Competitiveness of Rural Areas: Methods and Approaches
Competitiveness of Rural Areas: Methods and Approaches

Author(s): Yovka Bankova, Mariya Peneva
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Economy, Micro-Economics, Agriculture, Sociology, Methodology and research technology, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: rural regions; methods to assess regional competitiveness
Summary/Abstract: The study of rural areas’ development is a subject of extensive research and analyses. Globalization and the process of digitalization have significantly increased the intensity and changed the characteristics of competition at any level, starting from firms and moving to the level of regions and countries. Research interest and efforts towards understanding, conceptualizing and evaluating competitiveness at regional level are growing, but yet the number of studies on the topic of rural regions’ competitiveness are quite limited. The paper aims at specifying methods and approaches used so far by studies devoted to regional competitiveness and how they could be applied on the level of rural regions. Three are the main sections of the paper. The first one briefly discusses definitions of regional competitiveness, peculiarities of rural regions, and changes of policies for territorial development. A transformation of rural regions is also underlined. They shift from traditional industrial structure (agriculture and labor extensive manufacturing) towards diversification of economic activities, also through being an option for the location of companies that are digital manufacturers. The second section introduces a classification of methods applied to assess the regional competitiveness. They are divided into two groups regarding the approach on which are based. With the first approach the focus is on the output of the system through different indicators. To this group belong indexes developed by worldwide acknowledged organizations as World Economic Forum, International institute for management development, Food and Agriculture Organization, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, European Commission, and the World Bank, the Index for measuring regional variation and competitiveness (Huovari et al., 2001), Regional competitiveness index (Dijkstra et al, 2023), and DEA method. The second group of methods are more descriptive and they aim at comprehensive analysis to identify the key drivers of regional development, productivity and economic growth. Among them is the Diamond model of Michael Porter (Porter, 1990). The final section discusses the issue of the applicability of methods used on regional level to assess the competitiveness of the rural regions. Conclusions are derived about the appropriateness of the methods for the assessment of rural areas’ competitiveness and a recommendation is given for the benefits of their co-use. One of significant limitations to assess the competitiveness of rural regions is the provision of data. Also, we assume and give some arguments that using a combination of methods, belonging to both groups, would be more effective way to assess the competitiveness of rural regions. The main methods used for the purposes of the research presented in the paper are a desktop research to produce a comprehensive review of the literature, and the methods of analysis and synthesis.

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