Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
Department of Human Geography & Spatial Planning, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2
Department of Geography & Rural Planning, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Abstract
A B S T R A C T
Rural entrepreneurship means creating a new activity that introduces a new product or service or creates a new market and uses new technology in the rural environment. The importance of the term entrepreneurship and the environmental factors affecting it is so much that during the last two decades, it has become a very important topic for thinkers and researchers, so some have named this period the age of entrepreneurship. The present research aims to analyze the levels of rural areas' enjoyment of environmental factors affecting the development of agricultural entrepreneurial components. The research methodology is practical in terms of purpose. The area under study in this research is the residents of villages with more than 50 households in Sardoiyeh. The research unit is business owners and successful innovators in the agricultural sector. Were selected and the questionnaire was distributed among them. The results obtained using grey TOPSIS and fuzzy TOPSIS models showed the combination of these two models in the integration technique; The studied villages are at different levels in terms of prioritization of environmental factors affecting the development of entrepreneurship components, among which, Kohnouj Sadat village (1.16) and Dareh Rood village (2.5) are at high levels of prosperity and Grikan village (9.5) and Daulatabad village (5.5) 8/66) have the lowest level.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Each of the above-mentioned studies has presented its own view and theoretical framework toward effective environmental factors; sometimes some factors have been considered as superior and they have been merely studied from one dimension regardless the internal and external barriers. As it was mentioned before, various factors contribute, and in the present study we have tried to investigate the effective environmental factors in rural district of Sardouyeh in the Jiroft County, regarding the fact that this city as one of the agricultural poles having necessary potentials, can be able to provide the ground for entrepreneurship. Actually, the biggest challenge in this regard is recognizing the factors making an entrepreneurship successful. Therefore, the present study is going to evaluate the effectiveness coefficient of environmental factors on entrepreneurial traits.
Methodology
The methodology of the present study is descriptive-analytic and applied with regard to the purpose. The study case of this research includes the inhabitants of the villages with more than 50 households located in Sardouyeh rural district in the Jiroft County; the research units are business owners and successful innovators in agriculture, among whom 50 people were selected randomly as the sample, and the questionnaires were distributed among them. In the present study efforts have been made to investigate the external (environmental) factors and present solutions for developing entrepreneurship. It requires collecting and categorizing the environmental factors and components affecting the development of entrepreneurship which has been achieved by literature review. In the first phase of collecting data and information, we used library review (using books and articles) in the second phase of data collecting, we tried to gain the opinions of entrepreneurs in agriculture toward the environmental factors by designing appropriate questions. In order to calculate the validity of the questionnaire face validity method was used. Once the validity of questionnaire was confirmed by people with experience in entrepreneurship, data was collected from the sample.
Results and discussion
It is possible that the rural areas get different rankings in different techniques. Such that according to fuzzy TOPSIS model, an area gets ranking 1, and gets ranking 3 in VIKOR method. In this case to eliminate the differences and for a consensus in rankings we can use a merging method like ranking averages, vector method, or Copeland method. In this stage we should come to consensus according three prioritizing strategies. Then the rankings of the relevant indices are obtained by the three methods, then the results of three methods are merged and the average is calculated for each area. Finally, the areas are ranked based on the results of the merging method and the final rank is obtained. According of research finding, the villages in Sardouyeh rural district are at different levels, among which Kahnouj Sadat (1.16), and Dareh Roud (2.5) are at the highest level; and Pol-Piran (7.66), Dowlat Abad (8.66), and Garikan (9.5) are the most deprived areas.
Conclusion
In the present study, we prioritized the villages in Sardouyeh rural district with regard to environmental indices affecting entrepreneurship development. For this purpose, we used 4 main indices, 8 sub-indices, and 31 items which were studied by distributing questionnaires with Likert scale among 50 people in this district. The results obtained from fuzzy TOPSIS model indicates well that all the villages are at levels lower than appropriate level. With regard to effective environmental factors, Kahnouj Sadat with the score of 0.338 is at the first place, Dahane Zourak with the score of 0.322 is in the second place; and Seyf Abad and Garikan are in the last places. In grey calculations, like fuzzy TOPSIS model, the closer the dedicated value to 1, its spatial distribution is more favorable. With regard to environmental factors affecting people’s cognition, Nahr Kamal with the score of 0.680, is in the first place and Kahnouj Sadat with the score of 0.664 is in the second place; while Pol-Piran and Dahaneh-Zourak is in the last place. In this regard in order to promote entrepreneurship capacities and achieve sustainable development, the following suggestions are presented:
Capacitating and preparing appropriate grounds for entrepreneurship in rural areas.
Identifying strengths and weaknesses of the villages to exploit the rural areas optimally and appropriately.
Making the rural environment interesting by purposeful development of spaces and operations in the villages.
Creating centers for accessing experienced entrepreneurs.
Funding
There is no funding support.
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.
Keywords
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