درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

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 (descriptive-analytical 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.

Purpose- The irrigated wheat farms of Doroudzan District in Marvdasht County, Fars Province face agricultural water deficit challenges due to mis-management of water resources. This research aims at investigating water conflict strategies among the irrigated wheat farms of Doroudzan Dam Network. Design/methodology/approach- The study was descriptive regarding its nature and used survey research procedure. The statistical population included 803 wheat farmer households residing in Ramjerd 2 and Abarj Dehestans in Doroudzan District. According to Krejcie and Morgan's (1970) sample size table, the samples were 260wheat farmers selected based on simple random sampling technique. Systematic questionnaires were used to collect data by means of face-to-face interviews. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts, and a pilot study was also done to assess the reliability of the questionnaire. The estimated Cronbach's alpha coefficients were between the accepted range (i.e. 0.50 - 0.75) for the different measures used in this study. Findings- Results revealed that the most prevalent conflicts were intra-group conflicts among the counterparts. Verbal conflicts were the current form of water conflicts regarding the conflict intensity in the region. Physical attacks and third party (police) controls were placed in the second and third position. The results of cluster analysis indicated three clusters of farmers; “educated aggressors”, “low-literate aggressors” and “peace-oriented farmers”. All the clusters were statistically different regarding their demographic characteristics (age and education level), farming-system portfolio (area under cultivation, annual income and cost) and water conflict in response to water shortages. According to the contingency table, collaboration strategy was the prominent conflict management strategy among the three groups followed by compromising strategy. Research limitations / implications- The lack of institutional support to get information on conflict attacks among the rural residents and the time-consuming nature of the survey study are the most important challenges in this study. Practical implications-According to the findings, it is of prominent importance to provide the context of problem solving with counterparts. As a result, it needs more attempts to share all the stakeholders’ interests to reach a common decision. It seems that reaching a satisfactory solution needs drawing out different parties’ expectations to help them get organized through collaboration. Originality/value- Numerous studies have been carried out on water deficiencies. However, this study is the first in the context of rural settlement and valued based on the analysis of the conflict management strategies among famer groups that has not been addressed in previous studies.