Entrepreneurship in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises of Rural Women of Fars Province: Application of Lifespan Resilience Scale-Business (LRS-B)

The resilience of women businesses is a key factor in the survival and development of rural businesses which follow to poverty reduction and sustainable economic growth. Business resilience helps the entrepreneur to adapt and resist crises, which can be one of the drivers of successful womenchr('39')s entrepreneurial performance. Analyzing the entrepreneurial resilience of small and medium-sized businesses of rural women in Fars province was the main purpose of the study. All members of Fars Province Agricultural Development Specialized Holding Companies were the population of research which 269 of them were selected as a sample by stratified random sampling method for data collecting using questionnaire. Resilience of women entrepreneurs was measured based on Lifespan Resilience Scale-Business (LRS-B). The Resilience of rural women businesses was moderately upward in studied businesses. Comparison of women entrepreneurship resilience in Shiraz, Marvdasht and Estahban indicated that women entrepreneurs in Marvdasht have more business resiliency than women in Shiraz and Estahban. Variables of marketing strategies, marketing mix, marketing methods, firm support and marketing attitude had a positive and significant correlation with the resiliency of women entrepreneurs. According to regression results, marketing strategies, marketing mix, marketing methods and marketing attitude were the determinants of women businesses resilience. Finally, some applicable recommendations were presented in order to improvement of resiliency of rural women businesses.