Identification and evaluation of managers' performance in rural development (Case study: Dolatabad rural villages of Marand County)

 Rural areas are a well-known research topic. Development in these areas is due to the efficiency of agricultural institutions that should ensure the welfare of these areas and employment and population factors that lead to the growth of welfare. In relation to these areas, development is to improve the living conditions and is the most important solution to solve the problems of the villagers. But for this issue, the first step will be to identify the challenges and obstacles to development in these areas, one of the main axes of which is to pay attention to the managerial performance of managers in these communities.

 On the one hand, research is a qualitative research that seeks to explore and identify the factors affecting the management of managers in the development of rural areas, and on the other hand, it is a quantitative research, because it tries to describe these factors statistically by tests. From the point of view of research classification, based on purpose, research is of applied type. Because it seeks to apply the theories, regularities, principles and techniques developed in basic research to solve practical and real problems. Also, in terms of the possibility of controlling variables, the present study is a quasi-experimental research, because due to the post-event nature of the research, it is not possible to control variables completely. In the qualitative part of the research, sampling was done randomly and selectively from local residents. In the end, after reaching the theoretical saturation and reaching the repetitive answers, the qualitative part of the research was completed. But for the quantitative part of the research that sought to describe and identify the factors affecting the performance weaknesses of local managers for development in rural areas, first these criteria should be integrated into factors and sub-factors. On the one hand, this made the research criteria clearer and on the other hand, it made it easier to measure it in the researcher-made questionnaire. Therefore, the semantic units obtained from the interview were coded and classified in three stages. This classification was the basis for designing a questionnaire in the Likert scale. The validity and content of the questionnaire were also confirmed by a panel of experts after simplifying some of the questions and statements. The reliability of the questionnaire for Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.796, which indicates the appropriateness of the research tool for measuring the subject. The questionnaire was randomly distributed among the sample population which included 230 samples (according to Cochran's formula) from rural areas of Dolatabad district. The sample size for rural areas was proportional to the number of rural households in these areas. SPSS and Lisral were used to analyze the data. Thus, factor analysis was used as a multivariate analysis technique to evaluate the factors and to show their significance, the T-statistic model was used.

According to the results of the interview, 43 semantic units were obtained which after coding and classification, these criteria were classified into 26 criteria and 4 general dimensions. These criteria are the most important managerial performance of managers in the rural area, which has played an important role in the development of the rural area from the point of view of the local community. After identifying the desired criteria, these criteria were evaluated in a specialized questionnaire by 230 samples from the study population and analyzed in the LISR program. Based on the results, the value of t-statistic for all criteria is more than 1.96, which indicates a significant relationship between criteria and factors. Therefore, all criteria have the necessary accuracy to measure their own structure and each indicator only measures its own structure and the criteria are correctly classified in the form of key barriers. Based on the statistical values ​​obtained, which are the most important results of the analysis, the highest factor load for administrative-organizational factors; Body; It has been social and economic. Therefore, the administrative-organizational factor is studied as the most important factor for the performance of managers in the development of rural areas.

 Identifying and evaluating the performance of managers in the development of the studied rural area was in 4 main dimensions, administrative-organizational, social, economic and physical. In each of these factors, some criteria had the highest factor load. In the administrative-organizational factor, the standard of professional experience and activity of local managers; In the physical factor, the general standard of retrofitting houses in rural areas, which includes the sub-criteria of regulating suitable laws for rural constructions and providing suitable financial resources for retrofitting houses, had the highest factor load. In the social factor, the standard of effective communication and cooperation between managers and local people has been most important. In relation to this standard, it is clear that two-way and mutual communication between managers and local people will lead to cooperative management. This is a standard that the development literature considers its role in realizing development goals to be very important. In the economic factor, the criterion of paying attention to the economic interests of the village was the most important criterion, which had the highest factor load. In general, the findings of the research determined the challenges faced by managers in the development of rural areas. Of course, the subject of the research was only investigating the challenges of managers in rural areas, but the performance of local managers in some areas, especially in the physical-spatial field, has been appropriate. Construction and creation of new roads in the village, improvement and renovation of roads, security of residential units, etc.