Development Barriers Of Rural Entrepreneurial Smes In Khzestan Province (Case Study: Of the Date Complementary Industries)

Rural entrepreneurship, through value added production, will improve employment and facilitate a more equitable distribution of income as a key component of rural development driving engine. The establishment of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the field of agricultural marketing is a suitable strategy for reinforcement of entrepreneurialism which has got a double importance in single crop zones. The main purpose of this applied research is to identify the barriers of development of entrepreneurial enterprises which are involved in the date complementary industries in Khuzestan Province. The dominant approach of research was quantitative based on survey method. The statistical population included two separate groups, 41 owners of entrepreneurial enterprises and 40 experts who were associated with these enterprises. In order to collect information on the date a questionnaire was used. Content validity of instrument was confirmed by some experienced experts and enterprises, owners and its reliability was verified through Cronbach's alpha (α = 0.81). The findings indicated that the two groups agreed with 17 cases from 35 designed variables as deterrents of development of entrepreneurial enterprises. In addition, according to the results of factor analysis, the agreed deterrents classified in four factors: "infrastructural", "marketing" "managerial" and "policy-making" approximately predicted 53.94% of total variation.