Abstract:

Improving rural empowerment is considered one of the essential components of sustainable rural development. However, in many developing countries such as Iran, insufficient attention has been paid to the improvement of the various dimensions of structural empowerment influenced by the performance, internal and individual characteristics, and institutional characteristics of local management in the process of sustainable rural development. Consequently, few studies have addressed this issue. To fill this gap, the present study seeks to identify the endogenous factors affecting local management performance in improving structural empowerment indicators for sustainable rural development. Accordingly, villages located around the desert regions of Iran were selected as the case study. A questionnaire was completed from the villagers' perspective to assess the endogenous factors affecting local management performance in improving structural empowerment. The questionnaire analysis focused on the indicators of structural empowerment, local management performance, and the dimensions of sustainable rural development. The research methodology was based on structural equation modeling. The results showed that villagers' structural empowerment is influenced by the performance, internal and individual characteristics, and institutional characteristics of local management, and that structural empowerment, in turn, positively affects the dimensions of sustainable rural development. However, the endogenous factors affecting local management performance, particularly in top-down political systems such as Iran, remain significant inherent obstacles to improving the structural empowerment of villagers. The findings further indicated that if the challenges associated with the endogenous factors affecting local management are addressed and villagers' empowerment is strengthened, their capabilities will increase, enabling both local management and villagers to make more effective use of these capabilities. This article concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for improving rural empowerment and promoting sustainable rural development.



Introduction

Kanter introduced the theory of structural empowerment in 1977 and further developed it in 1993. This theory emphasizes communities' access to four key structural factors: opportunity, information, support, and resources (Fernandez & Moldogaziev, 2015). The opportunity dimension refers to independence, personal growth, a sense of challenge, and opportunities for learning and development. Information refers to the data, technical knowledge, and expertise required for individuals to perform their roles effectively. Support involves receiving constructive feedback and assistance from managers, colleagues, and subordinates. Finally, resources refer to the money, materials, equipment, facilities, and time required to achieve organizational and community goals (Hayes et al., 2014; Santosa, 2014).

According to Kanter, power and capability are acquired when local communities have access to the necessary information, learning and development opportunities, support, and resources (Wallace et al., 2011; Amor et al., 2019). She argued that when stakeholders gain access to empowering structures, including information, opportunities for learning and development, support, and resources, they experience a sense of power, which enhances their performance and participation. Conversely, the absence of such access results in feelings of powerlessness (Guo et al., 2016; Amor et al., 2019).

Local management comprises a set of activities that shape and guide the economic, physical, and social development of local areas. Its primary objective is to manage the components of the local system. McGill (1998), however, presents a more comprehensive perspective, arguing that local management should be viewed as a holistic, inclusive, and integrated process. Inclusiveness implies the involvement of all local stakeholders and actors, whereas integration emphasizes local development as the ultimate goal of local management through the development of villagers’ capacities and capacity building.

During the past two decades, decentralization has been introduced in many developing countries. Through decentralization, governments have created favorable conditions for strengthening local management by promoting empowerment and participation at the local level (Frey et al., 2021; Shafieisabet & Yousefi, 2021). As cooperation between citizens and management increases within local management systems, decision-making authority is increasingly shared, thereby fostering participatory democracy through the transfer of greater authority to the local level (Mengistu & Assefa, 2020).

Local management plays a significant role in enhancing empowerment, improving service delivery, promoting community welfare, and developing knowledgeable human resources. Building empowerment through learning and education within local communities facilitates the acceptance of change, strengthens effective communication, and fosters trust and social cohesion among community members (E. Johnson et al., 2020). In other words, empowerment is a process of social change that can emerge from local resources and be strengthened through local management (Butler & Current, 2021).



Today, the concept of development has shifted toward the empowerment of local communities. Empowerment refers to enabling communities to utilize economic resources effectively while encouraging them to pursue social freedom within the existing institutional structure (Zhang et al., 2018).

Community empowerment is widely recognized as a powerful approach to addressing many of the challenges faced by local communities. Rural development plans and projects are more likely to achieve their intended outcomes when they are grounded in the empowerment and active participation of local communities (Herawati et al., 2014).

Empowerment involves delegating authority and decision-making power to individuals regarding matters that affect their own lives. It moves individuals beyond passive acceptance and encourages them to act consciously and proactively (Orgambídez-Ramos et al., 2017). Empowerment also strengthens individuals' sense of usefulness, influence, value, security, and self-efficacy (Orgambídez-Ramos & Almeida, 2020).

Various definitions describe empowerment as a voluntary, continuous, and community-centered process (Kuumuori Ganle et al., 2015). It is characterized by mutual respect, critical thinking, and collective participation, through which individuals with limited access to resources gain greater access to and control over those resources (Rappaport, 1984; Sen, 1995). Within a centralized power structure, the empowerment of villagers may take the form of non-generative or passive participation. In contrast, under a democratic power structure, empowerment is manifested through generative and active participation, fostering self-reliance and promoting sustainable rural development (Giampiccoli & Mtapuri, 2012).



Research Method

Based on this necessity, the authors of this study focused on the contribution of local governance and village training centers to sustainable development. However, this paper exclusively examines the role of the structural empowerment of villagers as influenced by local governance performance across the dimensions of sustainable rural development.

This study is an applied, descriptive-survey research based on the data collection method. According to the nature of the data, the research was conducted between 2020 and 2021.

The statistical population comprised all villages located within the study area. Given the size of the statistical population, a multi-stage cluster sampling method was employed to select the villages. In the first stage, rural clusters located around the desert and arid areas were randomly selected. In the second stage, 40 villages were randomly selected from these rural clusters. This number of villages was determined based on the central limit theorem (n > 30) (Kothari, 2009) as well as the researchers' field observations and extensive experience. The authors have conducted research on Iranian rural areas for approximately 30 years. In the third stage, the total number of households in the selected villages was identified using the official statistics of the Statistical Center of Iran to determine the statistical population for sample size estimation. In the fourth stage, Cochran's formula was applied to determine the required sample size for the household questionnaire. Using a 95% confidence level, a precision coefficient of 0.05, and a variance of (S² = 0.25), the required sample size was calculated as 381 households (n = 381). In the fifth stage, the number of samples allocated to each of the 40 selected villages was determined using the Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) sampling method. In the sixth stage, households were selected through simple random sampling from different parts of each village. In villages where the calculated sample size was fewer than six households, the number of respondents was increased to ensure an adequate sample size for the household questionnaire. Consequently, the final sample size was increased to 400 households.



Discussion and results

The descriptive findings showed that, among the 400 respondents, 39.25% were women. This lower proportion reflects the fact that the number of female-headed households was smaller than that of male-headed households, and female household heads had lower educational attainment. In contrast, approximately 60% of the respondents were men. Regarding educational attainment, the highest proportion of rural household heads (30.25%) had completed high school or held a diploma. Furthermore, the largest proportion of respondents belonged to the 34–54-year age group

Convergent validity,

Convergent validity indicates that the indicators of each construct adequately represent their respective latent construct and are sufficiently distinct from the indicators of other constructs in the model. In other words, each indicator measures only its intended construct, while the constructs remain conceptually and empirically distinct. Accordingly, convergent validity was evaluated by examining the degree to which the indicators measuring each model variable converged. The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values showed that all constructs had AVE values greater than 0.50. In addition, all factor loading were statistically significant, with t-values exceeding the critical threshold of 1.96 at the 5% significance level. Therefore, the convergent validity of the measurement model was confirmed.

The results indicate that the internal and individual characteristics of local governance have a positive and significant effect on the structural empowerment of villagers. These findings are consistent with those reported by Tavares et al. (2014) and Afsharipour et al. (2021), who emphasized the role of local governances in decentralization and in strengthening cooperation between citizens and government institutions to increase the availability of knowledgeable and skilled human resources, thereby enhancing community empowerment and participation. These studies further demonstrated that effective local governances create favorable conditions for community empowerment and capacity building.



Conclusions and suggestions

This study, drawing on Kanter’s structural empowerment theory (1977, 1993, 2008), Rowlands’ theory of power (1995), and the contributions of other scholars in this field, examined the influence of local governance performance, particularly its internal and individual characteristics on the dimensions of sustainable rural development through the promotion of villagers’ structural empowerment.

The functioning of local governance is such that all members of the community are engaged across different stages of development, from the lowest levels to the highest levels of self-awareness. As key actors in both agricultural and non-agricultural activities, villagers play a fundamental role in providing the workforce required for rural development. Therefore, the implementation of sustainable rural development programs and projects is impossible without their active participation. Moreover, the literature suggests that sustainable rural development is itself a function of enhancing the structural empowerment of villagers, which is influenced by the internal and individual characteristics of local governance. By strengthening structural empowerment dimensions, including opportunity, information, support, and access, local governance can facilitate villagers’ participation in rural programs and projects and thereby contribute to sustainable rural development.

Keywords: Local Management, Structural Empowerment, Sustainable Rural Development, Iran