Impact of innovation on rural development with an emphasis on the mediation role of rural entrepreneurship (North Khorasan Case Study)

Rural development is one of the most important discussions in every community, especially in developing societies. Considering the importance of rural development and its relationship with rural entrepreneurship, the present study aimed to investigate the innovation index and its impact on rural development with an emphasis on the role of mediator of rural entrepreneurship in North Khorasan province. In this study, a questionnaire was distributed among entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector of North Khorasan Province to analyze the data using a Delphi method. According to the provincial agricultural Jihad Department, 42 entrepreneurs are active in the agricultural sector of the province, of which only 30 were available for the sample. For analyzing the data, SPSS software was used to test the hypotheses and the Bootstrapping method was used to analyze the mediating variable. The results of the research indicate that there is a direct relationship between rural innovation and rural development. Also, rural entrepreneurship, which has been considered as an intermediary variable, has been effective in rural development.