Volume 24, Issue 93 (6-2024)                   refahj 2024, 24(93): 301-338 | Back to browse issues page


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Khosravani R, Vosooghi M, Baghaei Sarabi A, Musai M. (2024). Investigating the Impact of Entrepreneurial Personality and Innovativeness of Economic Activities on Improving the Quality of Life of Villagers. refahj. 24(93), : 8 doi:10.32598/refahj.24.93.4156.1
URL: http://refahj.uswr.ac.ir/article-1-4091-en.html
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Extended Abstract
Introduction
In recent years, the development of urbanization in human societies has led to income gaps, inconsistencies in consumerism between urban and rural residents and reduced employment in rural areas (Moroyeva, 2018). Scientific findings show that the economic situation at the individual and national-social level is correlated with the conditions and quality of life of people living in rural areas (Wu & Li, 2017). Therefore, one of the socio-economic concerns of governments in developing countries and even developed societies is always to find effective and practical strategies to improve economic indicators. Innovation and entrepreneurship are among the effective strategies that play a key role in this field. Based on existing theoretical studies, innovation and entrepreneurship as presuppositions of economic growth determine the desired results of a dynamic economy (George & Gatengo, 2013).
As a result, innovation and entrepreneurship in today’s turbulent and volatile world are two important components and two wings of the engine of economic growth. Zhao, Li, and Buchen (2011) define entrepreneurship as making change through creation or innovation that is usually associated with risk. Accordingly, entrepreneurship emphasizes opportunities to create and run businesses and organizations. As a related but different concept from the concept of entrepreneurship, innovation is considered a new combination of factors of production or different states of the system due to the use of a new production function (Schumpeter, 2010). Yasil and Darley (2013) also see innovation as a means to bring about change, which includes the process of creating, developing, implementing new ideas and behaviors.
Realizing the aspirations of entrepreneurs in rural areas can improve the quality of life of villagers. The concept of quality of life goes back to the individual’s perception of individual expectations, standards and concerns within the cultural and value system in which they live (Roma, Almedia, Mansano, Viani, Asis & Babusa, 2014). A review of scientific evidence shows that, on the one hand, innovation and entrepreneurship are associated with economic growth and development (e.g., Paradhan, Nir, Bameni et al., 2018; Cogan, Papanicolaou, Jero, & Stoffman, 2017; Thompson, 2018; Poloff & Briner, 2019), and on the other hand, the growth of the economic situation raises the quality of life (Schultz, Bast, Winhold, Krutzing, Neko et al., 2019; Pauline, Vogel, Subek, Hilbert, Coroner et al., 2019; Yu, Wang , Yeong and Lu, 2018; Ismila, Drisson, Bridges, Riesbrook, Naya et al., 2018).
Villages due to different natural resources can create a good opportunity for economic activities and also improving the quality of life can prevent rural migration to cities and reduce various urban anomalies. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship in economic activities on improving the quality of life of villagers. Since the development of economic activities through innovation and entrepreneurship seems to affect the quality of life of villagers studying the research literature, in the present study, entrepreneurial and innovative projects that have been implemented in the villages of Nazarabad in various fields are examined. It was decided to evaluate its impact on the quality of life of rural residents. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to answer the following question: what is the effect of entrepreneurship and innovation of economic activities in improving the quality of life of villagers?
Method
The present research is fundamental in terms of purpose and mixed method (qualitative-quantitative) in terms of data collection. The statistical population of this study was all the villagers in the suburbs of Nazarabad city of Alborz province in (2020), which according to the report of the Statistics Center of Iran, their number was 28,252 people. To determine the sample size of the community, the accuracy of the estimate or the maximum acceptable error for the community is considered 0.05. Thus, the total number of samples, assuming a certain statistical population, at 95% confidence level, 379 people was considered. Samples were randomly selected from multistage clusters. Therefore, between the two central parts and Tonekman, the central part was selected as the first cluster. In the next step, from Ahmadabad and Najmabad villages, Najmabad village was randomly selected as the second cluster. Finally, among the villages of Najmabad district, eight villages were selected and 50 questionnaires were distributed in each of them. The number of questionnaires distributed was 400 in total, of which 323 acceptable questionnaires were completed.
Before doing the quantitative part, the questionnaire was compiled qualitatively using the phenomenological method in five parts. In the first part, by reviewing the research literature, semi-structured interview questions in the field of “entrepreneurship and economic innovation” and “quality of socio-economic life” were developed and discussed in meetings with researchers, professors, and experts in the field of social sciences. In such a way that with the formulated questions, the criteria and characteristics of “entrepreneurship and economic innovation” and “quality of socio-economic life” can be sought from the villagers and specialists. Therefore, in this study, semi-structured interviews were used to cover all areas of “entrepreneurship and economic innovation” and “quality of socio-economic life” and to extract similar types of data, and also due to flexibility.
In the second part, after compiling the semi-structured interview questions, the interview sessions were conducted by researchers with experts, entrepreneurs and a number of informed villagers, and the criteria and characteristics of “entrepreneurship and economic innovation” and “quality of socio-economic life” were extracted. In the third part, semi-structured interview sessions were conducted by researchers with experts and social scientists and the criteria and characteristics of “entrepreneurship and economic innovation” and “quality of socio-economic life” were extracted based on their views. In the second and third sections, in parallel with the interview process, the findings were analyzed and the number of interview sessions increased to the point of saturation. The transcripts of the interviews were analyzed. A systematic method was used to examine the content of the interviews and  conceptualize and extract the categories.
A researcher-made questionnaire was developed based on the indicators obtained from the qualitative research of the data foundation in entrepreneurship, innovation and quality of rural life as well as the conceptual model of rural quality of life. To increase the validity of the questionnaire from 1- Review of previous questionnaires; 2- Using the opinions of relevant experts and specialists; 3- Using the opinions of the supervisor; 4- Initial distribution of the questionnaire to 15 samples and reviewing the feedback and answers of the respondents; and 5- Exploratory factor analysis (factor loads) was used. The results of exploratory factor analysis showed that in all variables of the questionnaire, factor loads are more than 0.5, which shows that all questions have a significant factor load. In order to evaluate the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used and internal consistency for the whole questionnaire and the variables of entrepreneurship, innovation and quality of life were calculated  and they were 0.87, 0.88, 0.89 and 0.85, respectively.
The sampling pattern was that the researcher, referring to each of the selected villages, first started from the houses on the left side of the first street and by referring to the houses, provided the questionnaires to the residents of those houses. For each individual, the objectives of the research were explained and they were asked to answer each question carefully. Also, the participants in this study were explained that there is no right or wrong answer and to express their personal opinion about the phrase in the questionnaire. It took between 10 and 20 minutes to complete the questionnaires; however, no time limit was set for completing the questionnaires. If participants needed to explain some of the phrases that seemed vague to them, the researcher would explain those phrases so that the nature of the sentence would not change. It should be noted that all villagers aged 15 to 64 years (adult age range) who were able to read and write and lived in the village participated in this study. After collecting information, a questionnaire of descriptive and inferential analysis and regression path analysis were performed.
Findings
In this study, 323 people participated, most of whom were equal to 74.4% (240 people) were women. In addition, in terms of age, the majority of participants were 24.4% (79 people) in the age range of 35-40 years. The lowest frequency of age range was related to the age range of 25-20 years (13.3%). In addition, most of the participants in the present study had a high school diploma (39.32%). Pearson correlation test was used to measure the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation with quality of life and its dimensions (quality of economic life, quality of social life and quality of environmental life). Before examining the correlation between the variables, the normality of the distribution of the variables was confirmed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.
Table 1: Test of correlation between entrepreneurship, innovation and quality of rural life
Variables statistic quality of life Economic QoL Social QoL Environmental QoL
Entrepreneurship r 0.656 0.636 0.568 0.434
P 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Innovation r 0.223 0.216 0.247 0.199
P 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

As can be seen in Table 2, the significance level for all variables is zero and is less than 0.05. Accordingly, entrepreneurship has a significant relationship with the overall score of rural quality of life (r = 0.656; P = 0.000), economic quality of life (r = 0.636; P = 0.000), social quality of life (0.568). R = 0; P = 0.000) and environmental quality of life (r = 0.434; P = 0.000). In addition, innovation with the overall score of rural quality of life (r = 0.223; P = 0.000), economic quality of life (r = 0.216; P = 0.000), social quality of life (r = 0.247 ; P = 0.000) and the environmental quality of life (r = 0.199; P = 0.000) have a significant relationship.
Table 2: Regression model of predicting rural quality of life based-on entrepreneurship and innovation
Model r r2 Impact coefficient Model error Durbin-Watson
1 0.617 0.382 0.351 0.011 2.101

A regression model was used to predict the rural quality of life based on entrepreneurship and innovation. As can be seen in Table 2, the correlation coefficient is 0.62 and the impact factor is 0.35. Thus, entrepreneurship and innovation account for about 35% of changes in rural quality of life. Given that our Watson camera statistic is between 1.5 and 2.5, it shows that the independent variables are not in line and the results are reliable and can be analyzed based on it.

Table 3: The impact of entrepreneurship and innovation on the rural quality of life
Model Non-standard standard t P
coefficient Error coefficient
Constant -0.107 0.010 - -10.93 0.000
Entrepreneurship 0.198 0.063 0.412 3.143 0.021
Innovation 0.139 0.038 0.211 3.659 0.019


The studied variables are not linear, because the tolerance of the variables is more than 0.5. The level of significance of the coefficient of entrepreneurship and innovation coefficient test is less than 0.05 and as a result is included in the model of influencing the quality of rural life. Therefore, entrepreneurship and innovation variables affect the quality of rural life. The impact of entrepreneurship variable on rural quality of life is equal to 0.412 (about 41%) and innovation variable is equal to 0.211 (about 21%). Accordingly, the impact of entrepreneurship on the quality of rural life is greater than innovation. However, both variables affect the quality of rural life.
Table 4: Regression coefficients of the impact of entrepreneurship and innovation on the economic and social-environmental quality of rural life
Criterion variable Model Non-standard standard t P
coefficient Error coefficient
Economic QoL Constant -0.201 0.180 - 11.166 0.000
Entrepreneurship 0.218 0.057 0.443 3.824 0.011
Innovation 0.172 0.041 0.223 3.097 0.022
Social & environmental QoL Constant -0.159 0.028 - 5.678 0.000
Entrepreneurship 0.312 0.035 0.461 8.914 0.000
Innovation 0.116 0.022 0.199 5.272 0.000
Also, the level of significance of entrepreneurship and innovation in both models is less than 0.05, which shows that they affect the dimensions of quality of rural life. Beta coefficients show that the impact of entrepreneurship on the economic quality dimension is 44% and on the dimensions of social and environmental quality is 46%. The impact of innovation on economic quality is 22% and on social and environmental quality is 20%. The findings of Tables 5 show that, in general, the impact of entrepreneurship on rural quality of life and its dimensions is greater than the impact of innovation. However, both of these variables affect the quality of rural life.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the impact of entrepreneurship and innovation on the quality of rural life. The findings of this study indicate a significant correlation between entrepreneurship and innovation with rural quality of life. The results of regression analysis also indicate that entrepreneurship and innovation are good predictors of rural quality of life. However, the impact of entrepreneurship was greater than innovation. Consistent with these findings, Khosravi, Mehdizadeh and Mirkazadeh (2015) showed the consequences of empowering the rural poor by launching green entrepreneurship, reducing economic poverty, reducing unemployment, easier access to housing, life expectancy, reducing migration, satisfaction And improve living standards, sustainable food security and, most importantly, environmental protection and sustainable development.
In the present study, the results showed that no matter how much the villagers have an entrepreneurial view and attitude, as well as entrepreneurial behavior, and implement and run different businesses, it will improve the quality of life in the village. Quality of life also has various dimensions, including economic, social, and environmental quality. By these dimensions, entrepreneurship can affect about 44% of changes in the economic quality of life and about 46% of changes in socio-environmental quality. This shows that entrepreneurship has a significant contribution in increasing the economic and socio-environmental level of the village. Entrepreneurship emphasizes opportunities to start businesses, and it is an important factor in achieving economic growth, job creation, and increasing productivity. Therefore, it will create employment and increase the income level of the village, and as a result, the economic situation of the village will improve.
According to the obtained results, it is suggested to facilitate the establishment of non-governmental organizations supporting rural entrepreneurs. Forming :union:s and cooperatives to support rural entrepreneurs can be very useful. Both of these cases can encourage participation in identifying investment opportunities in rural areas, promoting cross-sectoral cooperation in collaboration with non-governmental organizations, and coordination between institutions and organizations in charge of rural entrepreneurship development. In addition, spreading the culture of entrepreneurship in the village through the media, promoting the benefits of entrepreneurial activities, material and spiritual support to activists in the field of education and culture of entrepreneurship in the village, celebrating successful entrepreneurs, encouraging rural people to be entrepreneurs facilitating the possibility of advertising and promoting the products of the villagers, encouraging urban entrepreneurs to develop their businesses in rural areas, encouraging rural graduates for rural entrepreneurship can be effective as well.
Ethical Considerations
Authors’ contributions
All authors contributed in designing, running, and writing all parts of the research.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interes.
Funding
This article was written independently and no financial support was received from any organization to write it.


 
Type of Study: orginal |
Received: 2022/06/22 | Accepted: 2024/02/12 | Published: 2024/06/30

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