Explaining Cooperative-based Social Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas: A Case of Saffron Cultivation Development in Golestan Province

Using Grounded Theory methodology, this research was carried out with aim of explaining cooperative-based social entrepreneurship in the form of saffron cultivation chain in rural areas of Golestan province. In order to collect qualitative field data, a semi-structured deep interview was used. The research target group included those stakeholders involved in the development of saffron cultivation in the Tilabad watershed of Azadshahr County of Golestan province. Purposefully, to select the interviewees as key informants, the reputational sampling technique in the first stage and snowballing sampling in the second stage were used. The sample size and data collection process continued to the level of theoretical saturation or usefulness threshold of available information and 22 people were interviewed, totally. The process of data analysis consisted of a three-step chain of open, axial, and selective coding. Nvivo10 QSR software was used to extract the concept map of the codes. The research findings were summarized in the form of a paradigm model of cooperative-based social entrepreneurship. This model was formed from five components: causal conditions (demographic contexts, socio-economic constraints, agricultural-based livelihoods, and economic incentives towards income generation), contextual conditions (capacities and emerging challenges), intervening conditions (intervening agents, interventions, and intervention consequences), strategies (development of saffron value chain and serial entrepreneurship), and consequences (job and income diversification to achieve livelihood sustainability, the transformation of production arrangements based on the transition from independent family farming systems to the cooperative production system, increasing socio-economic resilience and in general, the realization of an entrepreneurial rural community).