hectares cultivated: 1) 30% corresponds to fresh jalapeño chile; 2) the territory of cultivation of dried chile barely represents 21% -i.e. the cultivation of processed product-, although it is necessary to consider that most of the producers do not carry out the drying process, taking their fresh product to the link that will be responsible for making the transformation - jalapeño, ancho and pasilla-, missing the opportunity to give it added value to their product; and 3) for the producers, chile is a secondary crop, since they give priority to products such as corn, broccoli and lettuce, these being 78% of the cultivated land, and there are increasingly opportunities to convert crops to strawberries, asparagus, among others. In regards to the producer profile, we have that: 1) all are men; 2) 58% are between 45 and 64 years old and only 2% are under 24 years old; and 3) 21% do not have schooling, on the other hand, 50% of farmers have basic education, while only 3% have a postgraduate degree as academic training.

4. Results and discussion

The descriptive results of the analyzed variables are presented. By indicators, it was observed that the highest average of the entrepreneurial intention were the plans to start a business (4.62 = Important) with a standard deviation of .64; while the lowest average was bank financing as mobile to invest in production (3.97 = Not important) with a standard deviation of 1.43 (Table 1). The indicators of institutional burdens were concentrated in the range of 4 to 5 Likert points, however, it was observed that the lowest average and the highest standard deviation was in the same indicator that measures the importance of being a farmer for society (4.45 and .96 points respectively); on the other hand, the highest median also corresponded to the lowest standard deviation in the indicator that measures the knowledge learned about knowing how to manage a plot (4.93 and .26 points respectively) (Table 2).

In relation to the descriptive results (Table 3), it was observed that the average experience was 28 years with a standard deviation of 16.34; while the average schooling was middle school. The regulatory burden had a value of 4.54 (Very important) with the highest deviation of the three institutional burdens (0.59); the normative burden was estimated at a value of 4.64 (Very important) with a standard deviation of 0.42; Finally, the cognitive burden was valued at 4.85 (Very important) with the lowest standard deviation of the three (0.30). On the other hand, the entrepreneurial intention had an average of 4.47 (Very important) and a standard deviation of 0.65. The variance inflation factor, which indicates the absence of multicollinearity problems (Table 3). In the same way, the correlations are presented (Table 3), which shows that the statistically significant positive correlations have a range of -.40 to .43. It was observed that the correlations of the entrepreneurial intention with the institutional burdens were significant in two cases: normative (r = .30; r² = .09) and cognitive (r = .23; r² = .05). These correlations reflect the relationships of the variables without being affected by the experience and education of the producers. Previous studies have obtained the same results with respect to the effect of institutional burdens on entrepreneurial aspirations (^{Ali, 2015}; ^{Díaz-Casero, Ferreira, Hernández Mogollón, and Barata Raposo, 2012}; ^{Liñán and Chen, 2009}; ^{Urban and Kujinga, 2017}), which have been consistent with the presented results. An important finding was that normative burdens are more significant, which implies the effect of the environment’s trust towards producers in their entrepreneurial aspirations.

Table 4 shows the results obtained from the multiple linear regression analysis calculated with the 94 chile producers. In the first instance, in the calculation of the regulatory burden model together with the experience and schooling variables (A), although the model is significant (r² = .212; F = 6.06 ***), only schooling has a positive influence and significant about the entrepreneurial intention (B = .132 **; EE = .051). When adding the normative burden to model (B), the effects of both charges were significant, the regulatory burden was significant at 5% (B = .102 **; EE = .106) and the regulatory burden was significant at 1% (B = .353 ***; EE = .147), likewise, schooling had a significance of 5% (B = .125 *; EE = .049). In the individual model of the normative burden (C), this burden was significant at 1% (B = .356 ***; EE = .144), in addition to significant schooling at 5% (B = .126 **; EE = .049). In the case of the model that groups both the normative and the cognitive load (D), the two contemplated loads were significant, while the normative load was significant at 5% (B = .208 ***; EE = .160). Individually (E), the effect of cognitive load was significant at 1% (B = .371 ***; EE = .204), as well as, 5% schooling (B = .116 **; EE = .050). In the model where the regulatory and cognitive loads (F) are combined, the cognitive load was significant at 1% (B = .371 ***; EE = .215), while schooling was significant at 5% (B = .116 **; EE = .051). Finally, when evaluating the model of the three institutional burdens (G), an increase in the variation of the statistically significant entrepreneurial intention was identified (r2 = .266; F = 5,316 ***), with respect to the B coefficients of the variables of the model, the normative load (B = .297 ***; EE = .050) was significant at 1%, as well as schooling at 5% (B = .118 **; EE = .050).

The empirical results obtained demonstrate the importance of institutional burdens in entrepreneurial intent, on the one hand, the normative burden, being significant in models B, C, D and G. This implies that society’s confidence in farmers influences the way they aspire to be entrepreneurs. On the other hand, the cognitive load is a variable that is significant when the normative load is not within the model (E and G), it follows that despite the skills and knowledge that can be disseminated socially in a region, they do not contribute to the variation of the entrepreneurial intention, since the normative burden is more important for the explanation of the variable. An important finding was that the regulatory burden has not been significant for the proposed models, which explains that the intervention of the state in the development of the cognitive process of farmers to rationalize entrepreneurship as a need to identify business opportunities is nil, in this sense, a contribution of the study was that the academic training of farmers gives greater tools to assimilate the commitment to undertake.

As it has been mentioned, the perception that farmers have of entrepreneurship starts from an institutional pattern, the elements contemplated in the institutional theory are evaluated from a sociological scheme in which those constructions that are recognized within a society are considered, in the case In the state of Aguascalientes, institutional burdens have limited the entrepreneurial behavior of chile producers from two strategic points; 1) the regulatory burden is a mechanism that should protect and encourage the intentions of developing business by farmers; and 2) in spite of the resources invested in support and support programs dedicated to developing business skills in the productive sector, they have not produced results to form an entrepreneurial intention. As in the ^{Schermer et al. (2016)} study, skills are restricted by the regulatory aspect, preventing them from adapting to both social and climatic changes.

Also, it was observed that the cognitive load, which is what prepares individuals to cope with the activity in which they perform, is limited to support a business idea and develop it; furthermore, the acceptance of using this valuable information to implement it in their daily activities is conditioned by the existing trust that does not ensure sufficient motivation to dedicate themselves to their profession. As concluded by ^{Rizki Novanda et al. (2017)}, the particular beliefs, customs and habits of the sector have made farmers reluctant to perceive or develop attitudes that strengthen their intentions to grow. For this reason, the involvement of new generations in the activities of the field is decreasing, which makes sense, with the little involvement of young people in the surveyed farmer population, reflecting a generation of producers who do not intend to develop a professional career in the agriculture sector.

5. Conclusion

The influence of the normative burden was statistically significant in the proposed regression models (H₂); the cognitive load was only statistically significant when the normative load is not present in equation (H₃); on the contrary, the regulatory burden was rejected in the statistical models for not contributing to the generation of an entrepreneurial intention (H₁). Integrating the three loads into the regression model, only the normative load was statistically significant (H₄). The combination of results by the analyzes carried out is the consequence of the quality of the institutional arrangements in which the farmers operate. Improving the agriculture sector requires new approaches, which escalate in the convergence of its activities and needs. The analysis of the institutional framework offers both political and economic functional responses, in which the role of producers is protected as a spectrum of great relevance in the rural sector, so that solid agricultural structures are generated that strengthen professions aligned with agricultural production which guarantees the transition from being a productive chain to being a value chain.

This study contributes to the institutional perspective, the explanation of the entrepreneurial aspirations by farmers from an institutional environmental conceptualization, which is composed of social perceptions, knowledge and formal rules that represent the main key to take advantage of the opportunities that exist in the market. Corroborating the effect of these environmental conditions allows to establish clear parameters about the scope of public policies and the understanding of entrepreneurial behavior. In this way, the theoretical implications contribute to the development of the sector through the understanding of the factors that represent barriers or impulses for those involved in agricultural production. In the review of the literature associated with farmers, the formal and informal mechanisms to which agricultural sector actors are governed regularly are not aligned with their productive practices or with their motivations to start businesses.

In the practical matter, the practical implications of the study are related to the critical perception that farmers have about the entrepreneurial intention and how it is affected by social image conditions rather than by the regulatory or cognitive limitations they have, a scenario that must be considered by those who make policies to potentiate the perceptions of desirability and entrepreneurial feasibility of farmers, having identified that institutional burden with greater relevance to develop entrepreneurial aspirations, which can generate government guidelines that extend the capacities of producers towards strengthening of their social image as specialists in the field sector, in order to promote a direction towards the common interest of field activities for new generations, being critical actors for the exploitation of business opportunities raised in the context of the study. In other words, the region must be triggered by pursuing the empowerment of producers based on the construction of their entrepreneurial intention and involving those responsible for developing the chile production as a value chain. The agricultural sector requires formal configuration under measurable standards of quality, efficiency and market potential because this gives certainty to the actors, allowing entrepreneurial decisions to be made under ideal conditions of economic growth, since the institutional context would provide them with legal protection, a positive perception of their economic activity and the formation of skills necessary to undertake new business ideas or developing specific innovations that impact their performance.

Future lines of study are focused on investigating the association of producers to identify those main actors that share relevant information for both the commercial and training production chain, which would be important to know to force the consolidation of a value chain that has the ability to innovate in the global market. Also as a future line, it is convenient to determine those institutional forces that have had the greatest impact on producers, be it government support, collaboration networks or the legal framework demarcate a fundamental sense in which farmers support themselves to carry out their productive activities. A poorly developed line, but just as important for this sector, is the absorption capacities of farmers, since they allow individuals to receive, manipulate, manage and use valuable information to make decisions according to their resources and capabilities.