The role of handicrafts in increasing the economic income of Masoleh villagers

Academic Thesis for Master's Degree

Field: Agricultural Engineering, Major: Agricultural Management

Abstract

In this research, after stating the generalities and research literature on the subject of Masuleh handicrafts and its weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats, to examine the four strategies in this We will discuss the empowerment of Masuleh tourism and develop related strategies. Also, in order to answer research questions 1 and 2 (Does the cooperation between tourism sector activists and handicrafts sector activists boost business in Masuleh handicrafts sector? And how effective is the development of tourism strategies in turning Masuleh city into a tourism hub?) Inferential statistics methods such as Pearson have been used, and finally we have reached the correlation results that There is a relationship between the cooperation between tourism sector activists and handicrafts activists and the prosperity of Masuleh handicrafts activists, and there is also a relationship between the development of tourism strategies and the transformation of Masuleh into a tourism hub. In response to the third question (How is the prioritization of tourism strategies in Masuleh?) First, the criteria affecting the strategies were identified and the weight of these criteria was calculated with the help of pairwise comparisons and the opinion of the news using the D-Metelgan technique and then they were prioritized using the TOPSIS technique. "Organizing the current business units as a coalition of businesses active in the field of tourism" and "identifying all tourism service units such as hotels and restaurants" and "intensifying marketing activities in the field of tourism due to the presence of attractions and the high potential of market development" were assigned the most importance or priority. rtl;"> 

Chapter One:

Overview of the research plan

1-1- Introduction

In today's world, where we are witnessing tremendous changes and transformations in various fields, the environment is facing a lot of turmoil and uncertainty, and competition has become very intense, and the changes in science and technology have greatly fueled these changes. Therefore, every organization has an urgent need to benefit from strategic planning in order to survive and achieve greater success. Since environmental threats threaten the survival of organizations, organizations must know their current position, accurately analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and rely on their strengths to use environmental opportunities and prepare themselves to deal with threats, and this is possible in the form of strategic planning (Aghazadeh, 2013).

It is within the framework of strategic planning that analyzes the organization's capabilities and environmental conditions and, based on that, determines the achievable goals and the methods to achieve them. This type of planning, by examining the organization's external and internal environment, identifies environmental opportunities and threats, and internal strengths and weaknesses, and with the organization's mission in mind, sets long-term goals for the organization, and in order to achieve these goals, selects strategies from among strategic options that rely on strengths and eliminate weaknesses from opportunities. Peshamede appropriately uses and avoids threats in order to make the organization successful in the field of competition if implemented correctly. Without a doubt, the operation process in today's organizations is affected by the political, social, cultural and technological changes in their environment, and their internal environment experiences surprising changes in line with such changes (Tabibi and Molki, 2014). Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to the undeniable effects of environmental components in addition to internal factors in order to make the activities of managers, decision makers and planners more efficient and effective in the organization. Therefore, it is intended to be challenged by managers of organizations and companies by examining the status of using the framework of organizational weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats, the SWOT matrix[1] as one of the strategic tools, and it is hoped that the resulting results will provide reasons for improving performance.Therefore, the influence of environmental factors along with internal factors in making the activities of managers and planners more favorable is undeniable. In this research, while studying the researches of other researchers (Sadeghi et al., 1391, Qadri et al., 1390, Musaei and Razavi Al-Hashem, 1389; Nejad Javadipour, 1387; Nouri and Mehdi Nesab, 1389; Malek Matiei (1388); Gol Mohammadi (1389); Mirkatoli and (1389) Arabi and Shirkhani colleagues, 1384) it was concluded that in this research, the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats in organizations and companies have been addressed, which have a service aspect, but the present research discusses handicrafts and tourism, which includes the sectors of industry, production, art and services.  In this research, while providing comprehensive questionnaires, the views of the audience from the financial, human and artistic dimensions are used in the evaluation in order to determine the cause of the lack of prosperity and the decline of handicrafts and the stagnation of tourism in Masuleh, and to find a solution to overcome this stagnation and stagnation. Awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization and the continuous improvement of productivity has revealed in advance. Therefore, today's managers have been searching for a comprehensive, reliable and flexible solution to evaluate their organization's performance, so that while ensuring the implementation of their strategies, they can obtain accurate and sufficient information about their current position and, looking to the future, provide opportunities for the promotion and improvement of their organization. An evaluation method should be able to present the overall situation of the organization in relation to the organizational goals (in terms of distance to the goal) at any moment. It should also determine the position of the organization in relation to the surrounding environment (market, competitors and other organizations), in addition to this, it should also indicate the effectiveness of all activities carried out in the organization. Evaluating the performance of business units has been one of the main concerns of managers and officials of these units throughout history (Kaplan and Norton, 1996) [2]. The importance of performance measurement for organizations has been identified, and it plays an important role both in the private and public sectors, because it helps organizations become more transparent by calculating performance (Proper and Deborah, 2003) [3]. Handicrafts of Iran with a history of 2000 years and having 350 types of handicrafts, after China and India, has been one of the three main and historical poles of handicrafts in the world (Atlas of Handicrafts of Iran, 2008). Iran's handicrafts are one of the main pillars of the country's economy, with direct employment for 3 million people and indirect employment for 12 million people and annual foreign exchange of 1 billion 400 million dollars for the country. Unfortunately, in recent years, due to the neglect of managers in the matter of marketing and creating facilities for export, creating sanctions and entering the field of new and strong competitors such as Türkiye, Pakistan, Mexico, etc. It has remained far from the market of competition and production. Handicrafts can be considered both as a capability and as a tourist attraction. Many tourists are interested in buying various handicrafts of the places they visit, which are actually cultural products of that region, and take them with them as a gift. Therefore, handicrafts and tourism have a mutual relationship and can provide reasons for each other's development. 

Guilan province has more than 60 fields of handicrafts and direct employment of 6000 people, it has a variety of production and products that can be supplied to domestic and foreign markets. The amount of handicrafts sold in Gilan province in the spring exhibition of 2013 was 12700 million rials. (Gilan Cultural Heritage Organization). Masoleh is considered one of the historical places of Gilan province, which attracts many tourists every year due to its natural landscape and traditional architecture.