Assessment of rural entrepreneurs’ competencies in Kermanshah Township and identifying the factors influencing it

Extended abstract


Introduction

Due to the strategic role of the entrepreneur as the human factor plays in business, to conduct their business successfully requires abilities and talents that competency to be called. Competencies as a cluster of knowledge, attitudes and skills are defined that the entrepreneur must have or obtained to provide outstanding performance and have maximum profit in his business. Thus the importance of entrepreneurial competencies during the past few decades has increased in entrepreneurship studies. Competencies through personal behavior and actions are explained, they are visible and compared to personality traits changed in short-term. This idea allows us educational intervention. So entrepreneurs who have exposed to such training are expected to start-up businesses have better prepared than those who have not attended this training. On the other hand, with the prediction of competencies that influence the success of entrepreneurs, the educational system can be take action to the creation and strengthening of the competencies of people, especially from a young age.Thus, policymakers can take positive actions and policies to promote the development of entrepreneurship in society. In order to use the term entrepreneurial competencies, background growing emphasis on the role of the entrepreneurial competence.So far little attention has been devoted to the competencies, as key variable influencing the success of entrepreneurs; the main purpose of this study was to analyze competencies of rural entrepreneurs in Kermanshah Township.

Methodology
This study was conducted using quantitative method.The population of the study, including rural entrepreneurs that from the year 1386 until the end of 1393, in the field of tourism, crafts, home business, Processing and complementary industries and agriculture are working in the villages of the Kermanshah Township. The statistical population consisted of 110 rural entrepreneurs that with using Kerjci and Morgan table, a sample size of 86 people were selected by random sampling technique. To examine the competencies of rural entrepreneurs from 74-point scale of Man (2001) were used. The validity and reliability of this scale before in study of Man (2001) evaluated. The competencies, including nine dimensions: strategic, commitment, concept, opportunity, leadership and organization, relationships, learning, personal and technical competencies. The scale according to criteria such as comprehensiveness of model, face validity, repeatability and psychometric properties of the scales used to measure competencies of rural entrepreneurs in Kermanshah Township. To measure the content validity, the questionnaire was given to academic experts and professionals. After revisions, the validity was confirmed. For descriptive analysis, from the mean, standard deviation (in order to prioritize the competencies of rural entrepreneurs) and percent were used. Also to examine the level of entrepreneur’s competencies, according to the minimum and maximum of response rate, questions were divided to the three categories: high, medium and low. In section of inferential analysis, to examine the differences between men and women entrepreneurs in terms of competencies were used of Mann-Whitney test.


Results and Discussion

Based on the findings, compared to men entrepreneurs, women have a lower average in the entrepreneurial competencies. So women entrepreneurs in relation to the entrepreneurial competencies were not desirable. This can be due to the existence of particular discriminations and social and cultural barriers such as the culture of masculinity, prefers boys and lower level of services provided to women. Women and girls have very little access to credit resources and there are fewer job opportunities for these rural producers and do not interfere in the decisions of the village or to them will not be allowed to participate. So it seems perfectly logical that women entrepreneurs have less entrepreneurial competencies. Unfortunately, there are many barriers to women's participation in rural areas and conditions of the development of personality and creativity less favorable for them. In our country, extension and vocational training programs for rural women and girls have not been widely implemented. While the acquisition of knowledge and skills through different training one of the factors contributing to the start-up of businesses. Also, environment of rurals so that women will not be permitted to attend men meetings, in another hand, women are half-forgotten of human capital in rural areas. So for the empowerment of the human resource in country have invested and human and educational investment not only investing in rural women but investing in the future of society. So you have to empowerment of the human resource development and investment in human capital and educational investment in rural women today not only investing in the future of society.
Also, the findings of prioritize entrepreneurial competencies showed that both groups of women and men entrepreneurs in relation to the organization and leadership and strategic competence are weak. Entrepreneurs’ weakness in organization and leadership and strategic competencies than others competencies can affect their success. In the next step, entrepreneurial competencies among entrepreneurs analyzed according to gender. The results showed that significant differences exist between men and women entrepreneurs in terms of technical competency. In other words, compared to men, women entrepreneurs had a more desirable situation in relation to the technical competency. Women have less experience in technical positions. Thus, women in business need to have opportunities to increase their technical competency. Having technical competency can play a key role in the success of entrepreneurs.