Perceived Risk and Rural Entrepreneurship (Parts I & II)

Abstract

Six sets of situations have been reproduced from "The Rural University: Experiment in Educational Innovation" to identify four types of risks, viz. technical, economic, social, and environmental. The case analysis suggests that there could be at least three propositions about "risk and rural entrepreneurship." These are: 1) In any set of prevailing circumstances, given an individual's attitudes and biases, there is a threshold beyond which the individual will perceive the risk of change as unacceptable; 2) In a new activity, the greater the element of the unknown and the fewer the conditions which are reassuring, the greater is the perceived risk; and 3) In development efforts, if the new activity is to be sustained, the intervenor's strategy needs to be directed towards providing for a time, creating reassuring circumstances and developing in the individual himself the capabilities of reducing perceived risks to a level within the threshold of acceptability. The case suggests the process of developing this capability.