Policies for encouraging social enterprises and improving skills for social entrepreneurship development in rural regions

Nelly Bencheva, Venelin Terziev, Teodora Stoeva, Ekaterina Arabska

Резюме: Sustainable rural development is becoming more closely associated with the support to start activities aimed at developing social enterprises. Through social entrepreneurship opportunities are sought to promote diversification of rural economy by increasing the number of microenterprises, creating new and retaining existing jobs, expanding and improving social services in these areas. The purpose of this article is to assess the impact of entrepreneurial skills on the start of social entrepreneurial initiatives in rural areas. To achieve that
the opinion and attitudes of representatives of various structures in public and private sectors occupying expert and managerial positions are studied. The assessment is based on analyzed empirical data obtained from the survey, including measuring the opinions using a scale from 1 to 5. The results show that entrepreneurial skills play a significant role and are a key factor to the development of social entrepreneurial intentions and initiatives in rural areas. The highest rated (averages ranging from 4.58 to 4.67) are communication skills, expression of initiative, ability to work in a team and managerial abilities and skills.

Ключови думи: entrepreneurial skills; rural regions; social enterprise; social entrepreneurship

Дата на публикуване: 2017-09-13