Analyzing the Process of Identifying Entrepreneurial Opportunities: An Attempt to Create Employment in the Rural Areas of Ravansar County

The present research aimed to analyze the process of identifying entrepreneurial opportunities to develop entrepreneurship and rural employment. The research was an applied study in terms of purpose and a mixed-methods study in terms of approach. The research population included experts and scholars of entrepreneurship and rural employment in Ravansar County. The inclusion criteria of the participants were an academic resume related to the subject matter and a history of executive activity in the field of entrepreneurship and rural self-employment. The sample was taken purposefully by the snowball technique until data saturation was reached. Data saturation was obtained by conducting 12 interviews with the participants. To analyze the data, the content analysis method was used with the inductive approach in the qualitative phase, and the hierarchical analysis process technique was used in the quantitative phase. In this research, entrepreneurial opportunities for the development of entrepreneurship and job creation in rural areas were first identified, and then based on the criteria extracted from the literature (such as the capacity to create employment, ease of financing, ease of exploiting the opportunity, matching the opportunity with the regional capabilities and economic value creation capacity) were prioritized. The identified opportunities were the opportunities for agriculture, horticulture, and animal husbandry, tourism and handicrafts, home businesses, and processing industries. The findings showed that the opportunities related to agriculture and horticulture were ranked the highest, and the opportunities related to home businesses, processing industries, animal husbandry, tourism, and handicrafts were ranked the next, respectively. The paper is concluded with some recommendations, e.g., increasing financial and non-financial support of rural entrepreneurs by the government, which is one of the most important ones.