The Effect of Entrepreneurial Leadership Dimensions on the Entrepreneurial Intention of Rural Women, Emphasis on Entrepreneurship Education in Ardabil Province

Extended Abstract Background: Entrepreneurship plays a very important role as the main driver of economic transformation and growth in global societies. This dynamic and creative process includes identifying new opportunities, developing innovative ideas, forming expert teams, attracting financial resources, offering new products, and opening new markets. Women entrepreneurs in rural industries play a key role in the economic and social empowerment of themselves and local communities. They help to improve the social and economic situation by creating job opportunities and reducing unemployment, and at the same time, by preserving and reviving local culture and transferring traditional knowledge and skills, they contribute to the sustainable development and cultural progress of rural communities. Entrepreneurial leadership, which includes Abilities such as motivating the team and promoting innovative ideas are considered one of the key elements in the success of entrepreneurs. Considering that the concept of entrepreneurship is expanding rapidly and the presence of women in the field of entrepreneurship is an issue that has been seriously considered by the world community. Deep in various sciences and techniques, it has caused the transformation and change of structures from traditional forms to more complex structures. To obtain any type of job in the 21st-century world, it is necessary to have a suitable level of professional skills, which are generally obtained through education. They are afraid of entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, there is a need for entrepreneurship training for rural women, which can help empower them and guide them towards entrepreneurial activities. This research focuses on the relationship between the different dimensions of entrepreneurial leadership and the entrepreneurial intention of rural women who are members of credit funds. Wisdom is concentrated in Ardabil province, especially when this leadership is combined with entrepreneurship education. Methods: The research was applied in terms of purpose, descriptive correlation in terms of data collection, and field implementation. In this research, rural women entrepreneurs who are members of microcredit funds with 1900 members in Ardabil province, who are active in the fields of animal husbandry, native chicken breeding, honey bee breeding, medicinal plant production, dairy production, and handicraft and agricultural production, were investigated. The sampling method is stratified random and 320 people were selected as a sample based on Cochran's formula. To collect data, three questionnaires including an entrepreneurial leadership questionnaire, a women's entrepreneurship questionnaire, and an entrepreneurship education questionnaire were used. The face and content validity of these questionnaires were confirmed by the university professors and considering that the factor loadings for all obvious variables were above 0.5, none of the items were left out. Also, the internal integrity of the used tools was evaluated through Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which showed that all the calculated values are more than 0.7, which can be concluded that the tool has the necessary reliability. The data have been analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, and methods such as confirmatory factor analysi s and structural equation models have been used to investigate the relationships between variables. SPSS22 and LISREL10 software were used for data analysis. Results: The results of this research indicate that the dimensions of entrepreneurial leadership include facilitation (perception, communication, and empowerment), support (commitment, motivation, and emotional intelligence), guidance (inspiration, goal orientation, and modeling), and coaching (team and partnership) with Special emphasis on entrepreneurship training affects the entrepreneurial intention of rural women in Ardabil province. This research specifically shows how different dimensions of entrepreneurial leadership can strengthen the entrepreneurial intention of rural women through entrepreneurship education. This research emphasizes the importance of providing supportive conditions and creating suitable platforms for entrepreneurship education and shows that such actions can help to develop entrepreneurship and improve the economic and social situation in rural areas. In other words, this research examines the vital role of entrepreneurship education in improving the impact of entrepreneurial leadership dimensions and provides practical suggestions to the officials and planners of rural affairs in Ardabil province.