Abstract
Each practical action in rural areas should be based on a comprehensive, new, and innovative theoretical paradigm. For nearly three decades, the global economic system has embraced rural entrepreneurship as a “productive” and innovative strategy in rural development in many countries, including both underdeveloped and developed countries. At present, we have large companies, which due to government development interventions, are replaced with small- and medium-sized businesses under inflexible and extreme entrepreneurialism. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to shed light on the prevailing entrepreneurship practice and discourse, criticize them, and finally introduce a new paradigm known as “paradigm of rural prosperity” (PRP). In this work, Aram Ziai’s theory of skeptical post-development was used, along with Campbell Jones and André Spicer’s critical theory of entrepreneurship and Rosenqvist’s theory of the conceptualization of rurality and rural environment called “hermeneutical realism”. The present paper attempts to base the paradigm of rural prosperity on three pillars of analysis and explanation: (a) rural embodiment, (b) neoliberalism, and (c) concept of sustainability. Although some case studies in Iran have been used as empirical evidence, this paper argues that the paradigm of rural prosperity is universal in nature and can be used in any geographical and cultural context to provide new rural development.
Highlights
Numerous studies conducted in the field of entrepreneurship in general and rural entrepreneurship in particular have taken a testimonial perspective toward entrepreneurship and assumed the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth and development to be definite [1–3]
Whether rural entrepreneurship can be considered a continuation of these new transformations of development or not, whether rural entrepreneurship should be followed with criticisms and reforms or it should be abandoned, and how rural entrepreneurship relates to rural development are among the questions that will be addressed in this paper
Rural prosperity is the extension of the idea of human development and its accumulation with embodied resources that have not been further considered in indicators, such as per capita income, education, and life expectancy
Summary
Numerous studies conducted in the field of entrepreneurship in general and rural entrepreneurship in particular have taken a testimonial perspective toward entrepreneurship and assumed the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth and development to be definite [1–3]. The collapse of communism and the rise of globalization in the 1990s coincided with the formation of the discourse of Development 3 The characteristics of this period include the emergence of East Asian Tigers, the integration of the former communist countries of Eastern Europe into the world economic system, and the emergence of neoliberalism. In this sense, neoliberalism can be considered a new orthodoxy due to flexibilization of labor, privatization of state-owned enterprises, empowerment of social networks, and global free trade.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
