Analyzing the status of rural entrepreneurship development indicators and explaining the influencing factors (case study: Al-Shatar county)

Extended Abstract
Introduction
Today, the rural areas of developing countries, especially in Iran, suffer from many challenges, including poverty, hidden unemployment, environmental degradation, and continuing inequality in the distribution of opportunities and resources between urban and rural areas, which indicates the failure of the past strategies of rural development in order to provide a successful solution to solve them. In the meantime, entrepreneurship has found a special place and prestige as the driver of economic and social growth and development of societies and as one of the necessities of rural development programs. Therefore, it is particularly important to measure the state and level of rural entrepreneurship development and try to develop and strengthen it by providing its basic conditions. Thus, the present research seeks to answer these key questions in order to develop entrepreneurship among the villagers of Aleshtar:
- What is the status of entrepreneurship development indicators in the rural areas of Aleshtar?
- What are the effective and driving factors in strengthening and developing entrepreneurship in the studied area?
 
Methodology
The research method is descriptive-analytical and exploratory, and in order to collect data, documentary and field studies and questionnaires were conducted. The statistical population of the present research includes all the rural entrepreneurs of Aleshtar, including 100 people; based on Cochran's formula, 78 people were calculated and selected, and they were investigated by a simple random sampling method. In the current research, after studying the theoretical foundations and studies conducted to investigate the current situation, 63 indicators were extracted and analyzed in 4 dimensions and 12 components. Also, by reviewing the literature and the background of the research, 50 influential and leading factors were preliminarily extracted from the statistical population to prepare a questionnaire and ask for opinions. Research data analysis has been done in two parts as descriptive statistics such as absolute frequency distribution table, frequency percentage, mean, and standard deviation to compare the information collected through the questionnaire and in the inferential statistics section from sample t-tech statistical tests, factor analysis was performed in SPSS software.
 
Results and discussion
The results of examining the status of rural entrepreneurship development indicators in Aleshtar city using the sample T-Tech test showed that out of 63 research items, 17 items are below the average level (between low and medium level = average less than 3) and 46 other items, were evaluated more than average (at the level between medium and high = average greater than 3). In this regard, the results of this test showed that the indicators of entrepreneurship development in the rural areas of Aleshtar (with a significance level of 0.296) are not at an optimal level. In addition to this, the factor analysis results also show that among the 50 key factors evaluated, 12 factors are influential and driving the development of entrepreneurship in the villages of Aleshtar, which predicts about 75% of the development of rural entrepreneurship. According to the results obtained from factor analysis, factors such as investment in production activities, investment in research and development, investment in educational services, access to bank credits, free financial support, existence of entrepreneurial organizations, local participation in the program planning, local places of information, transfer of necessary facilities, laws supporting investment, privatization laws, transparent laws, intellectual property laws, the society's view of the entrepreneur, have the priority or factor loading of 1, and investing in infrastructure facilities has the 12th priority or factor loading of 12.
 
Conclusion
Based on the subject literature and according to experts, the development of rural areas, including Aleshtar, needs new strategies that will reduce the gap between regions and cause equal regional development; this is possible by developing entrepreneurship and empowering environmental policies. The results of investigating the status of entrepreneurship indicators in the studied area showed that the average calculated entrepreneurship score has no significant difference from the base limit and is on the average level. The obtained results are consistent with the research findings of Jamshidi et al. (2015), Dehghani and Jamini (2016), and Barghi and Zulfaghari (2017). In this regard, the research results regarding the key and influential factors in developing entrepreneurship in the studied area showed that many factors are involved. However, some factors are important and considered influential and driving factors for developing rural entrepreneurship in this region. Factors mostly related to the economic dimension and the managerial-institutional and infrastructural dimensions. The obtained results are in line with the research of Barghi and Zulfaqhari (2017), Darban Astana et al. (2017), Pour Jamshidi (2016), and Agarwal et al. (2018), each of them has pointed to the above factors as effective factors on the development of entrepreneurship.
Finally, according to the obtained results, it can be said that rural entrepreneurship is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that includes managerial, economic, social, individual, and geographical dimensions; it is necessary to consider all of them in connection with each other with a comprehensive and integrated view in order to realize the sustainable development of rural entrepreneurship in the rural areas of Aleshtar through scientific planning.
 
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.