Rural Entrepreneurship Development Model Based on Cognitive Empowerment and Explaining the Role of Institutional Environment in It: A Case Study of Rural Businesses

This study aimed at identifying the factors affecting the rural empowerment and rural entrepreneurship development at the level of policy makers, managers and decision makers in rural entrepreneurship policies. It was a qualitative research conducted in Delphi method. The statistical population consisted of 22 experts and professionals in this field who were selected by non-probability sampling with a combination of purposeful judgment method and snowball sampling. Data analysis was conducted in two stages using Delphi method and exploratory factor analysis. The study findings highlighted the importance of the three factors of emotional, behavioral and cognitive empowerments and their explaining components. The results indicated that the dimensions of cognitive empowerment included the individual, group and enterprise factors affecting the emotional empowerment and led to behavioral empowerment which in turn involved the results of entrepreneurial behavior. In addition, the two-way linkage of these dimensions with the institutional environment including five dimensions of support, rural planning, improved rural business environment, rural entrepreneurial goals and rural entrepreneurial values was explained by the study results.