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Introduction: Since the enactment of the Law of Comprehensive Structure for Social Welfare and Security in Iran, only a small fraction of its target has been accomplished and a significant part of rural women have not been covered by the social insurance service yet. A few studies have been conducted on the social insurance of rural people. However, no study has ever addressed the issue of women with a focus on the theoretical aspects of sociology science, which is the contribution of the present research. Therefore, the present research aimed to explore the barriers to rural women's participation in social insurance. Methods: The research adopted a qualitative approach and the grounded theory method. It was conducted among the brokers of social insurance for farmers, villagers, and nomads in Iran. Data were collected through interviews. Results and Discussion: The results showed that the barriers to women's participation in social insurance were economic (e.g., women's economic dependence on the family head), social (e.g., low social trust, low literacy and awareness of rural women, and limitations imposed by religious doctrine), cultural (e.g., limited social communications, limited use of technology, and poor insurance culture), legal (e.g., poor legal support for rural women's insurance and non-satisfaction of expectations from the fund services), and institutional (e.g., inefficient advertisement methods and poor awareness-raising measures). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed to explore the effects of learning organisation components on staff productivity in the Jihad-e Agriculture Organisation (JAO) of Fars province, Iran. The statistical population was composed of 292 staffs working in this organisation. The sample size was determined by Bartlett's table and was taken by the systematic technique. The results revealed that most staff in JAO were moderately or poorly productive. Among the components of learning organisations, system approach, team learning, and personal mastery were stronger predictors of this variable. It was found that 39% of the variance of learning organisation was accounted for by five components of system approach, team learning, mental models, shared vision, and personal mastery. In other words, it can be claimed that these components can capture 39% of the variance of the learning organisation variable. Also, learning organisation and its components could predict 43% of the variance of staff productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose- The main objective of present study is analysis of viewpoints of Boyer-Ahmad local communities about rural development. The criteria of rural development are identified by a systematic approach from the standpoints of people who are aware of current rural issues in the investigated villages. In the next stage, the level of development of settlements was determined according to the identified criteria. Design/methodology/approach- The current study is based on qualitative methods (grounded theory) and quantitative (descriptiveanalytical and survey). The required data was collected through the field methods (questionnaire and interview). The sample population of the study was determined to extract the indicators purposefully and based on the snowball method until the theoretical saturation of the interview with 18 people was reached. The statistical population of the study is the people living in the villages of Boyer-Ahmad County. 380 people in 10 rural settlements are assessed by employing Cochran's formula. The validity of the research questionnaire was confirmed by content validity and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha. SPSS22 and ArcGis software were used for analyzing the data. Finding- In the index extraction stage, 51 concepts were identified in the form of 6 major categories. In the second stage, the results of one-sample t-test showed that rural settlements have a development coefficient of 0.35 in terms of the studied categories with an average of 2.46, which are at an undeveloped level. The status of development categories also shows that the category of environmental resources with an average of 3.31 has the best level and the category of quality of life with an average of 1.96 have the worst situation in the studied villages. The results also show that the Ganjeh Kohneh village with a coefficient of 0.43 and Mazdak village with a coefficient of 0.40 are in the middle development level and other settlements are in the undeveloped level. Practical implications- According to the results, solutions such as equitable distribution of services, development of a vision document for integrated development, diversification of economic activities and the use of social capital of villagers in the planning process have been proposed. Originality/value- Before planning at the local level, it is necessary to examine the views of the local community regarding rural development. There are differences between rural areas in terms of capabilities, talents, facilities and priorities, and local planning can take these differences into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to explore the process of exhibiting entrepreneurial behaviour by agriculture students in Bu-Ali Sina University, Iran based on the extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The statistical population was composed of all senior students of the College of Agriculture (N = 420). Data were collected by a self-designed questionnaire whose face and content validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was determined in a pilot study. Path analysis showed that attitude, perceived behavioural control, and subjective norms and two personality specifications of entrepreneurship including risk-taking and motivation for progress had a positive and significant effect on the students' entrepreneurial intention so that they altogether accounted for 38.6% of the variance of entrepreneurial intention. In addition, entrepreneurial intention was found to influence the students' entrepreneurial behaviour positively and significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought affects a wide range of climates and ecosystems. Meanwhile, the effect radius of the drought phenomenon is more in rural areas than other areas, because rural economy and life rely relatively heavily on natural resources and agricultural activities. The present study was carried out with the aim of grouping and prioritizing the villages of Qorveh and Dehgolan counties in order to show the difference in the severity of drought and the degree of vulnerability caused by it. The data obtained from calculating the severity of drought showed that the counties of Qorveh and Dehgolan had a mild drought during the studied years. Also, in the discussion of drought vulnerability in the studied settlements, 13 villages were selected as samples and their vulnerability was measured using certain variables. 100% of the surveyed villages in Qorveh and Dehgolan counties have drought experience. The results of Tuki's grouping show that the sample villages are different in terms of vulnerability in the level of indicators of income from the main and secondary livelihoods of the household, exploitation of agricultural water, diversity of household livelihoods and reduction of the area under water cultivation. The biggest difference between villages is the level of access to agricultural water sources. Finally, using the spline interpolation method in the GIS system, the studied villages were zoned in terms of drought severity and degree of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]