Rural entrepreneurship: chalanges and opportunities

Abstract1
Entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as an important driver of economic
growth, productivity, innovation, and job creation, and as a key aspect of economic
dynamism. Due to this positive impact of entrepreneurship, many developing
countries around the world, including Iran, have paid serious attention over the past
decade to entrepreneurship as a potentially fundamental solution to various
problems. Rural Iran has faced various problems such as increasing poverty,
unemployment and immigration rates over recent past decades; accordingly many
villages have become depopulated. Entrepreneurship can play a critical role in
solving these porblems in rural areas. For this reason, entrepreneurship has been
recognized as a means to revitalize rural areas. Indeed, institutions and individuals
promoting rural development now see entrepreneurship as a strategic development
intervention that could promote sustainable rural development. The purpose of this
paper is to examine what are the challenges and opportunities in rural areas that
entrepreneurs might face. For the purpose of the study, secondary data was used.
An extensive literature review was conducted on topics relevant to the research. In
conclusion, the main opportunities (such as cheap property, rich natural resources
and landscapes and local culture and traditions) and challenges (such as, lack of
finance, lack of infrastructural facilities and socio-cultural obstacles) were
identified. The paper finally presents a general framework for encouraging rural
entrepreneurship and some suggestions to take advantages of the opportunities as
well as address the challenges.