Examining the influence of social capital on rural women entrepreneurship

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the empirical assessment of the influence of social capital on women entrepreneurship in rural regions in Iran. Design/methodology/approach – The study involves a questionnaire-based survey of entrepreneurial women from a number of rural regions in the Iran. A total of 265 usable questionnaires were received from rural women who were engaged in entrepreneurial activities from five rural regions. These were subjected to a series of correlational and regression analyses. The measures of the independent (the components of social capital) and dependent (the psychological traits of entrepreneurs) variables are based on literature. Findings – The results reveal that social capital has a positive and significant influence on rural women entrepreneurship. With strong statistical significance, three social capital factors – structural, relational, and cognitive – provide an explanation for variations in psychological traits of entrepreneurs including achievement, innovation, personal control, self-esteem, opportunism, autonomy/independence, and risk/uncertainty. Originality/value – Although the literature has long pointed out the importance of social capital as a determinant of entrepreneurship activity, entrepreneurship researchers have not focussed on the influence of each dimension of social capital on psychological traits of entrepreneurs. Thus, this study makes a contribution toward filling this gap.