Designing the Structural Equation Model of Agricultural Entrepreneurship Development in Rural Areas of Iran (Case Study: Villages of Marvdasht County)

Although entrepreneurship is not the only way to create jobs and increase incomes of rural people, but can definitely say it is the best and most profitable type. Actually, the question of revitalizing rural and peripheral regions through the promotion of agricultural entrepreneurship has generated considerable attention. Therefore, the main purpose of this descriptive-correlative study was to design the structural equation model of agricultural entrepreneurship development in villages of Kamfiruz district, Marvdasht County in Iran. The population of the study consisted of all families of 20 villages (N=3106). According to the Bartlett et al table, a sample of 197 head of households was selected using stratified random sampling technique. The data were collected by the questionnaire consisting of personal and professional features of the respondents and preceding studies related to measuring the components of agricultural entrepreneurial development (including innovativeness, renewal, pro-activeness and risk-taking) and the structures affecting the development of agricultural entrepreneurship in rural areas (including social capital, subjective norms, self-efficacy belief and local institutions). The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts. The construct validity and the composite reliability of the research instrument were tested by estimating the measurement model and they were satisfied after making necessary corrections. The data were analyzed using SPSSwin22 and AMOS21 soft wares. The results showed that there was found an acceptable fitness of the model used in the present study, which confirm the study hypothesis. Based on the villagers opinion, social capital, subjective norms, selfefficacy belief, and local institutes explained 46.8 percent of variance in developing the agricultural entrepreneurship. It is recommended that the role of government and officials in agricultural entrepreneurship should be more highlighted to encourage the villagers in entrepreneurship.