فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال بیست و چهارم شماره 4 (پیاپی 96، زمستان 1400)

Given the importance of performance as the main indicator of the success of businesses, it has always been of interest to researchers. In addition, social capital and entrepreneurial orientation are two important factors in predicting the performance of businesses. However, little is known about the mechanisms that benefit businesses from the interplay among these factors. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the mediating effect of entrepreneurial orientation in the relationship between social capital and business performance. The statistical population of the study included the owners of local poultry business units in the rural areas of Sistan and Baluchestan province in Iran with 360 active units in 2018, out of which 189 units were selected by simple random sampling as the statistical sample using Krejcie and Morgan table. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed as discriminant validity and convergent validity. Composite reliability measures showed satisfied reliability. The collected data was analyzed by structural equation modeling with partial least squares method (PLS-SEM). The study findings showed that the external network ties and social interaction had a positive and significant relationship with relationship quality; and also indicated that the proactiveness mediated the impact of relationship quality on the performance, innovativeness mediated the impact of relationship quality on financial performance, and risk-taking mediated the impact of relationship quality on non-financial performance of local poultry businesses.

Neglecting market conditions and emphasizing merely on production increase is one of the basic problems of agricultural extension systems. Institutionalizing extension services based on a market-oriented approach can play a useful and effective role in increasing the quantity and quality of production and optimizing the value chain of products with a focus on employment growth, entrepreneurship and economic prosperity in rural areas. Therefore, this study aimed at identifying the components for institutionalization of market-based extension services in the rice value chain in rural areas of Mazandaran Province, as Iran’s most rice producing province, in 2019. The required data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 29 purposefully selected rice experts and were analyzed through an inductive analysis method. The results showed that based on the value chain approach, the activities were classified in the two categories including ‘primary activities’ such as the supply of inputs, production, processing, marketing and consumption of rice and ‘support activities’ comprising providing training and advisory services, financial supports, human resource management, supportive policies, and the provision of the necessary infrastructure. It was also found that support activities were identified as effective factors in the institutionalization of market-oriented extension services in the rice value chain.

In recent years, the concept of "empowerment of rural women" has been used as one of the main pillars of rural development in rural development issues in order to improve the status of women and their society. This applied research was carried out qualitatively with a meta-synthesis approach and its data source included all the studies conducted by Eric, Science, Springer, Scopus, Elsevier, Scientific Information Database (SID), the portal of the Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, the publication of national conferences, and Noor specialized journals in the time period of 2009-2019. In this regard, 240 related studies were evaluated. Finally, by performing the seven steps of Sandelowski and Barroso, forty articles were purposefully selected and by analyzing in open, axial and selective coding methods, their validity was confirmed by Kappa Kaufmann test. The results of the analysis showed that the effective factors in empowerment consisted of four dimensions including educational (production knowledge, self-awareness), individual (self-direction and productivity), structural (facilitating laws, production structuring) and socio-cultural (culture building and social activity power). The results of the present study, by creating a deep understanding of the existing literature on the empowerment of rural women, can be used in rural development policy to empower rural women by organizing the factors affecting it.

Negative effects of climate change and efforts to reduce them have different impacts on men and women; and women, as important actors and those with significant knowledge and skills, play an important role in adapting to these changes. This study aimed at designing a model of behavior adaptation to climate changes among paddy farmer women in Mazandaran province of Iran, using a developed model of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT). For this purpose, 173 paddy farmer women in the province who cultivated rice in the 2016-2017 crop year were selected through stratified sampling with proportional assignment. A standard questionnaire was used to collect information. The results showed that threat assessment and coping assessment of paddy farmer women had positive and significant effects on their adaptation behavior to climate change; in addition, understanding problems had the greatest impact on threat assessment, and response costs had the greatest impact on their response to climate change. According to the results, it is suggested that public and private bodies related to agriculture, natural resources, climate change as well as international bodies such as the International Committee on Climate Change and the UN Convention on Climate Change be more concerned with teaching conservation and adaptive behaviors and the paddy farmer women should undoubtedly take some measures. The results of this study would help to identify the behaviors that determine women's adaptation to climate change and the strategic interventions needed for their more effective adaptation.

The main purpose of this study was to explain the factors affecting the adoption and development of durum wheat cultivation in rural areas of five provinces of Fars, Khuzestan, Kerman, Ilam and Tehran in Iran using structural equation model. The required data were collrcted through a questionnaire, the reliability of which was determined by Cronbach's alpha coefficient and composite reliability index (CR); and the extracted mean variance index (AVE) was used to determine the convergent validity of the components. The statistical population of the study included all wheat farmers in the mentioned provinces. Statistical sample size was determined as 274 people using Krejcie and Morgan sample size table and statistical samples were selected using multi-stage sampling method with proportional assignment. The results indicated that the studid indices were desirable. Data analysis was performed in a structural equation modeling method using LISREL8.5 and SPSS22. The study results confirmed the positive and significant effect between the explanatory components affecting the willingness to adopt durum wheat cultivation; in addition, the structural equation model predicted, in total, 47 percent of the variable variations in the tendency to adopt durum wheat cultivation. Finally, the results of this study are expected to be useful in developing strategies for extension and development of durum wheat cultivation. In addition, this research can be useful for breeders to breed varieties appropriate to the wheat farmers` conditions and needs.

Today, experts and development institutions consider rural entrepreneurship as a strategic intervention to promote rural development and accelerate its process, which has an important role in reducing poverty and developing social justice as well as creating many job opportunities for rural people. Accordingly, this study aimed mainly at developing rural entrepreneurship. For this purpose, it sought to answer the question: How can we improve the ecological performance and development of entrepreneurship in rural Iran by studying the mediating role of rural empowerment? The present applied research, using quantitative method with a structural equation modeling strategy, was performed by partial least squares (PLS) method and approach. The required data were collected through 102 valid and reliable researcher-made questionnaires by cluster sampling method in the period 2019-2020. The results showed that two streams of cognitive empowerment including individual, group and enterprise empowerment and emotional or psychological empowerment stream with the impact of dimensions such as removing barriers and improving the rural business environment, supporting rural businesses, rural plans and programs, and the goals and values ​​of rural entrepreneurship can lead to the development of rural entrepreneurship with indicators such as the creation or maintenance of rural businesses or rural social entrepreneurship. Finally, based on the study findings, some practical suggestions, including raising awareness about empowerment components at three levels of individual, group and enterprise to rural businesses, the role of educators and mentors of rural businesses, the multiple roles of the entrepreneurial government and the key and vital role of local communities were presented.

Today, in developing countries, including Iran, migration from rural to urban areas is an important social and economic issue. Given the importance of the issue of willingness to stay in village, this study aimed at investigating the relationship between willingness to stay in village and effects of financial access through internal and external financing. The statistical population included the rural households of Gonabad, Torbat-e Heydarieh and Sabzevar counties in Razavi Khroasan province of Iran; and among them, 397 rural households were selected as the sample size. The extent of people's satisfaction with living in rural areas as dependent variable (low, medium and high satisfaction) and age, gender, type of activity, area under cultivation, income, and total value of assets, savings and access to formal and informal credits as independent variables were studied. To analyze the data, due to the existence of heterogeneity in the sample, the multilevel sequential logit method was used. To confirm the existence of heterogeneity in the studied cities and villages, the statistics of intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and design effect (DE) index were considered, resulting in 0.25 and 0.48 values, respectively. Since these values were more than 0.2, the effects of intra-unit autocorrelation were evaluated as considerable and the existence of heterogeneity in the studied cities and villages was accepted; in other words, at the city level, the two main parameters of the number of banks in relation to the urban population and the urban wage rate showed about 0.25 variances between cities, and at the village level, the intra-unit auto-correlation of 0.48 indicated that the main variables of unemployment rate, the presence or absence of water resources and the average income level of the people included about 0.48 variance between villages, which these heterogeneity would provide a wide range of satisfaction to a large extent. Also, other research findings showed that granting facilities to rural households formally (rather than informally) could increase their motivation to stay in the village, and with these formal facilities, they would be able to start their own businesses in rural areas; hence, they might have more satisfaction and desire to stay in the countryside and not migrate to the city.