Introduction
Entrepreneurship term originates from the French word Enterprender meaning commitment. Entrepreneurship is a good strategy for fighting against poverty and maintaining wealth in low-income communities. The entrepreneurship importance is to the extent that economists consider entrepreneurs as the growth and economic development engine of the society. Entrepreneurship is considered as an essential element for the growth and productivity of rural areas. Ruralism is a dynamic source of entrepreneurship which forms both opportunities and constraints. The entrepreneurship role in rural economic development can be found in areas such as the villager’s access to required goods and services, rural economic growth, reducing the phenomenon of migration to cities, encouraging new businesses creation and promoting social security level and welfare in the village. Rural entrepreneurship is one of the best strategies that can be effective in terms of rural monetizing, job creation and unemployment elimination, preventing immigration, improving the life quality and welfare level in rural community, creating a sense of competition and new businesses and preventing chaos and social unrests. Entrepreneurship development and survive in rural areas is due to factors such as social infrastructure development, doing research and development simultaneously, increasing human resources quality, improving the management quality, education and technology development. Meanwhile, one of the most important and fundamental factors is social capital, because it promotes creativity, innovative behaviors and increases entrepreneur’s thoughtful risk-taking. Social capital is a resource created in in business networks or within individual networks. These resources include information, thoughts, tips, business opportunities, financial capital, leverage, emotional support, good will, trust and collaboration.
Methodology
In terms of purpose, the present study is practical and in terms of the method, it is descriptive-analytic. In the research process, the theoretical foundation of entrepreneurship, social capital and literature review were studied first; and components, indexes and items have been determined accordingly based on the available information about the study region. The statistical population has been selected from three groups of occupation, agriculture, industry and services; and a sample size of 250 people was selected randomly between them. 72 individual in the industry, 124 in agriculture and 54 people work in the services field. In the present study, the formal method has been used to increase the credit rating. For this purpose, the questionnaire was distributed to experts, specialists and professors. After the compilation and gathering their comments, the necessary reforms were made. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to determine the research stability. The calculated alpha value is 0.791 which indicates that the number is desirable and the necessary accuracy for the structures stability is used in the questionnaire and the designed items to measure the indices have an internal correlation. In this research, factor analysis, Bartlett test, Pearson coefficient and regression analysis were used to analyze quantitative data.
Findings and Discussion
In order to measure the relationship between social capital and entrepreneurship, we first examine the relationships between variables. Here, we use Pearson, Spearman and Kendall correlation coefficients for analyzing according to the variables scale type. According to Pearson correlation coefficients and social capital and entrepreneurship significant levels in the studied population, a significant and positive relationship exists at 99% level. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected and a significant relationship exists between social capital and entrepreneurship. Five factors with eigenvalues greater than 5.0 are extracted by using factor analysis technique in the main components method; the dimension variables affecting the rural entrepreneurs are packed based on the load factor after varimax rotation method. The five factors determined 64.12% of the total variance related to plan effects. In other words, 64% of the relationship between social capital and rural entrepreneurs is related to these factors from the perspective of rural entrepreneurs. Regression analysis and Fisher statistic have been used to consider the social capital prediction on rural entrepreneurship. Accordingly, the determination coefficient of 0.934 indicates that the independent variable explains 93% of dependent variable variations.
Conclusion
There is a positive and meaningful relation between rural entrepreneurship and social capital in examining the findings. People who have high social capital spends a little time protecting themselves from being exploited in economic interactions and monitoring the other’s performances; this makes more time for thinking, creativity, innovation and ultimately entrepreneurship. Any improvement in social capital and related factors leads to a betterment in entrepreneurship. The factor analysis of entrepreneurship shows that facilities availability with the highest loading factor has been the most effective factor in the entrepreneurship process; and participation in village development had the highest loading factor in social capital formation. In regression analysis, psychological characteristics have the most impact on rural entrepreneurship prediction.
Subject:
Earth-Surface Processes Received: 2017/11/15 | Accepted: 2023/10/20 | Published: 2018/04/15